Students Engaged

Hello. This is Regina again, updating information about my iPod/Studywiz study. After one week, we asked our students what they thought about the iPod. Did they see it as a study tool, or was it honestly, just a bit of a fun toy and status symbol? Did they find it useful or was it just one more device to carry around besides their phone. Was it just one more thing to remember in the evenings, getting it charged up and ready to go?

I expected a balanced response to these questions but I was really surprised at the overwhelming enthusiasm the students shared. One student claimed she felt really confident that her vocabulary, understanding and pronunciation had become better in just one week because she was playing with a whole variety of educational tools on the iPod. Another felt his translation and vocabulary was massively better because he sheepishly admitted that he was addicted to one of the Spanish Vocabulary games. Another felt her understanding of the text was better because she was listening to the audio over and over again and she was watching the video with the same audio and this also helped her understanding of the lesson passage.

Students in this photo are working together on verb tenses and translations.

iPod mobile project

I’m Regina Cockerill, Middle School Technology Coordinator at TASIS England, an American-International school in the suburbs of leafy Surrey, England. This is our fifth year using Studywiz. We were fortunate enough to have been provided funding for a pilot study of iPods in one of our foreign language classrooms. This was inspired by Louise Duncan, another Studywiz user and great promoter of iPods in education.

Although the foreign language teacher knew in his gut that a ubiquitous device like the iPod could transform foreign language education, we are riding our own learning curve daily. The past two weeks has required figuring out what to purchase, figuring how to manage an AUP, deciding how much ‘freedom’ to give 11-14 year olds on the device, deciding what apps to purchase, deciding what our learning objectives and outcomes would be, announcing the project to the community, and launching the training and delivery of the devices to students.

The students have taken their privilege and responsibility really well. They are watching Spanish curriculum videos, audiofiles and .pdf files regularly. In addition, they are addicted to Spanish Word Search games where they are given the Spanish word and they must search for the English definition. These are usually played on the bus ride home. Students are already excited about how much better they comprehend their Spanish lessons because they can view or listen over and over again, at their own discretion. This puts constructivist learning in the hands of the student — perhaps the best way to learn.

One of the great surprises was that we, as teachers, were only considering the students’ need to access Spanish class documents from Studywiz. The kids of course, were so excited to find all their homework easily available through the Studywiz mobile interface … and all their eLocker documents available at the click of a button. These students began to realize the instant access of learning material that was available to them. We’re only in week one of a six week study. We’ll keep you posted.

Implementing Studywiz

Pupils are digital natives and can be used to help their digital immigrant teachers to implement Studywiz. Some schools, especially primary schools, are considering how they can use their pupil’s expertise with computers and software. For example:

- pupils could help to train less confident staff

- pupils to give an introductory presentation to Governors about Studywiz

- older pupils to help younger pupils log in and access activities

If you have any experience of harnessing pupil expertise and enthusiasm when implementing Studywiz please share them here.

Dulwich College Shanghai

For any teacher, the week before schools starts is a precious week.  Whether it is the last chance to spend some time relaxing with family or friends, or preparing for the new school year, it always seems to go by very quickly.  I spent last week with a group of staff from Dulwich College Shanghai doing a ‘Train-the-Trainer’ course and once I got to know the people, I was not surprised to find out that they elected to do this training the week before school started.

Regardless of their role in the school, everyone worked incredibly hard to find even more ways to use the Studywiz Learning Environment to support the school community.  They created units of work, communication strategies, folder structures for sharing and supporting colleagues and discussed how they could best use the features of Version 9.4 to enhance teaching and learning.

When a blue frog appearing on our Master Class home page on the last day, I was perplexed until I was told it was the local pub and people were meeting there after training on the last day.  I am very happy to report that not only do staff at Dulwich College Shanghai work hard, they know how to celebrate as well!  Thanks, I had a wonderful time.

A useful website

Check this out! www.radiowaves.co.uk is a really useful website for students to upload podcasts and videos which are then vetted by a teacher before they are published. You can then set up an RSS feed to link into Studywiz.