Exploring Learning

I set up my blog in Malaysia about five years ago; I moved to Singapore and maintained my blog. Most recently, I came to Qatar. My Blog address, as stated in the settings of my Blogger dashboard is: Google, however, redirects Blogger blogs to country-specific domains . For instance, if you open  blogspot.com in your web browser, it will change to blogspot.co.uk if you are accessing the blog from UK, or, as in my case, when I was in Singapore, I had the address mrshollyexploringlearning.blogspot.sg , and now I have mrshollyexploringlearning.blogspot.qa . For the past two and half years in Qatar, and for the years I had my blog before moving here, this has not been an issue. Until today.  I submitted my latest Masters assignment on my university VLE, and, as I often do, wrote a blog post about it. I was able to access my dashboard, write, edit and publish. I previewed my post and then, when ready, pressed publish. All this was fine. As always, I wanted to...

Almost a year ago, I wrote a post about Split Screen, as a way of making notes from online reading. This involved having one screen as notes and the other as the source material. Recently, I have been using it in my role as Project Manager of Global Youth Debates , a Flat Connections project (read more about this  here ). In Global Youth Debates, teams from all over the world take part in an asychronous debate about a current issue - this year's theme is Global Peace and Security and the topic is, 'Revolution a Justifiable Means for Global Peace and Security'. Using Voicethread , learners record their arguments in stages; the opposing teams can then listen and respond, recording their opposition in the same place. Part of my job is to organise the brackets - who argues against whom - in each round. To monitor the progress of each team, I have been using Split Screen as a management tool: Tracking Debate Progress On the left is each bracket's Voicethread,...

In today's learning environments, we teach a huge range of diverse learners with greatly differing needs.  Those fortunate to be in 1:1 or BYOD environments can take advantage of the many software apps and extensions, such as personalised  playlists ( Sophia.org ) that exist to act as additional support for those who need it - technological teaching assistants!  One app I have recently been exploring is the  Read&amp ; Write for Google  extension. Read&amp ; Write for Google is a free* Google Chrome Web App that increases accessibility for struggling readers and writers, and can help offer assistance to EAL learners. Read&Write for Google Tool Bar Simply visit the Chrome Store and install, and a tab will appear - on Google Docs - on web sites - it will also work with KES, PDF and ePub files. Full features include text-to-speech, dictionary, fact finder, highlighting, word prediction, and Read Aloud with ...

Sophia.org I have recently blogged about completing the Chrome Classroom certification offered through Sophia.org in conjunction with Capella University. This course covers the use of Google Apps for Education and how to create a collaborative cloud-based learning environment. Earlier this year, I also wrote about the Flipped Classroom certification course also offered for free on Sophia.org . This covers how to flip your classroom, a pedagogical approach benefitting many children as the usual learning that takes place in the classroom, happens before class, at home. The teacher is then freed up to support the class as they put into practise that learning. This is the part that traditionally happens as homework, without help or support. Flipping changes the dynamics of teaching and learning. I have also just completed the iPad Prepared certification course, which covers using Apps to enhance and transform the learning experience. Check out Sophia.org and get upskille...

At the beginning of the year, I took the Flipped Classroom certification course offered by Sophia.org . I have also just taken and completed the Chrome Classroom certification program that aims to teach educators "how to use technology creatively and intelligently" in order to become "a better teacher--and inspire better students!" The courses, which are endorsed and developed by Capella University , require you to watch a series of tutorials to "learn skills that help you get the most of cloud computing and collaborative technologies to seriously enhance your digital classroom". Once you put all this learning into practice to demonstrate mastery by developing a tutorial, your certification is complete! What's next - iPad Prepared Certification I guess. Why not collect the set?! :) Read about the Flipped Classroom course and Flipped Classroom teaching . Go to Sophia.org  and learn more.