Slides from a talk given to the Trinity Group in July 2010

1. Reflections on using ICT in teaching EconomicsTalk to the Trinity Group Geoff Riley Eton College 2nd July 2010

2. Which business has these locations in this area?

3. Which business has locations here?

4. Digital tools in Economics Teaching A selected guide

5. Drop Box for file sharing (superb) Reuters EcoWin (for real time economics data charts) Expression Engine (for blogs) Wordle.net (for word clouds) Data Visualisation sites (FT, WSJ, World Bank) Google Wave, Google Docs and other Google Apps Twitter (incredibly useful!) You Tube – great for embedding resources! Snag It (brilliant screen capture) or Zing (for the Mac) RSS feeds (for streaming news stories) Moodle (for a great open-source VLE) My day to day digital toolbox

6. Drop Box Superb for online back up and file sync

7. Eco Win Real time macroeconomic and financial data

8. Paste-Linked to PowerPoint Automatically updates charts in my main teaching presentations

9. Wordle.net for word clouds Word clouds can be very effective for student input and engagement

10. Data Visualisation These sites (inc the one from the FT above) are likely to become ever more popular and effective in the months ahead

11. The potential of Google Wave? Now available to all with an email address – real time collaboration

12. A wave on the fishing crisis

13. Joining the Twitterattzi

14. A selection of twitter feeds

15. Podcasts for Economics

16. TED talks – inspirational material

17. RSA animate – a wonderful idea!

18. Moodle – My E-Learning System of Choice

19. The Tutor2u Economics VLE

20. Building a more Interactive VLE for Economics – Some Ideas to Try

21. AS Macro Course – Home Page

22. Assignments and online grading

23. Organised by topic

24. Online quizzes (very popular!)

25. Subject Glossaries Course-wide glossaries Topic-based glossaries Freedom for students to generate their own entries and link them to other web content And rate those of others (peer assessment) Give students responsibility for a topic / area? Auto-linking entries means that glossary terms appear throughout the Moodle course Glossary can embed other digital content such as You Tube videos

26. An example from the AS Micro Glossary

27. Include links to blog articles

28. Auto links glossary to fresh content

29. Linking content to keep a glossary fresh!

30. Student-generated glossaries Give the students a topic E.g. Monopolistic markets The global recession Generate a cluster of concepts for research Allocate or get students to choose Researched and written in text format Encourage them to support with examples And link to other resources Ideal for revision – print out as a booklet

31. Example – behavioural economics

32. Each student contributed two items – duplication allowed

35. Encouraging Students to Blog! Encouraging a different style of writing Helps to build a narrative / apply new concepts “This week your blog should be on a market of your choice” Builds some web skills Tagging of blog entries Linking to articles on the web Reflections on the learning experience Effective for students on a new course The challenge is to sustain it over a course! This is one of my big targets for 2010-11

36. Within the VLE students can read the blogs of other people in their groups

38. Forums are a great way of getting students to use Moodle

39. Another example – from AS macro

40. Developing the forum concept Great opportunities here for extension and enrichment activities Reading “by stealth” ! Real potential for improving data response technique e.g. Responses to charts / tables Embedding video or podcasts into a forum question and asking students to reflect on what they see Student comments on forum posts of their peers Moodle has a range of different forum options

41. A Year with Moodle Building content and community is key Aims for 2010-11 Embed more audio visual into the VLE Set different types of assignments using blogs and forums and other options Develop new styles of online quizzes Encourage student collaboration e.g. embedding Google Wave into Moodle Encourage colleagues to try it! And utilize a VLE to stretch gifted & talented

42. Trying more challenging activities

43. Looking ahead A Martini web - delivering fresh learning content through ubiquitous mobile devices – anytime anywhere Students encouraged to be non-linear in their approach to schoolroom work Proper macroeconomic and micro simulation games A new generation of “no-fear teachers” with their ICT Genuine and sustained collaboration through digital tools by students and by teachers Webinar software to become standard Linking social networks to teaching & learning software Face to face interaction more not less important No diminution in the power and importance of good classroom teaching!

44. Please contact me VLE is at http://vle.tutor2u.net Email: geoff@tutor2u.net Twitter: www.twitter.com/tutor2u_econ