This week we learned about a variety of things. I have to admit that reading about Inquiry Based learning opened my eyes to something. It showed me why I am so very uncomfortable with this technology class. I am not uncomfortable because I have a difficult time with the technology I am using or that I don't buy into how to use it in the classroom BUT for me I am not used to learning through the problem based approach. Problem Based learning is when students learn about a topic through the experience of problem solving. When I was in school (I graduated high school in 1997) teaching was primarily teacher-centric with memorization and regurgitating back to the teacher what you read in the book or heard in class. For this class I am having to go out and find web tools and resources and figure out how to use them. There is a loose rubric and schedule but nothing as formal as I am used to. That is why I find this type of learning, quite honestly, anxiety inducing. It is outside my comfort zone. When I told my professor this he said that many of his 7th grade students feel the same way when they start in his class! I am thankful that this did not come as a surprise to him.
Anyway, if you watch the screencast below you will hear more details about what exactly Inquiry Learning is and examples of it from problem based learning and then an example of it found in webquests. You may want to view our Google Document with the details because it is helpful to read over the pros and cons of this type of teaching AND we have some links to helpful websites.
Now how do technologies like Screencast-o-matic and webquests change teaching and learning? Well we can, as educators, stop standing up in front of a class of glassy-eyed students telling them a bunch of information of which they will only remember 50% of and get them involved. I can hear the groans from teachers now..."how can we do that?" Well there are lots of ways, for example our "lecture" could be a screencast (like the one below) where as we are giving the students important information we are simultaneously showing them the websites where it is found or showing them how to do the task we have assigned. That way students can watch it and re-watch it if they missed something. Then in class they can ask questions of us or begin to dig deeper. Also many students are visual and this is a simple way to give them the visuals while audibly delivering the information. Are we no longer teaching? Is it just a flipped classroom where they do homework in school and listen to lectures at home? No. We are facilitating their learning. We are involved. We are the guide or as my professor puts it we are the coach. We are giving the skills our students need to find, analyze and reflect of the information they learn all the while we are there on the sidelines guiding them. That means we are more involved. We create webquests where we find online resources for our students to get them started on their research. We create real life problems for them to solve. For me as a language teacher it could be something as simple as saying and writing directions in Spanish from La Plaza Mayor to the Museo Del Prado for lower level students. For my higher level Spanish students it could be investigating the Spanish Inquisition and the events leading up to it. The possibilities are endless. With the wealth of information on the web and our guidance and direction our students will be able to not only learn important information that will make them well rounded people but it will also have them practice and hone important technology skills.
One final note about Screencast-o-matic. It is super simple and fun to use but a word of warning. If you use the full screen option while doing it be sure you know the keystroke to stop recording. When my blog buddy Shelly and I did it we could not figure out how to stop recording so at the end of our screencast you can hear us laughing. I ended up just closing the computer to stop. We did not rerecord because our mistake is a
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