Hi, Everyone.
This was a busy week, with the first draft of our final projects and then partner feedback due at around the same time. Let me start off by saying that I have been so happy with my partner, Paula. I love the project that she is working on with blogs. I have learned so much from her!
As for my own project, I feel happy that this E-teacher course has led me to create a new way of thinking about plagiarism, which is the topic I am exploring for the project. I had only treated it as a “one-shot” teaching moment, but I realize now that I can shorter lessons about ways to cite and to protect academic integrity throughout the semester. I have created several new interactive Powerpoints, games and short “One-A-Day” five-minute lessons that I can use in any class at any time! I am going to add these to our ELC Moodle site and share them with all my faculty too.
I would like to share one AMAZING site that my faculty has created this semester. Check this out if you have time. Didn’t they do an excellent job with this, and they incorporated so much technolog???!!! It has videos, games and quizzes all created from scratch. Click here to view: http://www.umac.mo/elc/ad/index.html The link does NOT work well with Internet Explorer yet, so please open with Chrome or with Firefox to see the complete picture. We still have to make some adjustments to try to get it to work with Internet Explorer. So, consider it a work in progress.
I love experimenting with new educational tools, so I played with many other tools this week to make other plagiarism activities for my students (and for the entire ELC community).
One site I tried for the first time was Crossword Puzzles. I made a simple puzzle that I could use as part of my “One-A-Day” strategy to prevent plagiarism, which the topic of my final project. I loved that the site was easy to use, and I could create the puzzle in just five minutes or so. Like Marina, I tried easytestmaker too, but I was so sad to see that this was a pay site!
I also made a couple of new Hotpots. I have made quite a few Hotpots in my life. I shared a few links to these in my final project. I made some new ones and posted them onto the class Wiki page. They both will be used for part of my “One-A-Day” strategy described in my final project.
Next, I tried a word find at Toolsforeducators. This program allows you to create your own word find by putting in one word at a time on each line. It generates the puzzle in a second and even provides an answer key at the bottom of the page. You can print it off, but you can NOT save the file, which is disappointing.
I looked briefly at the flash cards at http://bogglesworldesl.com/ which is a good site for children, and I recommend teachers like Ivana to try this site!
I also created a simple worksheet (poster) for my class on the Web Poster site, again on plagiarism. The site automatically saves it into my class. This was my favorite “toy” this week!
There are several other tools that I will try this weekend if I have time. Of course, I want to start saving them all into my Delicious site too!
Finally, it was interesting to check out what our classmates have posted on the Wiki page for week 8 resources. I loved the Christmas game that Ina made! It has multiple choice, true/false, matching and fill in the gap exercises. I love Christmas, so looking at this made me happy! This is the season when I miss my country the most!!!!! Christmas is so beautiful in America, and I miss the trees, lights and magic that is everywhere in the States at Christmas. Thank you, Ina, for filling my heart with spirit today!
I also loved the John Milton crossword that Vinita made and the modals worksheets and crossword that Jasmina made. It is nice that we can share our creations through a class like this! I am so sad that the course is almost over!
Let’s see, some other things happened this week as well.
One of my papers was published, and I got the hard copies this week. I think you can see the abstract at this link: http://www.davidpublishing.com/journals_info.asp?jId=1070
Mine is on page 813 if you scroll down the September, 2012 issue.
I also presented at a conference on Intercultural Communication in Wuhan, China. Although my presentation went well and I met some classmates and teachers from Macquarie University in Sydney where I did my doctoral studies, it was a horrible venue. The main water pipe on campus burst, so there was no water on the campus of the university that hosted the conference on Saturday and Sunday! I won’t go into detail, but use your imagination to think about the toilet situation!!!!!!
Uggh, this was a hard week, and I am glad that there is only one more week of classes left at my university!
Hope everyone is doing well and surviving under pressure! Good luck!
Evelyn
Hi Evelyn,
ReplyDeleteI have taken a look at the pages your faculty created. You are right - what a marvelous job! I guess your students will have to think twice before trying to "steal" something from the net.
My students stopped copying from online sources a long time ago as they know very well I will find it. There is a joke about me which says: If Jasmina can't find it, it ain't there!
Anyway, Kudoz to all the people enabling the site and Kudoz to all of them because of raising student awareness regarding intellectual property infringement!
Keep up the great work it will most certainly make a difference. I am completely sure about that.
Jasmina
Hi, Jasmina.
DeleteThanks for reading my blog and for checking out the great site that my faculty members have created. It still has some glitches, but I hope that they can be worked out as well.
I love that your students know you as a being hard on plagiarism. Do you use Turnitin or some other tool, or do you just have suspicions and then cut and paste into google a sentence and try to find it?
It is hard to measure if my project is successful or not. We never know what goes through students' minds in last minutes of desperation when a report or project is due. However, at least in my classes, I want to give them fewer opportunities where they actually depend on cutting and pasting from the Internet.
Good luck in week 9!
Evelyn
Hi Evelyn,
DeleteWhen it comes to checking on my students' writing, I usually follow a hunch. I cannot really explain it, but I used to choose one or two of them quite randomly and it was two out of three I would catch cheating. Now I check with the younger students, whereas the older ones usually stop trying after some time. Of course, there will always be some of them slipping through. It is impossible to check each one of them. However, I am not giving up. I want them to understand that true knowledge comes from one's own mind and imagination and only that kind of knowledge will be respected and rewarded.
I do use the old-fashioned way of checking that you mention, but I also use some free online tools, such as Plagtracker, Grammarly or Plagiarism checker.
We have mentioned it many times, it is so difficult to check all our students. The attempt your faculty is making is an example of how important it is to raise student awareness rather than keep catching them red-handed. This is a truly exhausting ordeal, but we will have to undergo it if we want to achieve a difference.
I shall keep my fingers crossed and hope all our students will be getting more and more aware of the fact that only true knowledge is rewarding.
Jasmina
Hi Evelyn,
ReplyDeleteThank you for sharing the website that you created with your faculty. I have already added it to my Delicious. I am sure that you will tackle the issue of plagiarism, as you dedicate much effort and work to this fight. You will help China get rid of plagiarism!
I tried this summer some mussels. I didn't dare before. I liked them!
Ina
Hi, Ina.
DeleteI hope that your project has gone well. I know how passionate you are about plagiarism as well, so hopefully both of us can conquer it! Did you find some interesting tools that you can incorporate to try to prevent plagiarism?
Mussels - I love them too! Seafood is not usually an American thing, so I am grateful that I have gotten the opportunity to live in Asia where these foods are more prevalent.
I hope all is well, and see you in week 9!
Evelyn
Dear Evelyn,
ReplyDeleteI want to begin by thanking you for being my partner and providing me with thorough feedback that I will surely incorporate in my final project. I must say that your students are very fortunate to have you since we rarely find teachers who are as passionate as you are and this shows clearly even though we are long distance from each other!
I can understand what it means to try to survive without water; not only did I experience that during the war in my country but last Wednesday as well! Water leaked from the hot water tank to our electricity board, so we had to disconnect the current from our apartment , so no internet, no T.V.,no lights, etc...and to top it all Thursday was Independence Day in Lebanon, so no technician was to be found to fix the problem. We had to wait until Friday morning to have it recovered. my kids did not like the situation,but it was an opportunity for them to experience what we did in the past and later they appreciated what we now have!
On another note, I checked what you prepared on the wiki and I loved the jumbled sentences on plagiarism; my husband tried to unscramble one and felt the exercise a challenging one!
Good luck on your final project!
Paula
Hi, Paula!
DeleteThanks for sharing your project with me as well! It has been a pleasure working with you and getting to know you. I am planning to continue this blog, trying to focus on learning experiences as well as teaching, so I hope that you keep yours too so that we can stay in touch!
That's horrible to hear about your water situation! I know how hard it must have been - not only to be without water but without electricity too! Your kids must have been terrified! I am sorry that they had to experience that!
Yes, the jumbled sentence was a little hard! I am glad to know that your husband was challenged by it. I am going to see if my son can do it! He might have trouble too!
Good luck as you get your final project ready for submission!
Evelyn