For another course I am doing, we had a group assignment… While I know many cringe at the thought of completing such tasks, I actually enjoy them! I love learning from my peers. Although, I have been pretty blessed to be part of some really good groups.
For this assignment we had a case study child and were asked to compile a powerpoint presentation on how we might approach the teaching of an EAL/D (That’s English as and Additional Language or Dialect – formally known as ESL) student. As we had three members living locally and one in Western Queensland, we collaborated through the use of Google Docs (I think I’ve mentioned this in a previous post), then used Google Slides to work on the presentation. From here we had to post our presentation to a forum and then engage in professional discussion with fellow course members. The second part of the assignment was to take all of our posts and highlight where we felt we demonstrated an understanding of the difficulties faced by EAL/D students. We had to lead and monitor discussion within our own thread as well as initating discussion within the posts of others. I’ve never completed an assessment piece in this way but I felt this was moving into the “Transform” part of the RAT framework in using technology to transform our learning. How else would we be able to engage with course members across the world – or even campuses?
philipamck 