Lehrer-Online!
I have recorded myself talking about a great German Website promoting e-learning…enjoy and excuse the wild hair….I will spend more time in make-up next time.
BloGalore
Julia, Languages and the Digital Generation!Archive for November, 2008
QA: Quest Atlantis (part 2)
As previously mentioned, our immersion activity was to take part in a Quest Atlantis Professional Development Workshop. Quest Atlantis was designed to create a context for learning, in which learning, working, helping and playing co-exist. It aims to engage children ages 9–14 ‘in a form of dramatic play comprising both online and off-line learning activities, with a storyline inspiring a disposition towards social action’. The essence of the storyline (which is extended to a novel and comic book) is as follows: Despite its technological development, Atlantis is slowly being destroyed by the reckless heirs of their recently deceased ruler. They are only interested in progress with no consideration for ancient knowledge and customs or, in fact, the needs of their own people. In an effort to save their civilization, a council was formed and OTAK was developed –a virtual environment that serves as a technological portal between Atlantis and other worlds. Students enter the OTAK and move within different worlds, which feature a number of villages from which a series of challenges (quests) are launched. The underlying premise is that by solving the quests students (called questers) will help to restore the Atlantian knowledge.
The first workshop (each lasts an hour, the next one is tomorrow night), saw us enter the OTAK from the students’ viewpoint. We roamed through different worlds and tried our hands at a number of quests (finding and commenting on information – every time a student is required to reflect on an experience, a word processing window pops up in which the students type their thought through responses). As homework, we had to enter the world in our own time and complete some more missions. Teachers can either work with pre-existing quests (there are quests for each KLA – currently around 600) or you can post your own. Completed quests need to be evaluated by a teacher before the kids proceed anywhere, so there is a level of human intervention, but they are not necessarily aware that this is NOT a game, as the whole interface and concept is more reminiscent of a Playstation game. According to the Seminar Leader, Bronwyn, Quest Atlantis strength is that it caters to a broad range of learners (gifted and talented students benefit from being able to explore further). Tomorrow, we shall go “behind the scenes” and learn about the magic us teachers can create to encite our students to learn (in our case: to use language).
If you are interested and would like to know more about Quest Atlantis, visit their website, with plenty of video-based information and example quests. If you would like to participate in an upcoming seminar and qualify as a Quest Atlantis approved teacher (meaning you would be allowed to use it in your school next year), contact Bronwyn: bstuckey@intraceptives.com.au
We never stop learning!
This is a reaction to Athina’s thoughtful blog on “Teachers and Students learn together”. Knowing of Athina’s “phobia” of all things technical, I can only say how happy I am for her that she’s coming to enjoy using it in her Greek classes. I am a big believer in lifelong learning (in fact that’s one of the reasons why I am retraining to become a teacher) myself and I believe that this attitude allows me to gain the respect of my students, as echoed by the quote by Mr Taylor. I haven’t had a chance to use Whiteboards again after my first practicum, but I am looking forward to (hopefully!) joining a school in which they’re part and parcel of the teaching approach. And who knows Athina…it may well be me asking you for help at that point…!
Video is everywhere!
This is a reaction to Matthew Kearney’s blog on the use of video in the classroom. Video capture capabilities provide exciting possibilities to be incorporated into our teaching programs. In today’s world literally every event may be caught and distributed on video (even mobile phone capturing devices offer high quality video and free software like iMovie enable users to produce near professional content). In a language classroom, learner produced video could be a fun way for students to use their language and at the same time monitor their progress and become aware of where they can improve in terms of pronouncitation, for example. I can see the potential for video based content in cultural contexts as well. The only concern I still have is the one raised elsewhere in this blog – and that is that not necessarily all students are equally tech-sazzy when it comes to manipulating video (even simple applications like iMovie require a) that the student has access to it and b) that they are willing to teach themselves how the program works). And when we’re marking their work, would be prone to giving higher marks to more accomplished results (which would not be assessing their language or cultural knowledge but their capability to create video output)? Nevertheless, I look forward to making use of my Camcorder in some way, shape or form next year.
