How to present a topic using technology? Here are 2 recommendations!

I’m for the use of technology in the classroom. Even though sometimes it is difficult because not all classrooms have access to technological resources, when these resources are available we must use them.

Since this week’s topic for ECO II is “presentation software”, I’d like to recommend you two softwares you can use as tools to introduce some topics in your lessons.

The first one is “NASA’s Eyes” which is a software that shows you the Solar System, the Earth or Exoplanets as viewed from NASA’s satellites. I haven’t used it on a real lesson but it could be useful for a “topic based” lesson (or in a lesson that is part of an interdisciplinary project) where you deal with the Solar System and need something amusing for students or pupils to engage in your explanation or presentation of the topic. It is definitely more amusing than using flashcards, much cheaper for sure, and it doesn’t need any internet connection; just a beamer. What’s more, it has the official endorsement of NASA and it can be downloaded for free!

The second one can also be downloaded for free from the office Microsoft official page. It is a sort of extension for PowerPoint that allows you to present stories and tales in one slide in the form of a book. I’ve used it and it really worked in engaging children into the story I was telling them. My pupils loved the use of animated images and to see a digitalized book. It was quite easy to use when preparing the story; it just required a little of practice to coordinate my narration and the passing of slides. Besides, you only need a beamer to use it. All in all, it was fantastic and really useful.

So, these are my recommendations! Hope you find them as useful as I've had!  

On Internet Information Reliability: "Is any info trustworthy?"

After analysing websites and reading the official criteria to say whether these pages were “good” or “bad”, I’ve realized that sometimes we don’t take into consideration any criteria and believe in everything we see on the internet. Not only we trust in any website we come across, but we also usually are an echelon in the chain of displaying information that may not necessarily be correct or true. Think about how many times you used internet to do a practical work at school without verifying the information you used or not paying too much attention to the sources utilized. I must admit that just some years ago I acknowledged the existence of “scholar.google.com” where you can find official books and articles about any topic. Anyhow, sometimes I still search for other sources of information that may not be appropriately endorsed.

Let me give you a clear example: Wikipedia, the most famous world-wide source of information. Have you thought about it in terms of the criteria suggested to “judge” this website’s validity?
A quick analysis would be that the website is not completely a deception, but that you cannot yet fully rely on it. It is true that it contains the sources where the articles and descriptions are based on. It also contains the author of the information in many occasions. Is it enough to trust all information included there? After all, we readers can edit any information uploaded there whether we have a PhD or are children surfing in the internet. So… what to do?

That’s an interesting question for us teachers-to-be who sometimes take information to the classroom about different topics that we may not know about. What’s more, we may not find the information we need in official pages or articles, but we may do in Wikipedia. In this case, do we trust it? Do we take for certain something that could have been edited by a 6-year-old child?

Well, I’ve been through this situation because I had to do a research on monarchs from all around the world. Let me tell you that it was not easy and in some cases the most complete resource of information was Wikipedia. What I did was to compare the information to other sources and to have a look at the resources used to write the biographies. Of course, this took me ages! An amount of time I’m sure I won’t have when I graduate. Thus, I’m still wondering where to find quality information, reliable resources. Not saying this is a problem that has just come up, because at times when books where the only source, the information was sometimes not “good” either.

The only thing I know for sure is that we shouldn’t trust everything we find in the internet, and need to make thorough researches when using information for our English lessons. Or else we could present the “tree octopus” as part of the world’s wildlife!

On Digital Natives and Immigrants: "Human Brain Evolution"

After the reading of Prensky's article on Digital Natives and Immigrants, I continued to look for more explanations on this generational gap created by the constant progress of technology. In my research, I came across some entries that talked about the evolution of the human brain due to the introduction of technology in our daily life. In fact, there is a whole book dedicated to the neurological considerations of this evolution called "iBrain: Surviving the technological alteration of the modern mind" written by Dr. Gary Small and Gigi Vorgan. Though couldn’t find and read the whole book online (an irrefutable proof I am a digital immigrant), I was able to read some preview pages and it seems to give remarkable insights into the neurological considerations of the consequences that the use of technology has had in the human brain, and the differences between a Digital Immigrant’s brain and a Digital Native’s one. There is a generational gap then, which is not only a matter of who knows better how to deal with technology but a matter of human evolution; digital natives are the future, a step-forward in the evolutionary chain. This does not mean, however, that Digital Immigrants cannot adapt to the new waves of technological boom; this means they need to put a greater effort into understanding and keeping up with all the technological tools and developments since their brains are not biologically programmed to decode technology as Digital Native’s is. There is yet one more meaning in these words: both Digital Natives and Immigrants have advantages and disadvantages as there are different areas in their brains that are more or less developed according to each generation’s characteristics.

Of course, the generational gap causes misunderstandings between Digital Natives and Digital Immigrants. Moreover, there are times when their irreconcilable differences cause major problems, as when the two generations meet at the classroom. Many are the challenges an immigrant teacher faces when trying to teach a Digital Native; when trying to understand the way in which he or she learns, which is different from his/her own’s.   

When trying to understand better all these considerations and differences between the generations I found the blog of a very young teacher from Toronto Canada who made two interesting entries titled: "Future Minds Part I: Brain evolution 101 for parents and teachers", and "Future Minds Part II: The good and the bad of our evolving brains", in which she treated the topic of digital natives and immigrants, and the characteristics of digital natives’ brain and neurological functioning supporting her ideas on the notions discussed in the book I mentioned before.   

In spite of a few grammatical mistakes and not having official endorsement, the entries (specifically the second one) contain some considerations about the way in which the digital natives’ brains work; considerations that are important for us future teachers, especially for those of us that are digital immigrants and need to grasp at all tools and information available to plan the best way to get to and engage the digital native students.