Sharing: Enhancing collaboration with Miro for Express students [English Language]
Ms Amanda Chin (New Town Secondary School)
Miro is essentially a digital whiteboard that can be used for collaboration and co-creation. The tool is not new to me, but through the sharing, I can see how with a clear frame and well-thought out scaffolds, Miro can be used effectively to promote collaboration and self-directed learning.
Presenter's Miro Board - 3 Express English [Unit 1: Social Media]: Link here.
Some ways the presenter used the board:
Monitor and provide feedback: The teacher used post-its to provide comments to students when they were doing group work [White post-its are posted by the teacher].
The teacher shared that she first got her students to share their takeaways on a blank frame. She then synthesised the information gathered and got students to categorise the post-its into 4 main categories [i.e. something I learnt about feminism/gender equality; inequality for men' inequality for women; Emma Watson's speech writing techniques].
I thought that this was a very good way to help students consolidate learning at the class level. The physical movement of the post-its into the respective categories could also benefit visual learners.
At a corner of the board, she added a frame for self-directed learning materials, as well as a frame on writing tips. She shared that the addition of the writing tips frame raised the 'standards' of questions she received in class, since the commonly-asked questions were sufficiently addressed by the writing tips frame. Yay to helping students to become more independent in their learning!
Useful Features: Miro
Elements that can be added to the board include text, shapes, stickers, connection lines (arrows), sticky notes, comments and many more. You can also draw freely on the board using the pen function.
There are also other useful templates you can explore, including some below:
One thing I like about Miro is the different modes of presentations you can choose from: the presentation mode is useful to help learners focus on a particular frame you wish for them to interact with at the moment, while free navigation mode gives learners the freedom to explore the full board.
Wen Xin's Miro Board [VR Exploration]
After the session, I was rather intrigued and decided to create my own Miro board to tap on its affordances. The board I created was an exploration of the affordances of the use of Virtual Reality in the classroom. Got some of my colleagues to be my guinea pigs to use the Miro board in facilitating adult learning (Thanks Joshua, Arnold and Cryst!).
You can explore the board created below in 2 modes - presentation mode & free navigation mode.
Presentation Mode:
Free Navigation Mode:
Overview
You can see from the board below how I made use of clearly labelled frames (i.e. Step 1 to 6) and arrows to facilitate easy navigation of the board. This would allow self-directed/asynchronous learning to take place with ease as well.
The frames were also coloured-coded according to the Active Learning Processes (hehe).
Activating Learning
I made use of emoji stickers and shapes (black circles) to create a poll. Learners drag the circle to the emoji that best describes what they feel about using tech tools with their students. I also used the KWL scaffold for learners to activate prior knowledge, develop a purpose for learning, and eventually review their learning.
Promote Thinking & Discussion
I embedded a reading in PDF format, where learners delve deeper into the PICRAT model, a technology integration model.
After reading the document, learners then answered a few questions using the sticky notes. The questions posed seek to help learners reflect on/ draw connections to their past classroom practices, and apply what they have gleaned from the reading to design future learning experiences.
Useful Resources
Taking inspiration from the SgLDC presenter, I also created a resource bank of sorts by embedding a Google Slides deck and useful links for learners to explore.
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