Personal reflection about the course

Before I started this course I was wondering what kind of content and procedure are we going to follow. I have never had an opportunity to participate either in an e-learning course or in a course being run exclusively via the Internet before the start of our course Learning and teaching in the 21st century. That is why I was really curious how the course is going to be organised and in what way are we going to participate. 

Then the course has started and I read the first task on our website. The idea of communication with the teacher with the help of a weblog - as a kind of tool through which we proved our participation - made me a bit scared but curious at the same time. I was worried if I would be able to create a weblog but I realized very soon that it is not only very easy to make one, but also it is a lot of fun to run it. Moreover, I started to think about incorporating such way of communication also in my prospective English lessons with my secondary school students. I think that they might like the possibility to create something by themselves, publish it on the web so that everyone can see it and "take care of it" on a regular basis. 

Also the topics we were dealing with were interesting and new for me. For example I was wondering for some time what the concept Web 2.0 was about since I had come across this term several times during my studies. But I have never found time or effort to really explore it in greater detail. The topics we were discussing throughout our course also made me think about starting to implement in my teaching (and I start to teach a real class very soon) more web-based tools. I think that the time has come to start teaching in a more interactive way and to start supporting more self-directed learning based on openness and sharing. Let's see if any of the ideas I picked from our course will become reality. I hope so. Thanks, Terje!

 

Mind map

This mind map is reflecting on my understanding of the situation "learning and teaching in the 21st century."

Competencies & e-portfolio

My e-portfolio for my home university would be based on this question: What kind of personal growth I have gone through during my stay on Erasmus in Linz?

In terms of educational growth I got the chance to develop my teaching competencies because we were allowed to undertake a school teaching practice at the primary school in Linz. This practice lasted for more than three months and we could familiarise ourselves not only with the local school environment, but also we were teaching in local classes. Because of the fact that we were mostly doing team-teaching, I could try out this way of teaching for the first time in my life. This experience enabled me to develop my teaching skills in terms of preparation and organization of the lesson, understanding various needs of the students and setting goals and expectations.

Apart from developing myself as a teacher-trainee, I could also develop as a student. The studies at a foreign university require a high degree of adaptation and inquiry. I familiarised myself with the Austrian system of education and with the life at the university. Thanks to the diverse study plan I could learn more about CLIL lessons, broaden my knowledge of German literature, come to know more about the contemporary trends in learning and teaching and in intercultural studies.

In terms of personal growth I experienced the life of a student abroad which is based on one's own responsibility and independence. This brings also the deepening of one's self-awareness and self-knowledge. Throughout my whole stay I could prove my talents and gain more self-confidence.

In terms of social growth I came in touch with a great number of people from different countries, with their languages, cultures and customs. It brought more openess and new perspectives into my life. I also realized the importance of one's culture and its influence on life. 

In terms of language competencies I could develop my English and German and thanks to my Erasmus friends I could learn a few words from various other languages. I realized how important English language is because it was always a very helpful tool for communication with non-native speakers. I also became aware of the fact that language is interconnected with one's thinking and personality.

My experience with Open Learning

I think that my learning didn't start to change to a more open one until our course Learning and teaching in the 21st century has started. Or more precisely, it is the first time I participate in a course where we consciously and purposefully use networking and sharing resources. We have shared a lot of resources - for example notes from the lectures and seminars, our presentations and papers as well as opinions, ideas and information - with my peers at the university since the beginning of our studies. However, this kind of sharing was done in an "unofficial" and random way. But it was very effective. Such sharing was (and still is) tightly connected with social learning and I have experienced that social learning always had a positive effect on my results. It is very helpful for me, for instance, when we take some time with my friends before writing a test and go through the topics and questions together, discuss them and clear things up. Exchanging ideas and opinions broadens one's view on the topic and encourages one to take more perspectives on the issue. Two heads are better than one.

In the open learning environment we have in our course Learning and teaching in the 21st century we use a lot of task-based learning. The procedure is step-by-step from one related topic to another and from simplier to complexer ones. We use a lot of sharing - we share not only information and knowledge but also opinions and data. All of the participants of the course are interconnected and can contact each other easily. Our learning is based on technology - i.e. it would not be possible without our basic knowledge of computing.

My Personal Learning Environment

Learning contract

Topic: How to make the Linzer Torte

Purpose: Since I am staying in Linz for almost half a year and the Linzer Torte is a local speciality, I would like to learn how to make it. I love baking as well as consuming sweets and I would like to prepare the cake for my family so that they could taste a bit of the country I was staying in.

Resources: web-based tools - wiki to find more information concerning the cake, blogs to read some personal experience with making the cake, youtube to see how to make the cake, flickr and google pictures to find inspiration how it may look like, convert-me.com to convert the ingredients into the format I know, caloriecount.about.com to count the calories in my cake
technological resources - computer with Internet access, kitchen utensils, camera (to take a picture of my product)
human resources - diners, my mum - for giving advice

Strategy: 1. finding some theoretical/historical background about the cake - why is it called the Linzer Torte and what is the story behind it? (maybe my diners will be curious and ask me some inquiring questions), http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Linzer_torte, http://www.linz.at/english/tourism/873.asp; 2. finding the suitable receipe - I guess there are many different receips available, so it might be useful to compare them and find the suitable one - the critera for this is to be close to the original receipe and the availability of ingredients - I would use a searching engine to find the receips and personal blogs to get advice; 3. watching some videos on youtube concerning making the cake, taking notes; 4. finding the ingredients - what is the cake made of? and what is the proportion of the ingredients? where can I buy them?; 5. deciding on the design of the cake - how will it look like? how am I going to serve it? - finding some pictures and ideas on the web; 6. getting all the ingredients, finding the place where I can bake it and the appropriate kitchen utensils; 7. start doing it

Outcome evaluation: The diners taste my cake and give opinions/critique. I will expect or ask for the comments on the visual side of the cake as well and also ask them if their expectations came true. I will compare my expectations with the outcome, too.

3 articles on changes in learning and teaching

1. article: Three Trends That Define the Future of Teaching and Learning

I found this article on the blog which is called MindShift. Its author, Tina Barseghian, is a journalist and - as she mentions - the mother of a grade-schooler. Her blog explores the future of learning mostly in the context of cultural and technology trends.

The 3 trends that will define the future of teaching and learning can be abbreviated as CTB - Collaborative, Tech-powered and Blended. Let's explore these trends one by one.

Collaborative means sharing information and connecting with others. You can do this easily with social networking sites as well as with open-source sites and you can even be collaborative when you are offline using team-teaching and professional learning networks organised by schools. The advantage of collaborative learning and teaching summarises the veteran educator Chris Lehmann from the Science Leadership Academy: “If you’re teaching something that’s usually bland and you insert a simple tool that allows students to connect with each other or their peers in other schools and countries whenever they want, you just see kids’ faces light up.”

Tech-powered is not only about using various gadgets and aps in the classroom, but it also means to teach your students how to operate and create them. Students can also make digital portfolios to show their progress which may be faster and more interesting for them than writing piles of papers for hours and hours.

Tina explains blended learning as combining computers with traditional teaching. The way how to do it is left up to the teacher. You can assign some projects to be done at home or you can have your computer time directly in class or you can combine these two ways. Blended learning saves also money on books and supplements.

The whole article to be found here: http://blogs.kqed.org/mindshift/2011/02/three-trends-that-define-the-future-of-teaching-and-learning/

2. article: Technology Is Changing How Students Learn, Teachers Say

This article was published on The New York Times websites and its author is Matt Richtel. He presents two surveys which were conducted on the topic of technology influence on child's attention. On one hand, the outcomes of the studies may not be reliable enough since the findings represent the subjective views of teachers who were interviewed, however, on the other hand, such data are significant because teachers are very close to the students and spend hours a day observing them. As a premise for the research might be taken the findings of Vicky Rideout who has shown that teenagers aged 8 to 18 spend twice as much time with screens each year as they spend in school. Such exposure to digital technology may hamper the attention spans of children and their ability to hold on when doing a more challenging task. 

And this is exactly what the majority of teachers agreed on in the survey - they said that more and more they feel like an entertainer who has the hard task to capture and hold child's attention. However, most of the teachers perceive technology as a useful educational tool with a positive impact on student's researching abilities. The other side of the coin is that digital technologies are creating an easily distracted generation with short attention spans.

The whole article to be found here: http://www.nytimes.com/2012/11/01/education/technology-is-changing-how-students-learn-teachers-say.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0

3. article: New trends in teaching that make learning fun

This article was published on the websites of dna which is an English broadsheet launched in Mumbai. The author of the article says that big bags full of text books and notebooks are not "in" anymore. He stresses the importance of schools as they are powerful institutions with the ability to shape and change one's mind. The schools may have their limitations, however, the author proposes two fundamental bricks which should constitute their credo and that is experience and technology. 

Following Confucius who said: "What I hear I forget, what I see I remember and what I do I understand," the feeling process would definitely make the learning process more enjoyable and the gained knowledge more stable. Moreover, giving practical examples is another way of making the learning experience more close to the real life. The use of videos, films or technology in general also positively fosters one's learning.

The whole article to be found here: http://www.dnaindia.com/academy/1291890/report-new-trends-in-teaching-that-make-learning-fun