Video Confession 15 – Audio Podcasting with ESOL students

Liz Boyden is an ESOL teacher and was the first experimenter working with the PET project. During January, February and March of 2008 she experimented with the application of Web 2 systems in ESOL teaching – among the systems she used was (Microblogging using Twitter, standard blogging using Blogger, Audio podcasting using Podomatic, and unstructured blogging using Tumblr).

Liz had helped support David Brightwell with an Audio podcasting project and I took a trip up to see Liz and the class which took part in the project.  In the video Liz briefly outlines the project and comments on how she found audio to be more practical for students as most of the students were less comfortable with publishing video. Indeed, this is what I found as when I made this video most of the students were hiding behind their books and papers.

The audio project asked the students two work in pairs and to interview each other about their home country. The project covered a great many elements – research, preparation, collaboration, communication and work with current technical systems to record and publish their work on the Internet.

In the video Mohammed describes his audio project to compare the countries and cultures of Iran and Somali and Abdi briefly talks about his role in helping out with the technical elements.

Multimedia projects have tremendous potential in all subjects – Multi-media and the Internet are the current publishing medium. Project work has always involved research, analysis, preparation and presentation. In the past this might have involved going to the library to read books, magazines and journals and then writing or word-processing something to paper. Today project work should involve the skills required for Internet research and publication and the use of multi-media for both research and presentation is increasingly useful.

Vido Confession 14: Web 2 for ESOL students on work experience

Our core IT systems run from an Uninterruptable Power Supply (UPS) backed up by a diesel generator that can provide power for up to 24 hours. The UPS provides a nice stable clean supply of electricity for our core systems from its large set of batteries. On the morning that the video was taken our UPS system was undergoing maintenance and our core systems were running from the raw mains for three hours – I was a little nervous.

The ESOL department at Hammersmith has benefitted from the input of Liz Boyden working on the PET project to experiment with new technologies in teaching – particularly the application of Web 2 systems. Web 2 is all about interaction and communication and it has been taken up remarkably well in ESOL – a subject full of interaction and communication.

In the video ESOL teacher Helen mentions the Web 2 systems they have used in their teaching (Microblogging using Twitter, standard blogging using Blogger, Audio podcasting using Podomatic, and unstructured blogging using Tumblr).

Helen describes the use of Tumblr with 16 to 19 year old students on their two week work experience.  

The traditional way to document work experience is for students to be issued with paper work experience diaries which they would fill in each day and then return to the teacher at the end of the work experience period. During this period the opportunity for interaction with college teachers and fellow students is limited, the students feel relatively isolated and are not motivated to fill in the traditional paper diaries – a task which is often seen as a chore.  

Instead of paper diaries the ESOL team helped the students to set up their own Tumblr accounts and taught them how to use them with a few introductory exercises before they went out and had to use them on their own while on work experience. Using an on-line system like this has many advantages:

- The students could interact with fellow students and their tutors while on work experience – they were less isolated and could read about the experiences of their fellow students.

- The students were motivated to complete the log each day – many included photos

- The students were learning and using IT (the latest IT at that) in a real word setting and in a meaningful way.

- Tutors had day to day feedback from students

- Documentation was on-line and easily accessible by all, instead of in a pile of paper forms.

The project found that all the work experience locations had computers which the students could use to access the Internet to type up their logs – this is the 21^st century and we are in London so I shouldn’t have been so concerned. Whilst Internet access is increasingly pervasive, we would have to have a contingency for students who were not able to access the Internet daily.

Video Confession 13 – “The Innovation Zone”

In this video confession you get a quick look at the small “Innovation Zone” at the Hammersmith site of EHWLC. The teacher Jay briefly describes the project which the students are working on.

Education has a challenge in attempting to meet the calls for more active and collaborative teaching learning methods. The “innovation Zone” was set up almost two years ago to offer a space to experiment with new teaching and learning methods.

The room provides 20 individual round tables with attached seats which can be moved around the room and combined in various ways to offer arrangements for collaborative work. The room also provides mobile IT resources – 24 wireless student laptops, webcams and audio visual equipment plus the obligatory e-board.

The objective of the room is to provide the resources and opportunity to develop new teaching methods from role play and simulation using prompts and video recorders through to group project work.

One of the more innovative developments that have taken place in the “innovation Zone” is the Apprentice project for new HND business students. Instead of formally teaching the students for the first two weeks of the course the students form into groups of four and work through developing a product which they present to teachers and other students at the end of the two week project period.  Last September the college created and set up Google groups for the students but we quickly found out that this is something they can do themselves – indeed many suggested using their existing on-line presence in Facebook and email. Next September we will ask the students to set up their own on-line collaborative method – saving the college time and making the exercise more active and interesting for the students .

In the video the teacher Jay describes how the class of HND business students have been working on collaborative projects to survey the business potential of locations for setting up a small business – the outcome is to create a multimedia evidence pack about the locations to present to the class. The students work in groups and use audio and video equipment on location; they use the laptops in the room and make use of Web 2 systems like Google groups to collate their material.

The work carried out in the room is extremely interesting and inspirational but I would like to do more.

- I would like to see how these techniques apply to other groups and subject areas.

- I would like to develop other similar areas linked in with staff development. For example a pair of adjacent rooms – one room for staff teacher training and development and one room for actual teaching – both rooms with teacher support.