True Confessions and Live Binders

I have a confession to make.

My name is Adele and I tend to become obsessed.

When I want to achieve something and I have it in my mind that that is what I must do I do not know how to let it go. All these people say that I am so “talented” and such a “computer wiz”. The truth is: it’s obsession, not talent.

As a part of my job as a National Counselor for Digital Pedagogy in Israel,  I have been co- running a series of online sessions (we called them “meetings” since they were optional and no one got any official credit for taking them) regarding implementing digital pedagogy in the classroom. The sessions have been for leading counselors of language teachers in Israel. It has been for teachers of all the different languages not only English as I am used to doing. There were teacher-trainers for French and Russian, as well as Hebrew for Hebrew speakers, Hebrew for Arabic speakers, Arabic for Arabic speakers, Arabic for Hebrew speakers...even Chinese!  These meetings are coming to an end and I wanted to culminate them in a way that these dedicated participants would leave with something in their virtual hands. Something that they could share with the language teachers whom they counsel.

I had seen a tool called “LiveBinders” which is a curation tool, and I was interested in setting up a collaborative tool box of sorts which all of the other counselors could add to and would be a huge collection of digital tools that can be used for teaching languages, in general.

For some reason I did not pick it up as quickly as I thought I would. In fact I was on the verge of throwing up my hands and giving up. I even went so far as to try to build a similar curation site using Google Sites.  I guess the problem was that, while I was editing, it did not look like I expected it to look. And I did not understand how to see what it would look like in viewing mode, as opposed to editing mode. I had found some tutorials, but they were with an older version that looked different.

Until…. in came another counselor whom I greatly admire and who is really on top of these things. She replied to my cry for help in our Digital Pedagogy Facebook group. With her encouragement in her comments on the Facebook group I finally managed to crack it.   

That's when I became obsessed. I spent the entire vacation day of Independence Day learning and searching and building and learning and I finally figured it out. I am very pleased with what I have built and I only hope that the other language counselors with whom I work will get excited enough to jump in and join me by adding more tools and categories that will help language teachers from all over Israel.

This is what it looks like today. Hopefully, in a few months it will be even more populated and in use by language teachers all over Israel.

As my brother-in-law so delicately puts it: "Like a dog with a bone". And now… off to my next obsession……

Digitally yours,

@dele

P.S.

In order to help other language counselors understand how to collaborate with this tool, I prepared a tutorial, (however it is in Hebrew).

Here is playlist of tutorials, in English, (I wish I had seen this BEFORE I spent the whole day trying to learn it by myself ;0).

And finally, the LiveBinders Help

Eureka! I bit the bullet and DID it! We had our second practice HOA today just before the first Webinar, and then.. the Overview. Not that it was without glitches. Like anything else on the computer, one needs to practice a lot... but by the time we get through a few of these sessions, I should feel quite confident! 

Some of the participants were without headsets - which made the feedback from the speakers really annoying - and it wasn't until the end that Howie suggested that whenever someone is not talking, they mute their mikes (and then Mickey pointed out that we can mute each others'!) There is so much going on at once... it's not easy to keep up. I had trouble sharing the slides with everyone, and then in the end, when I asked for feedback, I was unable to get my picture back.. but the feedback was great (despite the glitches) and I have a really good feeling about this project. I believe it is THE way to spread the Google-word and get teachers connected and collaborating - with their students as well as their colleagues. 

If you are a teacher trainer and you want to join, please sign up on the course website homepage. If you want to view the recordings, they will all be on the site. Here is the page with the first Webinar recording, and the While you Wait slide show where anyone interested in participating in the course, and enrolled, is invited to follow instructions and add a slide (please be sure not to delete someone else's work).

Or.... you can just watch the Webinar recording from here!

So, despite the glitches, and despite the background noise, we managed to have some pretty good discussion and sharing! I look forward to more sessions with these great teacher trainers!