Creative Use of Tablets - EUN MOOC
ANNA LAGHIGNA's
LEARNING DIARY
ANNA LAGHIGNA's LEARNING DIARY 
On board the European Schoolnet Academy MOOC on "Creative Use of Tablets in Schools" 
Started on 13th April 2015 - Finished May 2015.

What does it mean to teach in the 21st century?

As Benjamin Hertz - MOOC administrator in this course on The Creative Use of Tablets suggests:
"We as teachers need to reflect on the way we are teaching if we really want to innovate the way we teach!"
The video above - though somewhat dated - still remains visionary and powerful for inspiring teachers!! I love it!


Teaching in the 21st Century
I adapted this from an original video found here: http://youtu.be/OTIBDR4Dn2g. The original presentation was created as a summary of the ASB Unplugged Conference in Mumbai, India 2010. I wanted to add more multimedia and make it more visual as well as adjust a couple of the ideas.
Original link
Why do we need a change?

I think that the short video below summarizes better than thousand words how today's students feel when they are still addressed to as if they were "mere pitchers to be filled up with facts, facts, facts"! 
(cit. from Charles Dickens' Hard Times)
A Vision of Students Today
a short video summarizing some of the most important characteristics of students today - how they learn, what they need to learn, their goals, hopes, dreams, what their lives will be like, and what kinds of changes they will experience in their lifetime. Created by Michael Wesch in collaboration with 200 students at Kansas State University.
Original link
Q1: Why do I want to use tablets in class?

The main reason why I would like to introduce tablets in my classroom is basically to make my students become active learners. I would like them to use technology instead of me. 

Tablets can help them personalise their learning paths and develop HOTS skills through collaborative tasks.

In the last three years I was fortunate enough to teach in another school where I could experiment a lot with technology in the classroom. I also attended some courses (including two by the EU Schoolnet Academy) on innovative teaching and learning scenarios.

This year we do not have much technology available at school and we do not use tablets as part of our daily routine. Nonetheless, because nearly all of my students constantly use What'sUp and other social media,  I have decided that if "I cannot beat them" I will make friends with their smartphones (lol!). So we have started using my students' smartphones also for teaching and learning purposes in the classroom. Mobile devices in general are more flexible and offer inbuilt options like videocam recording, text-to-speech, Internet access, etc.

We have used smarphones in class  for researching information, flipped classroom and in-class flipped learning through videos and websites, collaboratively tasks for creating content on Padlet, Edmodo and other apps as well as for tests, simulations, webquests, groupwork, video storytelling, QR Codes, etc.​ 
If students are already familiar with these devices and use them as soon as they step out of school, why not then exploit their potential also in class?