That’s AMORES

If you follow me on Twitter, you may have noticed an occasional tweet tagged with #amoresproject, such as this one I had pinned to the top of my profile page for a while.

Feeling inspired #amoresproject pic.twitter.com/cc8OOPC7Cc

— Vedrana Vojković Estatiev (@Ven_VVE) June 28, 2014

I doubt anyone’s been wondering what that’s all about to the point of losing sleep, but I thought I’d enlighten you anyway. Okay, not the most inspired of openings, I know. It’s not meant to sound flippant as the AMORES project is actually built around an incredibly worthy cause – especially to a die-hard bookworm like me.

How I got involved

If you’d asked me a year ago to comment on the reading habits of kids today I would have probably said they’re always on Facebook (or whatever social network is popular among a particular age group) and read very few actual books – paper books, that is. Or books in any format, for that matter. I would’ve mostly based this on media reports read or heard in passing, and I wasn’t overly concerned with the issue, to be frank. I don’t teach kids, so I was hardly in a position to do anything about it anyway.

Then last fall, when I’d already moved to Belgium, I was asked by the Croatian Academic Research Network (CARNet) to join AMORES. Which is CV-speak for badgering my current boss to let me join the MOOC team, who eventually went on to design and run the first Croatian MOOC earlier on this year…oh, how I do get sidetracked. Sigh. As it turned out, she didn’t need me on the MOOC team, but asked if I would be interested in working on AMORES, which was starting soon, as they needed a researcher.

What is it already?

You’re probably wondering by this point if you should just go and google it yourself, but no need – AMORES stands for An Approach to Motivating Learners to Read in European Schools. You will no doubt have noticed that the acronym doesn’t fit to the letter, but it’s close enough. The main aim of this EU-funded project is to spur kids on to greater engagement with literature with a little help of ICT, specifically through the creation of digital artefacts. Besides CARNet as the lead partner, there are eight partner organizations from a total of six countries: Croatia, Greece, Denmark, Sweden, Poland and the UK.

I could tell you more about the rationale for the project, about the partners, the aims, stats on kids’ reading habits and so on, but the website will do a better job of this. Instead, I thought I would share snippets of what I’ve been doing since the project started. You know, a kind of behind-the-scenes glimpse of what it’s like working on an EU-funded project, from the viewpoint of someone who is doing this for the first time.

February

Things officially got under way in December, or at least we had a Skype meeting to get to know each other and talk about the first steps, what everyone’s role was going to be, and so forth. But I wasn’t actually required to do anything much until February. To be honest, when I talked about how I saw my role in the project during the Skype meeting, I wasn’t quite sure what it would entail. I understood that my experience with online learning (designing and moderating my Moodle course), and my pedagogical training would play a part, but was a little vague on how exactly. I went through the project description, a 100-page monstrosity, which wasn’t unhelpful, but it was a tad abstract. Of course, when I’d talked with my boss about what my responsibilities would be back in September, things had seemed clearer. Almost five months later, not so clear.

February was spent in the office. My main task was to assist the head of work package 1 – there are 8 of these work packages, or WPs for short – in preparing the foundation for the remainder of the project: compiling a literature review which describes the way digital content creation is being used (or not), specifically in teaching national literature, and conducting a needs analysis to determine the situation at each of the five schools taking part in the project, in terms of the learner context and learner and teacher needs.

Enter another project management term which had seemed abstract before – deliverable. The person who did most of the work on putting together the two deliverables of the paragraph above was the WP1 leader, but most partners were involved to some degree. In the meantime, work on some of the other WPs had commenced as well, and as I was conveniently in the office – seated right across from my boss (the overall project coordinator) – I helped out with whatever was necessary. For instance, at the time we were running a contest to choose the project logo and contributor guidelines had to be drawn up.

Winning logo

One of the things I remember most vividly from the period is how draining I discovered sitting a whole day in the office can be. I had used to spend a considerable amount of time in the Octopus office, so I thought this couldn’t be any different. Get yourself a decent chair, that helps. Another thing I recall was to what extent I came to identify with the project. Most of the other partners were going about their jobs and contributed some of their time to AMORES – all in line with the project plan. The teachers would start getting more actively involved after the teachers’ workshop in March, for instance. I, on the other hand, was spending almost every day amoresing and eventually felt very disappointed I wouldn’t be going to Athens for the official kick-off meeting, since I wasn’t a member of the steering group. How could I not be?? How would they even get on without me there?? 🙂

May

The steering group met in Greece in early March and I returned to Belgium. Soon afterwards the teachers met for a workshop in the UK, marking the start of WP2. The idea was to have the teachers develop as a team a draft of the methodology which would eventually be used in the pilot implementation stage (WP3), when the new school year started. March and most of April were quiet for me. There was less to do in my researcher role, and not entirely surprisingly, once I was away from the office, other things surfaced which needed to be taken care of.

Then the online course for the teachers began. During the workshop the teachers had decided on the technologies they wanted to introduce into their literature lessons, in order to encourage pupils to create digital content and collaborate online. The course was meant to allow them to develop a familiarity with some of these tools and gain confidence, particularly with more challenging ones such as videoconferencing, so that they could easily incorporate them into their lessons.

The eight-week course was held in Moodle. Now I’m no Moodle expert, but I am pretty familiar with it by now (and enjoy using it), so during this stage I was able to help with the syllabus design, and also in terms of adding course content and moderating discussions. We actually haven’t analyzed the feedback forms yet to see how satisfied the teachers were with the course, but I’m going to hazard a guess and say improvements are in order. If there’s one thing I’ve learned it would be not to run an online course for teachers at the end of the school year. It is just lousy timing. In any case, some revisions might have to be made taking the teachers’ heavy workload into account.

June & July

June saw me back at the Zagreb office – this time I got the desk right next to the boss. 🙂 The online course only finished in the last week of June, so that took up most of the month. The rest of the time was spent finalizing various WP1 and WP2 deliverables, some of which will eventually be published on the AMORES website. Yes, we are a little behind with some of these – summer holidays and all that.

The other area I’ve been dabbling in over the past two months is dissemination. In fact, it has a work package all of its own; dissemination is apparently a serious business. I didn’t expect to contribute much to WP6 initially, but that changed when the project website went live and AMORES got its Facebook page. A brief digression here – while I was at Octopus, I managed the school Facebook page. It drove me mad at times because I’m not a trained community manager, and I also feel distinctly uncomfortable publicizing my product or service (which is a whole other story). But at least the page content was regularly updated and people could see the school was still in business.

The AMORES page was a tad neglected over the first couple of months, and I often found myself itching to post something. Towards the end of May we agreed that I would play at being community manager for a while, since disseminating project news on Facebook is part of the project plan. The thing is, you can’t just occasionally post updates on the project (we don’t exactly have news breaking on a daily basis) – it’s a good idea to include other content as well.

To be continued…

That would refer to the project. The post is done – goodness knows it’s long enough. How is it that I can’t manage a short post? Maybe the secret is in writing more regularly? Anyway, I hope this has been at least mildly interesting if not exactly useful – especially if you were expecting something to do with language teaching, which I guess would not be entirely unreasonable, given the tagline. 

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One step forward, one step back

I was recently tagged by online teacher and blogger Joanna Malefaki from Greece in the sandwich reflection (#sandwichreflection) blog challenge. For those of you who find reading about food makes them head for the fridge: it’s not that kind of post.

The idea of this snack-inspired reflection is based on the concept of the sandwich feedback, which entails alternating praise and suggestions for improvement, somewhat like layering sandwich fillings. My preferred feedback technique is less sophisticated and closer to a slice of bread spread with a single topping: I offer all the positive comments first and then move on to constructive criticism. I suspect this bread analogy will not stretch any further, so I’d better move on…before it goes stale (sorry, couldn’t resist) :P.

Anyway, the challenge is to reflect on the past academic year by listing an accomplishment, followed by a weakness, followed in turn by another achievement. This serves to prevent us from focusing overly on what we perceive to have failed at. An action plan should be drawn up at the end, describing how we intend to address the weakness(es).

And so…it’s been a little over a year that I found myself officially unemployed for the first time since university (which wasn’t exactly yesterday). Really, I hear you saying, is that supposed to be starting off on a positive note? True, unemployment is not much of an achievement in Croatia – sadly, countless people are managing this with apparently very little conscious effort – but happily one year on I’m almost as busy as I used to be in the days of Octopus. This is mostly due to my foray into online course design and instruction; see this post for more detail. Prior to moving to Belgium my knowledge of online learning was predominantly theoretical, which is why I’m all the more pleased with having made the transition more or less successfully.

Life would undoubtedly be boring if everything was perfection (or so I’ve heard people say often enough), and as much as I am enjoying teaching online, this past semester I’ve committed the ultimate teaching transgression – neglecting the students. It wasn’t intentional nor was it really for lack of time, though this certainly played a part. I think I was mostly burned out from the winter semester. I had designed the entire course, which meant creating and uploading all the materials. I created visuals, made videos, designed quizzes…the works. I also commented on all the students’ learning journals entries (when I say all, I mean that quite literally), and made podcasts and screencasts with feedback on their assignments. It was fun, challenging, and fulfilling. I collected feedback (that I wrote about here), which convinced me that I was on the right track and provided ideas on what to focus on in the next semester. The summer semester wasn’t supposed to be half as time-consuming. There were fewer students. All the materials were there in Moodle, and all I had to do was focus on moderating discussions and giving feedback. But I didn’t do as much of that as I should have done, and for this reason I feel as if I’ve failed the students.

It’s only now that I’ve put this down in writing that I can see the value of the sandwich reflection. Instead of obsessing over feelings of guilt, you’re required to come up with something you feel went well. Therapeutic, this. And since there’s obviously an underlying theme of online learning, why not stick with it. I sent in a proposal earlier this year for the EDEN (European Distance and E-learning Network) annual conference, which was, by coincidence, going to be held in Zagreb while I was going to be in town. I was pleased and honored to be able to present my online course at a poster session the week before last. Perhaps I run the risk of sounding conceited or worse when I say that when I submit a proposal for an ELT conference I have relatively high hopes that it will be accepted, but I think this is not an unreasonable way to feel if you’ve been teaching for over 15 years. EDEN, on the other hand, has nothing to do with ELT. This time I had no absolutely clue as to whether my proposal was relevant, interesting or good enough. And so, when it was accepted, it felt a little as if the gods of online learning had benevolently nodded in my direction and winked. You know, if they existed.

Benefits of a June conference – enjoying a coffee break outdoors!

Action plan

So, to go back now to failing the students’ expectations. How can I be sure it won’t happen again next semester, or the semester after that? A large part of the problem here is lack of institutional support. A well-designed and run asynchronous online course is not meant to be a one-(wo)man show. The course designer does his/her part of the work, the tutor does their part. Ideally, more than one tutor. Everyone is adequately financially compensated for their efforts.

That is the way things should play out, but they don’t. The institution is not unhappy with the way I teach my course, but I’m not going to get a course designer to collaborate with and there will be no other tutors. In an economy where everything that can be cut has been mercilessly pared back, it would be laughable to expect otherwise. So burnout is something that I can safely expect to have to cope with next semester.

How do I minimize the damage? I’m not really sure at this point, but think the answer may lie in organizing my time more efficiently. That is, working from home, it’s easy to fall prey to the idea that your day need not consist of discrete time slots dedicated to particular activities as it would be if you were teaching in an offline environment. And, of course, greater flexibility is often perceived as an advantage. However, right now I’m thinking it might be helpful to draw up a schedule as specific as Wednesday, 9:00 – 12:00 feedback on journal entries, 12:30 – 2:30 moderating discussions, etc. Committing to an obligation in writing means I’m much more likely to get to grips with it when I originally planned to, if for no other reason than the feeling of satisfaction when I cross it off my to-do list.

Another thought I’m toying with is to drop the notion that the instructor should be the one to provide feedback on absolutely every student learning journal entry, and instead involve students in commenting on others’ entries to a greater degree.

Last thought: finally start using the Moodle gradebook now that I’ve figured out how to adapt it to my course. We’ll see how all of this will work out. If you have any other suggestions, I would love to hear them in the comments.

A very warm thanks to Joanna for including me in the #sandwichreflection challenge. Make sure you read Joanna’s reflection here, and see who else she’s tagged as well .

 

Some perks of teaching online

Recently I had the occasion to read Joanna Malefaki’s comprehensive (and occasionally tongue-in-cheek) overview of the advantages of being an online teacher. I also had the privilege of meeting Joanna in person earlier this year at BELTA Day. As soon as BELTA started with their “Meet the Speaker” series, I knew I was going to attend her talk “Do’s and Don’ts of teaching Business English online”…until I discovered that Marek Kiczkowiak and Chris Holmes were going to be speaking about NNEST-related misconceptions in the same slot! In the end, I opted for the latter, using the time-honored scientific method popularly known as eeny meeny miny moe.

The topic of Joanna’s talk appealed to me because it was the only one, apart from my own, to address some practical issues of online instruction that day. I don’t think of myself primarily as an online instructor (or an offline one, for that matter), but as I’ve been teaching almost entirely in an online environment for the past year, I find posts, articles and talks on the subject increasingly relevant to my situation.

Having read Joanna’s post, I thought I’d throw together my own list of perks. Although there will undoubtedly be similarities, it’s worth noting that, unlike Joanna, I teach in an asynchronous environment. More specifically, I teach a semester-long undergraduate course in writing skills in Moodle. So, what do I like about it?

This isn’t what I see when I look up from the computer – but it could be!

Advantages applicable to online teaching in general

1. You can sleep in. Possibly this sounds self-centered or frivolous, or both, but I’m dead serious. The fact is, I’ve worked for private language schools since 1997, and that means…well, that means your schedule is often crappy. You teach in-company courses in the mornings, so you have to wake up at 6 and put on your bright and perky smile as you wait with the surly security guy for your students to show up at 7:30. Which they do, late, yawning and saying they haven’t done the homework. “That’s okay,” you say, contemplating various forms of torture, careful not to drop the smile. (It’s not always like that, but you know what I mean.) Then you teach again in the afternoon and evening, and when you come home, you prepare for the class you have the following morning. Sunday evenings are also reserved for Monday morning lesson plans. That’s a whole lot of Sunday evenings since 1997. So being able to sleep until a more decent hour, followed by breakfast and a coffee during which I don’t have to smile if I don’t feel like it, feels wonderful.
2. Your schedule is less stressful. I don’t spend half my day in public transport, going from client to client, lugging books around, missing lunch, waiting around twiddling my thumbs for the one-to-one student to finish their meeting/phone call/email before they’re ready to settle down to English class. Oh, yes, I almost forgot the thrill of one-to-one clients cancelling at the last minute!
3. It’s cheaper. All you need is a computer and broadband connection. I definitely spend less on public transport, unhealthy on-the-go snacks, book bags or folders, as well as clothes and makeup.
4. It’s challenging and fun. I’m not saying I know everything there is about classroom instruction, but after 17 years of teaching there’s a certain element of déjà vu when I walk into a class. There is obviously comfort to be drawn from this, and there are always different activities you can try out to avoid getting stuck in a rut, but online everything is new to me. I enjoy designing the course and moderating it: selecting the activities, making podcasts and screencasts, designing quizzes, reading and commenting on the students’ learning journals, and more.
5. You gain a new set of skills.  A lot has been written over the past month about the future of teachers and whether they will eventually be made unnecessary by tech advances. This is not the topic of this post, but I do recommend that you watch the excellent eltjam IATEFL talk on what educational technology means for ELT. As someone who has struggled to keep a small business (a language school) afloat through the (aftermath of the) global economic crisis, I can only see advantages to being open to whatever is going to allow you to keep your teachers employed.
6. It permits you to carry on working for your institution even if you no longer live in the same town/country where the institution is based. This flexibility may, of course, not be important to everyone, but if, for instance, moving abroad was not your career choice, it counts for a lot. Hopefully, this uninterrupted collaboration will allow me to continue teaching face-to-face at my institution when I return. I can practically guarantee this wouldn’t happen if I dropped off the radar for a couple of years; someone would take over my course, and that would be that.
7. Your professional engagement isn’t (temporarily) over when you move to a new country. Like the previous point, this one assumes particular importance when you may not have a job lined up, and as a NNEST you may have difficulty securing one. I’ve heard of the term trailing spouse used to describe someone moving from place to place at the whim of the personnel decisions of the company their partner works for, but this is not a designation I feel comfortable with.

Advantages applicable to teaching writing skills online

1. Students actually get to do a lot more writing than in a face-to-face environment. When I taught the same course offline, we did a range of interactive activities in class: presentations, discussions and games, and the students did most of the extended writing at home in their portfolio, which they would hand in three times per semester.
2. More authentic written communication takes place. The instructor was the sole audience for the students’ writing efforts in the face-to-face class; hardly conducive to getting them to exert themselves beyond what was strictly necessary, for instance, write 250 words on a given topic, include a topic sentence for each paragraph, etc. By contrast, online everyone can see almost everything an individual student writes – in forums, wikis and learning journal entries – so they’re writing for a wider audience. Wider than just the instructor, at any rate.
3. Less outgoing/weaker students participate more than they would in a traditional class. If you’re discussing a topic in class, talkative students will often dominate the discussion, even if you try hard to make sure most people get to say something. On the other hand, if everyone is required to participate in an online discussion, they will. Or they won’t get a grade.
4. You can consider the feedback you want to give more carefully. In class teachers are sometimes asked questions they don’t know the answer to. This is absolutely fine; after all, it’s a great opportunity to demonstrate that the teacher is not the ultimate vessel of all knowledge, but that some responsibility for their learning lies with the students. However, you sometimes do wish that you’d known the answer to a question because it would have been pertinent to the subject under discussion or useful for all students to know. You sometimes want to point the students to a useful resource which they can use for further research. It is certainly possible to bring up the point at the beginning of the next session, but it may not seem as relevant any more. Online, you can highly personalize the feedback and tailor it specifically to a student’s needs.

My experience with teaching online has been positive overall, though I wouldn’t be in a hurry to say that an online course is inherently worse or better than a face-to-face one. While I was putting this list together, I considered a number of points I didn’t like so much, but finally decided to leave those for another post. The list isn’t meant to be exhaustive and is definitely determined in large part by the context I work in, so do by all means let me know of any advantages I’ve overlooked.