"Reading Progress" in Microsoft Teams

 Thanks to the generous help of Kelvin Kan Ka Hei, I had the chance to test-drive the new AI-assisted Pronunciation Assessment function within Microsoft Teams, called Reading Progress. 

Under Reading Progress, the teacher uploads a reading passage to Teams, and assigns it as a Reading-Aloud assignment. Afterwards, the programme will (a) return a percentage grade for each submitted assignment, and (b) provide a diagnostic report on the performance (i.e.., words highlighted showing mispronunciations, omissions, insertions, etc.). The teacher does not have to listen to each recording, as the assessment is all done by the AI programme. 

My own test-drive shows that the AI programme is quite reliable in terms of assessing the pronunication of individual words, but still has to do further 'learning' in terms of listening for features of connection speech, such as weak forms, linking, elision, and assimilation. 

From 'teacher-student' to 'peer'

 今天下午到這學校和老師就著一個 P2 RaC Unit進行co~planning。其中三位是我的舊Education student，這是令我最有滿足感的活動。當年我是她們的師訓「班主任」，然後她們畢業後成為前線教師，積聚經驗，今天充滿創意和教學熱誠，然後我們由「師徒」變為教學的peer,一同備課。有我這樣經歷的同工應該不會很多哩。

International Outstanding e-Learning Awards

 擔任了這比賽英文組評判幾年，親眼看到參賽水平一年高過一年，像今年中學金獎已經把CoSpaces Edu融入中一的教學設計，小學金獎在小二已經用Flipgrid組織學生分享經驗。

這就是e-learning 吸引人之處，工具在那裏，但怎樣運用於教學上，這當中有無限的空間。有創意的教師可以不斷鑽研，專業水平便不斷提高，學與教都變得更有效，更有趣。

Classroom Dynamics

 Yesterday morning, I observed an excellent S3 flipped lesson at this school (Ho Lap College). The lesson demonstrated all the most important principles of flipped learning design. The pre-class work prepared students with the key concepts for the upcoming lesson. The in-class lesson concentrated on active learning and higher-order thinking activities. 

What particularly impressed me was the superb classroom dynamics. The teacher, Ms Li, connected with the students seamlessly throughout the lesson. Every student was focussed and on task, and took part in every activity with utmost enthusiasm. They supported and collaborated with each other, rather than trying to one-up their classmates. I could feel the very strong bonding between the teacher and the students, and between the students themselves. Every person in the classroom was engrossed in the same teaching and learning journey. On two occasions, the teacher, Ms Li, proudly proclaimed to the whole class: “I love you all!” And the whole class reciprocated, spontaneously, with “We love you, too!”

Such classroom dynamics don’t just happen by chance. The teacher must have spent a lot of time at the beginning of the school year building up this class cohesion and ethos!

Fake news

 昨天 Kelvin Cheung 在分享中談到要訓練學生判斷在網上找到的資訊的質素和真偽，當時他的其中一個例子就是下圖。記得當年一位舊學生知道我喜歡蒐集這類例子，於是立刻傳給我，我當時也很懷疑它的真偽，因為錯得太離譜，不合常理。