Exploring Learning

I was the event manager for a Google Bootcamp in October 2017, which was hosted at my school, ACS Doha International School. Marketing asked me to cover the event and I wrote this article for a magazine, Qatar Today, published November 2017.

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...

A project for my MEd this week, was to explore banners and free tools that can be used to create them. I was to create a 650x50 banner advertising me. I found this size outdated and small, so played around and added the one you can see in my Blog above! I decided to use the images I have for my educational 'brand' across Twitter and Blogger and email; to ensure  colour   matching ,  I used eye -dropper to select the exact shades for continuity. First I went to Bannersnack , which allowed me to create an animated banner:- Next, I went to BannerFan to create a simple static version:- Finally, I had a lot of fun on PicMonkey creating a few different versions:- Version 1 Version 2: added squiggle at the top Version 3: added background texture of bubbles Version 4: added a scrunched paper texture Version 5: added a striped texture

I spoke at the Google Summit KL in 2013 about tech that enhances the reading and writing process. One of the apps I shared, Ginger, was one that I had been using as an assistive technology with a targeted number of learners who particularly struggle with spelling or who are dyslexic . Whilst there are in-built  spell checkers in a lot of word processing systems, Ginger differs because it ... analyzes the context of an entire sentence, and its corrections conform to the writer’s intended message. This method is especially successful for dyslexic students who often confuse words which sound the same but are spelled differently.  (http://www.gingersoftware.com/ginger-for-schools) Ginger is more sophisticated and identifies homophones, which helps many EAL/ESL learners too. In addition, rather than being isolated to one system, it highlights words in all online writing - including Blogger, email, Twitter etc.   Areas that need attention are highlighted and s...

White Sand Beach, Coral Island nr  Tioman Island Since last July, I have had the privilege not only to have lived in Singapore but to have visited Thailand twice - Phuket last summer and Hua Hin for Christmas - Kuala Lumpur, Dubai, Qatar and the beautiful Tioman Island in Malaysia three times! In fact, my family and I just spent the last three weeks on Tioman after a very stressful few weeks of job hunting (see Testing Times ) and packing up to leave Singapore. Upon our return from Tioman, we spent a lovely busy four days in Singapore visiting and saying goodbyes to all the wonderful friends we had made, before finally flying out to a new adventure in Qatar, where we arrived two days ago. In the middle of all this, I have been offered the opportunity to Project Manage one of Julie Lindsay's Flat Connection projects, Global Youth Debate (formerly Eracism). This exciting project joins schools across the globe and provides essential skills of research, collabora...

I am an advocate of reading. I am an avid reader. Many posts and Tweets contest to such. Always wanting to improve my practice and approach to delivering reading to my learners, I recently picked up a copy of  @Donalynbooks The Book Whisperer . It confirmed much of what I do in regards reading, as sound and effective methodology, such as free-reading, and reading time every day, as well as modelling being an actual reader. The book also gave me some areas to think about and re-work, such as the ubiquitous class novel. Red Dot Book Awards We are already reading every lesson, and learners have accepted my Reading Challenge 2014 . In addition, as part of my Future of Fiction unit which explores where storytelling might be going, and how technology might help us to tell stories, I am including some reading circles, using books from the Red Dot Book Awards in Singapore. The  Red Dot Book Awards   is a student choice book awards organised  by the Intern...

Split Screen Extension, Chrome Store I am fairly comfortable with technology and have been using it for as long as I have been working, though it did not pay a big role in my education. My father did recommend my taking a GCSE in Information Technology, one of the first ones that came out, as he said that computers were the future. I wanted to do art, but I did as my pops suggested. During the time I was studying for my degree, the Internet made its debut appearance. I do remember a boyfriend at the time excitedly showing me a page on an American punk band we were into , but it took about ten minutes for the page to load and I just didn't see the appeal. My degree essays were researched from actual physical books and journals and my essays, in the main, were handwritten, though I did invest in a word processor in my final years. Being able to see four faint lines of my 4000 word essays was progress... I think. My first job out of University was as ...

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 ...

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.

I have just finished planning and building this website , which acts as a full unit of work for Year 10, second language learners. Using picture books as a starting point, we learn key terms and devices for effective story-telling . There are loads of opportunities built in for writing and reading, as well as speaking and listening to develop confidence in preparation for the assessments. The stages I have planned are as follows: The assessments and learning intentions align with the CIE English as a Second Language syllabus but could easily work for any English curriculum. I think the unit would work equally well as an introduction to literature students. The end product will be a children's story book based on a childhood memory and, to make it authentic, we will share with primary learners and donate to the school library.

Our school is 1:1 but in its infancy. It is a new initiative that will revolutionise  our learner's experience of education. However, teaching learners to manage themselves in a paperless way is posing somewhat of a challenge. Homework in particular is a problem; the recording of homework specifically, is an issue. I use Edmodo to post homework. I use Google Calendar, which is embedded in their page on my Learning Site , and shared with them to add to their own calendars. I also use the school site, which is the party line. Homework is therefore recorded for them in three places, so they have many ways to find it. Are they doing it? No, not always. Part of the problem might be the lack of transference. We know that the physical act of writing helps learning. If they are passively receiving homework instructions, perhaps they are not actively engaging with it. Ever-searching for solutions to help my learners organise  themselves digitally, I recently found out abou...

Recently, as part of my research, I have been exploring Diigo. I want to address the need to be able to organise and curate online research so it is easy to find and use in future learning. The need to curate in the explosion of online information is essential in our digital world. For example, this morning I logged on to my University site to check my workload for this week as well as our conferences, to see what discussions had taken place overnight - my colleagues are all in the US so communication is 12 hours asynchronous for me. Following links from this and from Twitter, less than an hour later I have shared four new sites, taken part in multiple conversations, and bookmarked almost ten sites or articles I want to read for my research for the paper I am writing about software that advances writing. I currently use Pearltrees to curate educational sites that I want to use for teaching and learning, which is explored in more detail in my post ' Pearls of Wisdom '. I ...

human |ˈhjuːmən| adjective relating to or characteristic of humankind: the human body | the complex nature of the human mind. • of or characteristic of people as opposed to God or animals or machines, especially in being susceptible to weaknesses: they are only human and therefore mistakes do occur | the risk of human error. • showing the better qualities of humankind, such as kindness: the human side of politics is getting stronger. http://bostinno.com/channels/the-history-of-education-infographic/ The final part of the E-Learning and Digital Cutlures course asks us about to think about the effect of technology on 'the human'; how it "works to re-define what constitutes ‘the human’ - for better or worse - and what that might mean for education. " http://bostinno.com/channels/ the-history-of-education -infographic/ This infographic suggests a history of (US) education. In twenty years time, it suggests that "the future will never be witho...