This document discusses AeCTS, a methodology for teaching with technology that focuses on solving authentic problems. AeCTS stands for Authentic problem, Exit strategy, Clear outcome, Thinking skills, and Software skills. It provides examples of lessons planned according to the AeCTS framework, including developing a social service announcement video and creating a podcast about monuments. The document emphasizes that AeCTS lessons engage students by focusing on meaningful, real-world problems and using technology tools to develop higher-order thinking skills.

1. AeCTS
Technology for Teaching
Angélica Guevara Bernal
Centro Colombo Americano Pereira – Cartago
Octubre 11 de 2013

3. Priscilla Northon
& Dawn Hathaway
George Mason University

4. What is AeCTs for?
Real
Problems
Solving

5. What is AeCTs for?
Authentic
Problems
Solving

6. How do we solve authentic
problems?
Tools
Thinking
Skills

7. What are thinking skills?
Thinking skills are
mental processes
that we apply when
we seek to make
sense of
experience.
Bloom’s Taxonomy
Thinking Skills:

8. Thinking Skills
Real
Problem
s
Analyzing
Rememberin
g
Understandin
g
Applying
Evaluating Creating

9. How to solve
authentic problems?
Individually? Collaborativel
y?

10. Which type of tools?
Tools
«During humankind’s
evolution, more
complex structures of
activity mediated by
more complex tools
produce more complex
mental structures.»
Lev. Vigotsky

11. About Tools (Mediators)
– Lev. Vigotsky
«Two phenomena marked the mediated
relationship of humans with the environment:
- The use of tools within a social organized
activity.
- The use of language as a cultural form of
mediation.
«By using activity mediators, the human being is able
to modify the environment and this is her way of
interacting with nature.»
http://www.slideshare.net/dtr200x/vygotskys-theory-of-cognitive-development-presentation

13. Which type of tools?
O Tools that help students produce
knowledge.
O Tools of which we are aware what their
affordances are.
O Tools that help develop thinking skills.
O Tools that are easy to use.
O Tools that serve the goal of a lesson.

14. Authenti
cProble
ms
How to solve authentic
problems?
Appropriate
Tools
Thinking
Skills

15. What does AeCTS stand for?
A uthentic
problem
S oftwaree xit strategy C lear
outcome
T hinking
skills

16. AeCTS
AeCTS is, in my view, the methodology for
teaching with technology tools.
When used, the teacher can find ways to
make technological tools solve real
problems, which means that the lesson will
be focused on solving a problem not on
learning how special software works.

17. A uthentic Problem
For creating authentic problems we need to bear in
mind that problems have to make sense for students.
They are described as very appealing and
challenging.
Authentic problems need to be completely related to
the real world or the real context in which they live.
When lessons are designed around authentic
problems and make students care about the task that
they are completing, the lesson is more successful.

18. E xit Strategy
This exit strategy tells us about the other
many opportunities the authentic problem
can derive.
Students can take a part in designing slight
modifications to the outcomes.

19. C lear Outcome
“The product”
Students will no longer reproduce knowledge but
produce content.
The technology tools that we choose must be rooted
in that specific product we want our students to
create for developing their linguistic competences:
- Listening
- Reading
- Writing
- Speaking

20. T hinking Skill
We need to be consider those thinking skills that we want
our students to develop when working on an AeCTS
lessons.
How that specific thinking skill will develop the
competences?
- Listening
- Reading
- Writing
- Speaking
We need to design lessons and opportunities that don't
just teach students how to learn but rather how to think.

21. S oftware Skills
AeCTS tell us about teaching only the specific
software skills that will meet the goals of the
lesson.
Tool Affordances
The properties of an specific tool: those that
best serve the goals of my lesson.
In other words, «To match the tool with the
goal.»

22. Planning a Lesson
with AeCTS

23. Planning a Lesson with AeCTS
1. What are my goals?
2. What thinking skills do I want to develop in
my students?
3. What language competences do I want to
develop in my students?
4. How can that tool or software be useful for a
specific lesson?
5. What are the affordances of that specific
tool?
6. What is the product the students will create
at the end of the lesson?

24. What are the Tool Affordances
of…
- Podcasts
- Videos
- Wikis
- Blogs
- WebQuests
- Databases
- Other Web
2.0 tools
http://mason.gmu.edu/~
mjaeckel/portfolio/innov
ator/afford.html

26. Instructional Time

27. Which elements of that tool (software) will
you teach to your students?

28. The time you spend on preparing your students
for the lesson is the key for great results.

29. Students will play, explore, and assign
meaning and function to what they do.

31. Social Service Announcement
Video
O AUTHENTIC PROBLEM:
You will raise awareness on the following issues:
- Online predators.
- Internet Fraud
- Viruses
- Cyberbullying
- On line plagiarism
O Exit strategy: Students’ ideas on the topic.
O CLEAR OUTCOME: Reinforcing the four competences.
O THINKING SKILLS: remembering, understanding,
analyzing, applying, evaluating, creating.
O SOFTWARE SKILLS: How to make a video and how to
handle the Flip Camera.

32. Guidelines for making a video
By Ahmed Bakouch
http://bakouchahmed.pbworks.com/w/page/63527697/Technology%20Integration

35. Monument Moments
O AUTHENTIC PROBLEM:
You will participate in the latest production of Travel
Cast Series of Real Travel Experiences Magazine.
O Exit strategy: Students’s ideas on the topic.
O CLEAR OUTCOME: Reinforcing the four
competences.
O THINKING SKILLS:
understanding, analyzing, applying, evaluating, cre
ating.
O SOFTWARE SKILLS: Audacity: steps and helpful
information about what to use from the software.
See the whole lesson here.

38. Porfolios
O AUTHENTIC PROBLEM:
Students will gather all the artifacts made during
the lessons and write their own reflections on
the most relevant topics.
O Exit strategy: Students’s ideas.
O CLEAR OUTCOME: Reinforcing the four
competences.
O THINKING SKILLS: understanding, analyzing,
applying, evaluating, creating.
O SOFTWARE SKILLS: Pbworks.

39. Why using AeCTS to design
your lessons?
Successful Classes integrating technology follow the
AeCTS and SSCC (Search, Sort, Create,
Communicate) design principles because:
 They allow for students to collaborate and
synthesize material into something meaningful to
them.
 They help turn something abstract into something
that is concrete and therefore meaningful to the
student.
 They can be used with both technological and non-
technological tools.
 They better scaffold the instruction and student
work into smaller pieces.

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41. Many Thanks!!
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