Friday 28 January 2011

Good practices emerging

We anticipated many of the things that have now been confirmed as good practices. For instance, we already knew from the beginning that students need time to learn to master the different social media tools, but what was surprising was the great amount of time that was needed. Also, you have to tell and show several times, what the students are expected to do, how and to what purpose we use the tools and where to look for help. We gave them written instructions on each tool, which is a good practice, but not all found them on the blog. Peer tutoring worked fairly well, though, but only if you asked for help. Here we concluded: especially in the beginning take little steps, give time and don´t introduce too many tools.

What was surprising, was that they didn´t find using the Google-documents as their own work space for group work as rewarding as we would have expected. This might be partly due to different level of commitment in some students, partly to unclear perception of the role of the Google-document, but also to the assignments given. For later assignments we decided to narrow the topics of assignments down. Then, on the other hand, students have written really long good texts..

The Google- documents were intended for writing which was then commented on a language learning perspective. Inserting the comments proved to be the clearest and the least time consuming way to do this. Deadlines were given, but out of the teachers point of view they should also be keptJ

All in all, students enjoyed using the blog, and even with the little voluntary practice on using the Skype, that proved to be a success with the students who managed to use it.

Tuesday 25 January 2011

Evaluation of meeting in Leiria

Here, finally (!), is the evaluation of our last meeting in Leiria.

Evaluation of Meeting 3

Monday 24 January 2011

Preparation for meeting in Italy

Dear all

Our next meeting in Adria is getting nearer! The Italian partners have made an agenda that (at least to me) looks really good. In order to have a good and productive meeting, there are a few things that we all need to prepare in advance. Here is a reminder:

1. Make sure that your students evaluate the course they are participating in. If you have trouble using the Google questionnaire in English, please let me know. Filipe has solved the problem by making a Portuguese version with the same questions. Anyway, the most important thing is that we get comparable feedback data.

2. Gather good practices and challenges from your courses concerning learning to use social media tools. We will discuss these in our meeting.

3. We will also have to discuss what to do during the last project period. Please think of ideas and suggestions that we can all discuss together. This also concerns ideas for a new project.

Saturday 22 January 2011

Explaining Social Media through ice creams

An interesting video on the possibilities of social media:

Friday 21 January 2011

Torredonjimeno, my town.



Torredonjimeno is an Andalucian Town near the City of Jaen.
Its 14,000 inhabitants are mainly farmers: Torredonjimeno is one of the most prolific olive oil producers in the world.
The Town Hall was built in the 17th century. It is located in the old part of the town and near it you can visit the Castle. There, you can admire a duplicate of a Visigothic treasure found in Torredonjimeno in 1926.
The population is mainly Catholic and there are two parishes: Saint Peter´s and Saint Mary´s. There are also two small churches, two convents and in the outskirts of the city, you can visit the Chapel of the Patron Saints, Saint Cosme and Saint Damian, and the Chapel of our Lady of Consolacion.
If you are up for a walk, there are many parks, gardens and squares.
And if what you want is to enjoy the local festivities, there are plenty to choose: Holy Week (which has been declared a Festival of National Traditional Interest) in
March/April, "Las Cruces" festival in May, the funfair in honour of St Peter and St Paul in June, the pilgrimage to the Chapel our Lady of Consolacion in September and the festivities and fireworks in honour of Saint Cosme and Saint Damian also in September.
So, come to Torredonjimeno and you will enjoy its architecture, its people and its traditions.

Tuesday 18 January 2011

English online course in Italy

English online course in Italy

CTP-ADRIA- ITALY

That’s already a reality: an English online course level A1 is working on the moodle platform

thanks to IEOL Grundtvig Project funded by European Commission.

Started in November is now in its 3rd month of life. How is it going? After twenty-seven subscriptions, seventeen students are really using the platform. The teacher of English Salvatore Filella, getting through a series of technical difficulties, prepared the lessons consisting in presentations, audios, cards, videos and so on distributed in fifteen units. In November he was glad to open the course on the moodle platform addressing the students with the following message:”Welcome to our online English course level A1! You can have access to it using user name and password delivered to each of you. As a matter of fact that is our first English course online so what you all will find here is to be considered as “a work in progress" (lavori in corso) and subject to improvements, that is: something new will be added, something will be modified, something will be deleted, it depends on your needs and your requests. Your collaboration will be precious. Write down your suggestions in the forum.Take care. Greetings from Turkey. Salvatore.” Indeed this message was sent from Turkey were Salvatore was for a meeting. In the next meeting in Italy all partners will have a closer look at the work done together with the other course online about digital photos held by Michele, Stefano and Francesco. So long! Salvatore.

Monday 17 January 2011

IEOL Logo

Hello everyone! The portuguese partners promised to develop a logo to the IEOL project.
Here is the proposal, please give us your feedback! Click Here

Saturday 1 January 2011

Hello everybody

Dear Filipe,
I agree deeply with your comments about the usefulness of the social networks in order to carry out collaborative work and collaborative learning.
Anyway I believe that many people are confusing the virtual friendship with the real friendship, made of real experiences lived together with own friends, getting up early in the morning for walking in the woods, climbing the mountains, fishing, sailing the seas and so on. I believe the men are the synthesis of their real experiences made of enthusiasm, feelings, love, fears lived together. Obviously I am talking about the involvement of bodily, psychological and emotional parts of a living being. Paraphrasing Descartes, who told “dubito ergo sum” I say “esperisco ergo sum” . Therefore I think that people, who spend a lot of their time chatting or sending photos by social media, take up their real life's time.
Thank you for your post.
Francesco

Happy New Year

Wishing you and your loved ones peace, health, happiness and prosperity in the coming New Year!
Thank you all for being or having been part of my life this year and the past years, hope to have you by my side many years.

A big hug

Francesco