EV Fair Session (Friday 9.30-10.30 am)

Using Videos from the web for Integrated Skills Language Learning

This EV Fair event is appropriate for all levels but will focus on using these resources in the K-12 (primary and secondary) level. I will demonstrate how to use videos available online on sites such as TeacherTube; YouTube and ITunes to teach integrated skills. The participants will learn how to find; download; embed and/or stream videos available from different online sources; and will be able to see examples of activities that enhance language learning by using authentic media. Activities include: creative writing; content-based teaching; online-based quizzes that use videos as input; and how to use videos in blogs; wikis and learning management systems such as Moodle. The demonstration will also include tips on how to work with these resources in K-12 schools where many of these websites are blocked; by learning how to download and save these videos to flash drives and other storing devices. A handout with a list of online resources will be available in print at the EV Fair and online through GoogleDocs.

EV Mini-Workshop (Saturday 3.30-5.00pm)

Personalized Homepages for Professional Development

After a brief demonstration of IGoogle, MyYahoo, ITunes, Google Reader , Pageflakes and social bookmarking as sources for informal professional development, participants will create at least one personalized website or homepage for continuous professional development. A handout with resources and applications provided online and in print: Sources of activities for students, gadgets, podcasts, RSS feeds and how to aggregate them, plus online archives will be provided.

Fortunately, on our week on tagging and RSS, I had the chance to watch a video where two experts debate about the usefulness of the web 2.0. The debate and the information were really intense and I think I’ll go back more than once to watch parts of it again, but the thing that really hit home with me was the fact that digital information does not have the limitations that physical information has. When we go find a book in the library, the book can be in one place but not in another, since physical objects cannot be in two places at the same time. So if for example I want to find a book about cycling around Europe, the book might be in two places: tourism, OR cycling, or even in the Europe section. One, but not the three of them. The book will be on one shelf, and not in another. Simple, huh? Now if I want to find a blog about cycling around Europe, ANY of those 3 keywords, tourism, Europe AND cycling can help me find it. Just because I have “tagged” the blog with one keyword and people can find it googling one word, it doesn’t mean I can’t tag it using other terms that relate to it. When I thought about that, all made sense: Google Reader made sense, my blog made sense, how to organize all the material was clear now: tagging! Tagging is the key!!

Another revolutionary aspect of tagging is that information starts being organized in a different manner, a more personalized manner, which defies previous notions about who has the authority to decide how we organize the world around us. Some people might feel uncomfortable with this great amount of power that is being given to each individual at home in front of their computers; I think the greatest challenge is to educate the future generations so they can make wise decisions when it comes to the information they process and absorb.  We’re no longer limited to the TV channels we have and the decisions producers make as far as what goes and what doesn’t; incredibly talented people can now become famous on You Tube, or also incredibly stupid people can do it; it’s up to us, the ones in front of that computer; each click counts, so where are we going to click?