E-PEL AND THE ROAD TO PROMOTE LEARNING

I know. It's a long time since my last post. But now I have an excuse. If you visit our blog clilstarters, you will see that I've been pretty productive lately. And that leaves me very little time for reflexion. Pilar Torres wonderful post on the presentation of the brand new Spanish E-PEL, made me think a lot, and I wanted to share my thoughts with you.

The new E-PEL has included loads of the goodies that working online brings about: global access, multitasking, and so on and so forth (I'm not re-doing what Pilar has just narrated first person). I only thought it was too "adult-looking." The ELP's main aims are

- Pedagógica en tanto que le debe ayudar a planificar su aprendizaje, a visualizar sus progresos, a discernir qué tipo de metodología se le adapta y, de esta manera, a potenciar su autonomía como aprendiz de lenguas y a motivarle a que continúe con el aprendizaje de estas a lo largo de su vida. - Informativa, porque el pasaporte y el dossier le ofrecen la posibilidad de demostrar sus conocimientos de idiomas, a dar información clara y comprensible en Europa de su competencia, aprendizaje y uso de lenguas.

This assumes the learner has already evolved into a perfectly autonomous leaner, which is not the case in Secondary Education (let alone Primary). Pilar also mentioned Ducth E-Portfolio as an example of a more teaching-process oriented instance, including a different approach depending on the implied age of the user.

In any case it does help move our methodology into a more learning-oriented process (portfolio=step one; online=step two); one which is more time consuming for teachers. One way to solve this (always trying to give account of Pilar's post) is sharing the load with other teachers. Creating a resource bank, easily accesed from everywhere. In this sense, I've always thought using online learning platform (Moodle and the like) could help a lot. Not only as a meeting place for teachers to share ideas and resources (which is great), but also to set up self-access (I have always liked this term I've seen used in BCouncil centres) facilities our students could use from anywhere. Using SCORM, we could easily recycle already made material. Just a thought.

THE TEACHING EXPERIENCE

I have come across this video a couple of times and I thought it could be a good idea to use it as an introduction for a new stage in my professional life.

CLIL: The Debate

I have always thought that CLIL is the answer to many (I had to restrain from saying all) of the problems English teachers have had, specially in the State School System. But it is a quite lonesome decission-taking road. There are many teachers answering those questions all around the globe, so why not sharing? It is a complex field, that of CLIL, but this makes it even more interesting.
There is a nice chance to share our views and learn form more experienced colleagues. Onestopclil and The Guardian are hosting an online debate (this week is knda the official starting point) leading to a debate at the 43rd Annual International IATEFL Conference and Exhibition, Cardiff, UK. Have a look, http://www.onestopclil.com/section.asp?theme=mag&catid=280 I won't miss it.
See ya there.

CLIL Google Calendar

Another bit of sharing and caring. I've just added a google calendar on CLIL activities all over the world (well in fact it was created last year, but I've just added relevant info: better late than never). For the time being it's got information on activities begin held through out Europe under the auspices of the European Union. It's got details of dates (it would have been a nuisance of a calendar without dates), titles, places (some of them with maps, another goody of Google) and even the Code, to make it more useful. It is a public calendar (search for CLIL WORLD). Somebody has already included an activity in Crete. If you happen to know of activities and would like to share info (anything you might consider interesting, even if it is at local level), please do. If for nothing else, at least we'll feel part of the "cloud" of CLIL.

CLIL In Facebook

Teaching is quite a lonesome job, ain't it? Specially if you're using CLIL, since the amount of extra work you have to do preparing activities tends to be quite big. Wouldn´t taking decissions be lighter if we could debate it in advance, to see what other people have done in the same situation? CLIL is an ever growing paradigm, but we can evolve together. Sharing and caring is something we can do in Facebook to make life much easier. Come and join!!

Educación, Comunicación y Nuevas Tecnologías: La importancia de la Psicopedagogía en el Sistema Educativo

Educación, Comunicación y Nuevas Tecnologías: La importancia de la Psicopedagogía en el Sistema Educativo

Siempre he pensado que los educadores contamos con una ventaja estratégica para acometer la solución a muchos de los problemas sociales: todos y todas los y las ciudadanas deben pasar por la enseñanza obligatoria. La enseñanza (pública o no) es uno de los pocos servicios que aglutina a la totalidad de la población, y, definitivamente, el único (háganme una señal si me equivoco) que se prolonga durante tanto tiempo en la vida del ciudadano o ciudadana.
Ahora bien, ¿qué espera la sociedad de los centros educativos? Es lógico suponer que la respuesta a esa pregunta está en la legislación vigente en materia educativa. Sin embargo, todos los que hemos estado en un centro sabemos que nuestra labor va mucho más allá. Sirva como ejemplo la figura del tutor/a. Hay una serie de tareas asignadas por normativa que marcan la labor a un nivel administrativo y poco más. ¿En qué lugar quedan las "tutorías afectivas" (para las que no he visto regulación, pero seguro que suenan familiares)? ¿Y la labor del mediador en conflictos entre iguales o no (medidas ambas en las que creo firmemente)? ¿Qué capacidades se esperan de el docente o la docente que imparta el ámbito científico-tecnológico de un Programa de Diversificación Curricular, o programas parecidos? O lo que es más ¿cómo atendemos a un niño diabético con un ataque de hipoglucemia?
Esto deja al Licenciado o licenciada en Filología, Matemáticas, Geografía e Historia (sirvan como dignos ejemplos de un larguísimo etcétera hasta completar la enseñanza secundaria) en una situación algo compleja (dejo fuera al profesorado de primaria simple y llanamente porque sí han tenido formación pedagógica, y , sobre todo, porque desconozco el campo). No hemos sido, ni mucho menos, formados para desempeñar tamaña tarea. Somos expertos en un campo muy concreto de la sabiduría universal. ¿Cómo llenamos el hueco de aprendizaje hasta llegar a tener las competencias suficientes para desarrollar, con ciertas garantías de éxito, nuestra labor?
En los últimos años hemos visto como han ido incluyéndose en la vida de los centros la figura de el o la Trabajadora Social (además de la ya consolidada figura de el o la Orientadora), pero de forma muy tímida. ¿Es la respuesta que los equipos educativos se conviertan en equipos multidisciplinares que abarquen ámbitos distintos de la educación del alumnado?
Las preguntas no son retóricas. No incluyo la respuesta en el enunciado. Pero sí pretendo reflejar una sensación de desasosiego, que creo que es bastante común entre el profesorado, a la hora de realizar mi tarea.

2 MUCH.0

I just felt exhausted when I bumped into this page!! It is incredibly important to have tools to co-work with your students. But sometimes it takes longer to filter out what's worth the try and what's not. The possibilities seem almost endless, but time is finite (it should, at least that you spend in front of the screen). We run the risk of sending the time you have to plan your lessons down the drain, just trying to find the right web 2.0. Why not customise our own? Stick to a couple of Open Source gizmos and go 2.0 in your our own right?? A group of people with same needs creating the tools they need for the purpose they share seems to be much easier. Or is it not?