Where is it written that we can't change education? (MY LAST POST)

Where is it written that the old way is the right way? Where is it written that the traditional education is the only way to get an education? That is the thing: it isn't written anywhere!






So,where is it written that you can't change education?

With this fabolous video I close this blog. When I discovered blogs I was so enthusiastic about them that I opened one for each topic I like about education. Now, three years later I realise I cannot maintain all blogs updated at the same time, and I have learned a lot too about how to take care about my digital identity as a teacher. So I have decided to unify this blog and another one I have as well about education that was origanlly created to write in catalan. So from now onwards, I will write all my post here whatever the language of the post is.

Please keep in touch and visit my blog Reflexions per a mestres where we can keep thinking and reflecting about education.

See you there!

Attwell on ePortfolios

I have just discovered this video of Graham Attwell on ePortfolios, and obviously it is a must when learning about them:

Videos on edutech

During the last term I discovered the following videos on edutech which I am planning to use in my lessons of English for student teachers.

Education Technology Plan in USA: excellent example of trying to get teacher's opinions




Via @jvivancos


You can't be my teacher: interesting questions to make teachers think about the importance of using new technologies



Via @iferrer


We are the people we've been waiting for: the question is... does our current education system work?



Via #ulearn10

The PLE Conference (still...)

It's five months since I wrote on this blog for the last time. I think that the last time I tried to blog about the PLE Conference I was so excited that any words that came into my mind weren't enough to describe it. I had just run out of words... anything I could write was n't good enough to be able to show you how happy I was feeling after having met you all! Now, after all the time I have spent checking PLEs, listening to your podcasts, watching your videos and writing about them in my assignments and other stuff, I need to come back to this blog.

The PLE Conference in Barcelona was my first international conference and now I can guess how lucky I was to start in this new world with you. Since then, there have been new conferences, which I enjoyed so much, and I have met you again, in Bilbao (EDUTEC2010) or in Lisbon (TICEDUCA10), but this was all because you were so kind to me that I felt inspired to carry on.

But the PLE Conference is even more special to me for a very important reason: the first version of the mind map, which I submitted as a poster, was the very first thing I had written after having lost my grandma forever - she passed away eight months and three weeks ago and it's the first time I have written about her without tears runnning down my face. I have talked about her to lots of people (thanks for your patience), in lots more places, blogs and projects but I hadn't said this before so I still needed to say it. I hope that in the future I can keep on without annoying anyone else because I understand that I'm not at all special: all humans sooner or later have to live this farewell... but indeed my grandmother really was a very special person.

What do I remember now? YOU! I learnt that the PLN is one of the most important parts of a PLE. I learnt because I paid attention to your words, but I learnt it especially because I felt it. Then I learnt that talking about PLEs is not talking only about technology. PLEs are about strategy, methodology, students' own learning... The importance is not because of the tools but because of the learning process through each tool. So the answer to what we have to learn as teachers is easy: methodology. Or maybe simply attitude?. And the main aim is to avoid using new tools to keep teaching the same traditional lessons.

I now remember lots of questions that I asked myself : PLEs focus on personalizing, but could we focus PLEs on openness too? Do PLEs link both informal and formal learning? Is informal learning only possible after basic formal learning? If the learner is the owner of their own PLE, can an institution provide a PLE?


And something that I loved from the moment I heard it: eportfolios as the DNA of PLEs...


And the last thing I still need to write is: THANK YOU! And I hope to keep in touch with you... virtually or in person in Southampton.

It has been a short and brief attempt to write again but I hope I am able to write more here soon about this and lots of exciting ideas in edutech.

My poster for The PLE Conference

Today I'm presenting a poster in the poster session of The PLE Conference... and I am feeling both excited and nervous...

This is the poster: a mind map on a project being developed now...



And the short paper submitted with the poster:


Short Paper on PLEs&EPORTFOLIOS + Poster


And I have prepared a presentation to support the poster (in fact, I just wanted to practise before the session!!!)

A presentation to support the mind map

View more presentations or Upload your own.

Sorry for the pronounciation of PLEs... I didn't notice that I was using the Spanish pronounciation .... glups!

Finally, it's here: PLE_BCN

Wow! A lot of time waiting for The PLE Conference to arrive... and it's here: tomorrow we start!


It's the first time I have been to an international conference, but I wonder: are all international conferences like this one? I can guess the answer: no! I have never seen such amazing people organizing so many interesting speeches, workshops, sessions... nothing here seems to be traditional....Even main talks are not keynotes, but unkeynotes!!! Simply, awesome!
I've been online the last few months, except for some very busy days grading and planning, following The PLE Conference everywhere I was able to find and I was pleased by all the content all these great experts can be able to share. Before we start, I just would like to THANK YOU for your effort and your kindness in your attention!!!!

I'm willing to start tomorrow! I hope I can meet you all!!! And hope to listen to you very soon!!!

And, of course, if you are interested in PLEs I strongly recommend that you follow The PLE Conference in:

Twitter

Twitter list by @pgsimoes

Crowdvine

Twubs


And, I can't stop myself... here it comes my badge for the conference:

Sir Ken Robinson: bring on the learning revolution

I've been following Sir Ken Robinson's interviews and talks since I first saw him on his first speech in Ted Talks in 2006. Now, I have just discovered the second one and again I love it as much as I loved the first. So here there is a short summary of this speech. I'll pay attention to future comments on this new ideas.

Every education system in the world is being reformed at the moment. And it's not enough because it's just improving a broken model. What we need is not evolution but a revolution in education. It has to be transformed into something else.
Innovating means challenging what we take for granted, things that we think are obvious...

The PLE Conference

Are you interested in PLEs? Would you like to meet the best PLE experts of the world?

Then, you can't miss the PLE Conference in Barcelona next 8th and 9th July!

PLE Flyer

View more presentations from PLE Conference 2010.

I'm going and I'm looking forward to it! Let's meet in the PLE Conference next July!
See you soon!

Glogster on Roald Dahl

Roald Dahl is worldwide known as a children's literature author. But he is also brilliant at writing stories for adults. We are reading two examples of both kinds of Dahl's work in class, so look at this poster to get some information before going deeper into the readings.
You've got a video and a game on the Twits and a funny summary of the Landlady that will help you understanding the real text. And of course, you have a video of the author himself talking to some kids about witches. Enjoy it!

Education in 2025

Another video presentation with shocking images and messages to think on.


Find more videos like this on The Future of Education

Maria Montessori's example

Maria Montessori is the perfect example I was looking for: a woman commited to both educational and social issues.


Watch this video on Maria Montessori and answer the following questions.

Women's day again...

Don't you feel fed up with so many nice speeches, hopeful words, and optimistic plans...



...when year after year, decade after decade, there are so many girls living the same story?



Can we stop it? Can teachers break the cycle of abuse?

Blogs versus Wikis

I have just found this video on Jose Luis Cabello's blog and I simply love it. Original and hilarious as well as interesting.

Introducing cultural content in language learning

This week we are starting a new subject on English language: English language and culture. You know that learning a language means learning its culture too and that's why I love this new subject.
So, why not reviewing how much we know about some geographical aspects?






And what about this one? Can you locate these cities in the UK?




Find more Hot Potatoes activities on English culture here


Thanks to Manuel Rivera who showed me these activities and taught me how to embed Hot Potatoes activities on blogs.

E-Portfolio Development and Implementation

I have found this video on Leefolio blog thanks to Lee74 on Twitter. It goes deeply on the e-portfolio topic, and I have thought that it's so interesting that I have written some parts of Graham Attwell's explanation.





What's an e-portfolio? In the context of education and training, an e-portfolio is a portfolio based on electronic media services. It consists of a personal digital record containing information such as a personal profile and a collection of a achivements, information on which different services can be provided to the owner of the porfolio and the people and organizations to which the owner has acces.
There are four broad purposes of e-portfolio:
1. Assessment portfolio: to show that the user can achieve certain outcomes.
2. Presentation portfolio: to show what a user can do.
3. Personal development planning: space in which learners can way up their achievement and look at their future plans and how they might achieve those future plans.
4. Personal learning: a space where learners can bring together all their learnings, a record of lifelong learning.
Drivers of change: more student centred pedagogic approaches, more flexible programs, a greater emphasis on lifelong learning, competence based assessment.
e-Porfolios reflect changes and respond to changes in the way which young people using technology for learning but changes in the way we see teaching and learning in our society today
They should largely be owned by the learner and that means that the owner decides who they share their portfolio with and that's a key prince of e-portfolios.
Reflection on learning is critical to the development of an e-portfolio, and opening up the e-portfolio -although it raises some sucurity implications- to your peers to other people is one of the central ways of getting the feedback which is so important for that reflection to take place.
An e-portfolio should contain all learning: the key to a good e-portfolio is bringing together, collecting and reflecting on learning from all those different contexts.
Development of reflection may work best in project based learning and when reflection is linked to activities.
We have to move from assessment for learning to assessment of learning: a formative assessment that would involve changing forms of assessment. We need to move away from exam based assessment towards peer assessment and group based assessment. E-portfolio shoul be the place that assessment for learning could take place.
The e-portfolio shoul have different spaces and software services for different purposes.

New Year, new international celebrations!

Unesco launches two new international celebrations in 2010:

International Year for the Rapprochement of Cultures


International Year for Biodiversity:

UN Secretary General Welcome Message for the 2010 International Year of Biodiversity from CBD on Vimeo.

There's no doubt that these two celebrations can have an important place in our lessons. I'll keep looking for resources on these two topics from now on.

Hundreds of ways to wish a Merry Christmas!

Sometimes it seems that Christmas lessons in English as a foreign language run out of diversity, specially in Primary levels: every year the same vocabulary, the same Christmas Carols or the same Art activities such as the Christmas tree or the Christmas card.
Now I have just discovered two great lists of videos on Christmas, by Greedo, with such variety of songs, carols, ads ans stories that I can't help myself blogging them. I have found them on funpop, due to @The TheacherPage (Robert W. Hughes) who retweeted a post by @AuntyTech (Donna Baumbach) on Twitter:

101 Classic Christmas Videos online

Another big, big list of 101 Christmas Videos to Wathc and Enjoy


So, from now on, I 'm sure we won't run out of oral resources for our English lessons.

And with this short post, I send you my warmest wishes for a

MERRY CHRISTMAS AND A HAPPY NEW YEAR!

And I hope that next year we'll meet here again -and I promise I'll try to post more than lately.

Your PLE

Powerful Personal Learning Networks PLN

View more documents from Mark Woolley.

Presentation taken from Arran de pupitre blog by R. Barlam. Found in Twitter thanks to F. Esteve

PLE as autonomous learning tools

It’s Personal: Learning Spaces, Learning Webs

View more presentations from Steve Wheeler.

I have found this presentation on Web Learning Remix blog by José Luis Cabello. PLE i a new quite new concept for me but I find it really interesting. In fact I am in the first steps trying to cross the road from blogs to PLEs as eportolios. I am fond of learning portfolios and I have experienced the power of blogs as learning tools and I will keep investigatin this new way.

World Teachers' Day!

Happy Teachers' Day!
Read here the information note about World Teachers' Day 2009.
I would like to highlight some principles in it. I just copy a paragraph because I totally agree with it and I don't have anything else to add:

"In our rapidly changing and interdependent world, teachers not only have to ensure that students acquire solid skills in basic subjects, but also that they become responsible local and global citizens, at ease with new technologies and able to make informed decisions about health, the environment and other challenges. Teachers play a leading role in giving students the knowledge, attitudes and values that help them understand the world and become agents of change."

So this is the great aim of the teacher's work: help students to become agents of change! It doesn't seem that it's going to be easy, but we have no excuse: it's simply our mission.