Words and Ideas

CTJ Seminar: Bridging the Communication Gap in multimedia classes

2010-07-26T06:56:00.000-07:00

CTJ Seminar: Bridging the Communication Gap in Multimedia Class

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   I presented this session in Brasília along with my fellow colleague Rodrigo Santana.
   We started talking about the generation gap between both of us. Hence the first slides containing pictures of old equipments that we no longer have.

   I tried to tell Rodrigo that mimeograph was around when I was studying but he didn't believe it so much. :) I guess I should be flattered.

   Mimeograph or not, when I started teaching none of these webtools were available and the importance of a communication class relied mostly on the ability of the teacher of preparing material and questions that would mostly stimulate and encourage students to talk.

Now we have the tools and technology but are we using them as effectly as we can in order to promote conversation?

   That was what we wanted to exploit, discuss and reflect.

   We believe that discussion was important because we are efl, esl teachers and us such, conversation is very important while learning a new language.

   As a matter of fact if we ask people why they are enrolling in your school, most of them will probably answer: “ I want to speak English”.

   Slide 9 would illustrate some of the gaps we have come across while observing conversation classes in the multimedia class.

   I would like to highlight the following gaps:

Learning tasks that are totally based on receptive skills

   This is what I think: you may be using the latest tool there ir, with a beautiful class on your hands. You may be having fun and even your students may be having fun as well. BUT if they are not engaging the learning process actively or if they are not producing anything ….then you might as well be wasting your time in a very beautiful tech way.

The predominat use of LOTS

And that of course would depend on the choice of teachers: whether it’s in a regular or multimedia class.

Teachers usually have such sharp radar when it comes to selecting activities that result in effective learning experiences. We shouldn’t disregard that just because we have a computer in class. On the contrary, we should sharpen this radar even more because there are more choices to me made.

In our school we have the Edtech teacher training course all through the semester and one of the directors came to me after the presentation and said something which I thought very interesting:

He said “ I feel like I’m in a supermarket staring at all these products. All I want is to make a cake but I have no idea where or how to even begin to choose what is it that I need.”

I can understand him.

When we think about the tidal amount of information on the web, it can be overwhelming but what a teacher must never do is to move away from their focus, their goal. What is it that you want?

You want to bake a cake, you want to make pie…feijoada?

Ok!So Let’s try to find the best material there is in order to make it as delicious as possible.

I have put all slides available for download at: http://ctjseminar2010.pbworks.com/
In the link you will find all videos and activities we presented.

Reported Speech and Communicative Homework Assignments using MyBot

2010-05-19T14:30:00.000-07:00

Last year I had a great online session with Ozge, modarated by blog diva Ana Maria.
Ozge shared amazing tools she uses with her students and I have been exploring them all little by little.

Today I am going to talk about one of them. It is called MyBot.
MyBot is a platform that allows you to have a conversation with a machine.

I have practiced talking to Morpheus- the name of the machine- many times but has never thought about practical usages for it with students.

The good thing is that you are able to practice writing and listening as the program will read his replies out loud.

You should know that the website does not record the conversation. Therefore, it would be difficult to assign it as homework because you wouldn't be able to check it. However, if your students screencast the conversation, that would change the efficacy of the assignment.

I'm sure they would enjoy doing this kind of homewok.

I have recorded my conversation with Morpheus using Screenr. Check it out:

Another way of using Morpheus is for Reported Speech.

Task: Ask these questions to Morpheus and report his answers on the following class:

1) What is your name?
2) Are you married?
3) What are you going to do tomorrow?
3) When were you born?
4) Did you watch Tv yesterday?

You can also practice reported speech by doing the opposite and asking the students to report what Morpheus has asked them.

Some extracts of our conversation earlier on:

Funny.Photo

2010-05-17T13:56:00.000-07:00

I came across this site Funny.Photo randomly on the web and I exploited it for a while on saturday.
There are so many options and it is just so easy to use.

You can create customized images, slideshows, give effects, make cartoons and more.

Slideshow:

Creating Effect:

Customized Image

Me again

Tired of e already?
Too bad. There is more

Na'vi me

These kind of websites are fun to make your blogs happier, to work on description with your students or even parts of the body with a twist.

Story Telling with Bookr and Mixbook

2010-05-14T07:52:00.000-07:00

A friend was having trouble using her own pictures to create a Bookr so I decided to write this post to explore this tool and another one that can also be used for online story telling.

Bookr as you know is a tool from flickr. If you want to have your own pictures published with Bookr, you have to register at Flickr.

Once you register, just upload the pictures you want, tag them and make sure the pictures are registered under the Creative Commons license.

The tutorial below will ilustrate what I just wrote:

I use Bookr when I want my students to create e-stories with random pictures.
Last semester, there was a unit in the book called Horror.After we exploited the vocab and the structures, students created their own stories using Bookr.

It was great. They loved it.

Below you will see and example of one of my former students.

There are more examples of them in my student's blog

However, when I want to use my own pictures I prefer another tool called Mixbook.
It is just more practical to upload your pictures right to the website and work with them.

I prepared a Mixbook of my trip to NYC last year using it.
You just upload the pictures, choose a template and type what you want.
It has a great effect.

View Sample Photo Books
Create your own Photo Book

Both options are great for authentic learning experiences and both of them offers you the embed code to put in your blog, edmodo or whatever you use to share.

I hope you find it useful.

Have a great weekend you all!

Spicing up your Students' Writing: Livetyping

2010-05-03T14:40:00.000-07:00

While watching Alex Session on saturday called "What's in it for my students?" I learned about so many interesting webtools.
The thing about a good teacher is that they are always with their students in mind. So, while learning a new tool they NEVER think about showing off their tech talents. Instead, the question that comes to their mind is: How can it benefit my students? How can it help them produce?

Alex is one of those great teachers who simply inspire us.

One of the tools she showed which caught my attention the most was the Livetyping.
What makes Livetyping great is: it is so easy to use, no regristration required and offers you a chance to actually see how your students are writing.

If you have a student that is a bit weaker in Writing, this is a chance to see exactly which approach will be more effective.

Suggestion: Assign the composition, ask your students to send you the link to your e-mail or post it ad Edmodo.

LiveTyping.com

Like I said, the tool is very simple but I recorded a tutorial anyway.

Neat way to organize shared material

2010-04-28T05:56:00.000-07:00

This posts aims to explore Pbworks page for organizing the content you find online or, in my case, the content teachers in our institution find and share.

We share a lot of material through Edmodo but as much as I love Edinho (loving nickname) it is not easy to find things we shared a long time ago. Even using the tags, the search takes too long.

So, I decided to take the best material teachers were sharing and store them in place that would be easy to find.

That idea comes from the principle that: in order to make any new department work, you have to lower the cost of the transaction as much as possible while you emphasize the benefits teachers will get from it.

The place I choose to organize our material is a wiki page called Pbworks.

When we talk about Wikis there are a lot of misunderstandings as people tend to think of .....

That is right: wikipedia and assume that is the only wiki page there is.

In fact, there are many others: pbworks, wetpaint, etc.

The other question a get a lot is: " But what does it do?"

It is similar to a blog but even more collaborative.

What I mean is that while in a blog only the owner can write posts, in a wiki all participants can post, edit and change information.

Remember that the principles of a wiki are basically:

*Collaboration

*Knowlegde constructed by a group of people

I chose PBworks just because I had already exploited it and new a few things about the settings. It is NOT as intuitive as a blog but once you get the hang of it, things work smoothly. I promisse.

Tips: if you want a free site create more than one page and divide the material into them.

Why?

Because you only get 2Gb with each wiki and by using more than one you expand that limit considerably.

So, I created a wiki page for each group and then created another one - a Main Page- and stored the links to all the others pages. That way, teachers would have ONE place that would lead them to all the others coursebook wikis.

This is our main wiki: CCBEU GOIANIA

For every wiki there is a Host or Hostess(created using Voki) that will tell the user where he should click to find what he/she is looking for.

The links are right in the Front Page.

So, when they click on Class Wikis they will be directed to.....

There they can find all the content divided in to the courses we teach.

Let's suppose they want to access the material of Junior, whose coursebook is American Adventures.

While the CCBEU Goiania wiki is available to anyone, the coursebook wikis are password protected.

This way we make sure only the staff has acess to the material stored there.

In the Front Page of the class wiki, teachers will find Links, Videos, Quizlets and Online Exercises, that can be used as a lead-in, assigned as homework or even to practice the content in class.

The other section of the wiki is the Files. I've selected the best material we shared to store in each unit.

As these wikis are not open to everyone, I recorded a tutorial showing teachers how to log in and how to find what hey are looking for,

Another tutorial showing how to explore it:

Integrating Technology in CCBEU: Before and After

2010-03-20T15:41:00.000-07:00

Our technology department is recent but some the changes are huge.
For example: In the past we had 2 groups of teachers- who were completely opposites.

Now these opposites are starting to attract.

What I mean is: the group who used technology were seen as a group who didn't understand a a lot about methodology and the group who didn't use were seen as not updated.

Now we have teachers who weren't used to e-boards, getting excited about their possibilities. We also have e- teachers starting to have questions about the usage of technology while delivering student-centered classes.

That is exciting to any Tech Department and for that matter, technology has already been a positive change: to light up a fire for discussing what is the most important thing in all the process : authentic learning experiences.

Another thing that has changed is our communication.

Before we used e-mail and now :

Edmodo has changed the way we share, make announcements, talk. It is where we find people who have the same worries, struggles, feelings that we do.
I'll tell you: effective communication is the key to so many things.

So, it is not perfect and we still have a lot of work ahead but things are looking up and I'm confident about what we have accomplished so far.

Have you ever for experiences using Episode of Friends

2010-03-14T12:38:00.000-07:00

I was watching Friends the other day and this scene has a lot of Present Perfect to be exploited.
Check it out:

First I thought about asking them questions about the video.
I prepared an activity which will allow the students to formulate the questions in a more controlled practice.

Have you ever for experiences using friends

View more presentations or Upload your own.

Then, we can have students underlining the sentences where they see HAVE or HAS + Participle for experiences.

Underline all Present Perfect examples as you listen.

Ross: So they said our table will be ready in just a few minutes.

Kristen: Oh great!

Ross: Yeah.

Kristen: Is your back feeling better?

Ross: Oh yeah it’s fine. I guess the more muscles you have the more they can spasim out of control.

Joey: (entering) Kristen?

Kristen: Joey!

Joey: Hi!

Kristen: Hi! What are you doing here?

Joey: Oh I like this place. And technically, technically I’m not breaking any rules so I…

Kristen: Well uh, Ross? This is Joey. Joey? Ross.

Joey: Hi!

Ross: Hi. (They shake hands.) It’s nice to meet you. I used to have a friend named Joey. I don’t anymore.

Kristen: Our table will be ready in a couple minutes.

Ross: Yeah. So…

Joey: Sure! I would love to wait with you guys! Thanks! (Sits down.)

Ross: So Joey umm, you look familiar. Are uh, are you on TV or something?

Kristen: Well Joey doesn’t like to talk about it but, he’s one of the stars of Days Of Our Lives.

Ross: That’s right! That’s right, don’t you play a woman?

Joey: A woman in a man’s body.

Ross: Much better.

Joey: So y’know Ross it’s funny ‘cause, you look familiar to me too. Have you ever been married?

Ross: Well yes, yes I have. In fact umm, just the other day Kristen and I were talking about how I’ve been married and how I have a son.

Kristen: Yeah, little Eric.

Ross: That’s right! Wait no, Ben.

Joey: So you’ve just married the one time then?

Ross: Well umm…

Kristen: You’ve been married twice?

Ross: Yes. And another time after that. Boy I’m getting hungry! Hey Joey, have you ever been so hungry on a date that when a girl goes to the bathroom you eat some of her food?

Kristen: You said the waiter ate my crab cake.

Joey: (laughs that one off) Yeah. So uh Ross, well now—why did that first marriage breakup? Was it because the woman was straight or she was a lesbian?

Kristen: Do you two know each other?

Joey and Ross: No. No.

Joey: No. It just seems like Ross is the kind of a guy that would marry a woman on the verge of being a lesbian and then push her over the edge.

(Kristen is not enjoying this.)

Ross: Wait a minute! Were you on a poster for gonorrhea?

Joey: Have you ever slept in the same bed as a monkey?!

Ross: Hey you leave Marcel out of this!

Joey: Fine! Have you ever got stuck in a pair of your own leather pants?!

Ross: Hey-hey have you ever locked yourself in a TV cabinet VD boy?!

Joey: Monkey lover!

(They both notice that Kristen has left.)

Joey: When do you think we lost her?

Ross: Probably around gonorrhea.

Finally, we can ask students to role play a similar situation: they work in pairs to come up with embarassing questions to their friends using Present Perfect: Have you ever...?

Surprise

2010-03-06T18:31:00.000-08:00

Today I got a great surprise from Camila: two awards for Words and Ideas.

It was lovely to receive it but mostly I was happy to get to know Camila's blog which is beautiful and has an incredible name: 2 teach is 2 touch lives 4 ever.

Isn't it true?

So....The rules are:

1.Thank the person who nominated you for this award and insert a link to their blog.

2. Pass on the award to 5-10 other bloggers who you recently discovered and think are great!

3. Contact the other bloggers and let them know they have been chosen for this award.
4. Say 7 things about yourself.

7 things people might not know about me

1. I adore animals and go crazy when I see or hear stories about abuse and mistreat.

2. I'm a rock and roll kind of girl.

3.My friends are very important to me.

4. I have a total irrational fear of flying.

5. My poisons are: coffee and the web.

6. I enjoy routine but I am strangely always changing everything around and in me.

7. I try to be tough but I'm a sucker for displays of affection and romantic gestures.

Camila, Thank you so much.

Creativity in class and in life

2010-02-22T13:36:00.000-08:00

-You have to be creative!!!!!
Yeah....right. As if creativity is something we could just turn on and off whenever we want.

It doesn't happen that way.
Before I used to get "blocked" quite often, just staring at my lesson plan page for a long time before having an inspiration to write something down.

That inspiration thing is also something to think about.
I've heard authors who I admire profoundly saying that is mostly about hard work rather than inspiration.
"More transpiration, less inpiration".

Creativity is important not only in class as we currently live in a fast paced, changing world. In a world where traditional methods don't seem to work any more and we are constantly facing problems that are completely new.
There is another factor which is technology.
Being an edtech teacher forces you to explore the unknown and broaden your options. It also connects you with incredibly talented teachers who stimulates your brain on regular basis.

We know it is important to be creative but is it possible to stimulate it?

As my skills as a teacher began to develop, as I got more secure about choices I had to make ,as I become more aware of human's personality, I started to feel my classes were more innovative.

I am no expert but speaking from my own experience, I think that in order to stimulate your mind to think "outside the box" we have to first:

* Stop undermining our NEW ideas.
Maybe it is because we are insecure, maybe it has something to do with the unknown and unexplored but whenever something new pops up, our mind tends to immediatley over think it, over criticize it and most of us end up disregarding that new thought that was about to be born.

* Connect to people:
I feel suddenly energized when I am near engaged, motivated teachers. I also feel the exact opposite when I'm around teachers with negative thinking.
Sharing ideas, experiences, worries stimulates our brain and allows us to step away from patterned thinking.
It is refreshing to hear a teacher sharing something you have never even thought about.
Taking up the previous tip: don't be afraid to explore it.

* Look at the big picture
I am always saying this to teachers "Run as fast as you can from your comfort zone". I say that because I believe teaching is a dynamic process and we are constantly challenged to explore new horizons.

* Take risks
Answer me fast: Who are the best learners in class? Who are the students who develop more in our groups?
I'm sure we all agree that are the students who take more chances, who expose themselves more often, who takes risks, who aren't afraid of making a mistake.
As professionals we can't randomly do whatever we want. We have to be cautious, prudent but we can not avoid taking risks.
Calculate them, give our best try and if they don't work......At least you learned something new.
Language classes always require a good sense of humor. Enjoy that!

You know what thay say:
"Mistakes are a part of being human. Appreciate your mistakes for what they are: precious life lessons that can only be learned the hard way. Unless it's a fatal mistake, which, at least, others can learn from."

When we reach for the top of the box, when we are willing to look there and see what might there be outisde, we take a huge risk:
to

fall out to the other side and never ever feel like entering it again.

Exploring Edmodo for communicating with peers

2010-02-18T05:49:00.000-08:00

This post is due to a session I was preparing to present in our school this week.

As you can see it is all about Edmodo.

The biggest thing I wanted to emphasize was how using Edmodo for teacher's communication can be so much more rewarding than using e-mails.

The first thing you see in the chart are the differences between them.

BTW, I created the chart using creately which is a website I got from Ana Maria.

Then I prepared another presentation using Prezi.
I have to take a few moments to talk about how amazing Prezi is.
I know that on last review I only gave it 2 okay's but after I was able to download my presentation and I view it without internet I am addicted and can't stop using it.
So... PREZI,
This is just for you:

CCBEY Edtech Teacher training Course on Prezi

How to create a game at what2learn and insert it in your blog or powerpoint

2010-02-12T05:14:00.000-08:00

I've been using what2learn for a quite a while but had never fully explored all the options such us: keeping the score of students or inserting the game I created into my class powerpoint preparations.

It is even easier to organize. You can create a file with the all the games you have created to explore the vocabulary of each book.

That is why I recorded this tutorial to show you how to create a game - which should be incredibly fast- and insert the game in your powerpoint presentations.

This is the example of the games I have created for our FUN 1 course in which we use the book Smile 1 .

Online Games for Fun 1

View more presentations or Upload your own.

To play the games, press F5

Have a great weekend!

Activities for kids and Tokbox

2010-02-10T12:26:00.000-08:00

Today I was talking to a teacher about activities for kids and I shared some lesson plans with her.
In my lesson plans I usually invent my own name for the activities and I thought it would be better to explain these activities speaking rather than writing.

I used Tokbox to talk about them.

Do you know Tokbox?

It is just amazing and I'm totally addicted to it. I can't stop sending video mails to my peers and friends.
I heard about Tokbox in Ana Maria's online course.

With Tokbox you can create video mails which can be sent via e-mail or you get the embed code to share wherever you want.

How to use?

1º Create an account
2º Choose the option Create -> Message
3º Record your message
4º Specify one or more e-mails which will receive the video mail.
In case you want the embed code, send the video to yourself and once you have received it click on the link.

Here is mine. It took me a while to record a video of myself but as long as I'm talking about Education, I don't feel so embarassed. Do you feel the same?

Anyway: Focus, Andressa.
The purpose of this post is not just to talk about Tokbox but to share the kids activities.
Hope you like it!

TokBox - Free Video Chat and Video Messaging

Creating a Logo for your department

2010-02-04T12:50:00.000-08:00

Today, while preparing a session for the Welcome Back Meeting in our school, I felt the need of having a logo for the ITC department.
I found this one online: Free Logo Design and created one for CCBEU ITC.

It doesn't offer so many options but it is free.

Using the logo I tested the PhotoFunia which is site for manipulating images. I got the link with Ana Maria and Ozge.

Site of the Week

2010-02-01T04:54:00.000-08:00

I don't know how it can be used with students yet. Maybe for a Zero Class fun way to present yourself.
Hope you like it.

Exploiting Quizlet

2010-01-25T10:31:00.000-08:00

I was wondering about Quizlet for quite a while until the blog diva Ana Maria posted a tutorial about it.

So... with no further delay, I set myself to start organizing a Quizlet for all the books aimed for teens in our institution.

Ana Maria tutorial is pretty clear regarding what you can do and how you can use it with students.

I plan to post the quizlets in the class blogs for them to practice vocabulary at home.

The only downside about Quizlet is that it does not offer the embed code.

We all know how students are visual . Therefore, just putting a link for them to click would not be the correct amount of "spice".

There is an alternative: you can use Kwout to create an image of your Quizlet and students will be able to visualize what the activity actually is.

I suggest you to use it in class a few times to get them familiarized with its features and make them more comfortable and secure about using it at home.

My Quizlet example + Kwout Image:

T6 Unit 6 Sports Equipments flash cards via kwout

Quizlet

Just wonderful. I will even ignore the lack of embed code and give it the 3 Ok's

Integrating Newbies to Education 2.0

2010-01-21T08:31:00.000-08:00

Education: Integrating Staff to Web 2.0

I prepared this file for teachers who are about to enroll in our school and my goal was to show them a little bit of what we are already doing here but also show them ways they could grow and develop professionally beyond the institution.

I used a few presentations and videos as an inspiration and I give all credits at the end. As for the pictures, I took most of them at flickr and I hyperlinked all of them along with each image.

As sharing and connecting is what the web is all about: if you ever need something like that for work your study, I'll be glad to send you the presentation in full. Just send me an e-mail at: andressateacher@gmail.com

Peace and Sharing!

My Prezi: Web and Education

2010-01-18T11:38:00.000-08:00

I was introduced to Prezi through Ana Maria Menezes.

It is a great tool to cause a great efffect in a class or in a presentation.

What we need to consider before trying out Prezi is its concept: while in powerpoints and interactive boards softwares we work with the idea of slides, in Prezi we have a single page and you can write everywhere.

It doesn't really matter where you write, as soon as you finish, you have the option PATH and that will guide your presentation in the order you want.

Tip: don't write sentences too close together. You have space and don't be afraid to use it.

Ana Maria also showed me a TUTORIAL which made my life much easier.

My Prezi is a session for the Pre Service Training in CCBEU:

What I liked about Prezi was:

* Wonderful effect on presentations
*The embed code to put on your blog
* The option to share on twitter and facebook
* Their twitter support: @PreziSupport

What I didn't like about Prezi:

In presentations we have to make sure the "file" will work and ,although they have an option to download your Prezi, every time I tried I only got "corrupted file".

That's why Prezi got the 2 Ok's

Photo Peach Review

2010-01-15T05:13:00.000-08:00

Hello dear all,

I have a feeling my blog is dying and I have no one to blame but me.However, I'm not going to start preparing its funeral before giving it one more try first.
So, to all of you who drops by here every once and a while I'd like to wish a happy New Year.

With no further delay I'm here to talk about this wonderful Website called PhotoPeach.

Using Photo Peach you can create slideshows and even quizzes. It's very practical and intuitive.

Sue Waters made a explanatory post here .

How can you use it with ESL students?

* You can create interesting blog posts using it and ask assign them as homework.
* You can make a Quiz using pictures and ask questions using the structure they are learning.

My Example: I created a Quiz on the movie Avatar asking simple questions.

Avatar on PhotoPeach

It was so fast and the result is really appealing.

They also offer the code to embed in your blog or an option to share on twitter, facebook and other online plataforms.

For that reason, PhotoPeach receives the 3 OK's:

Interview with Carla Arena

2009-09-03T14:05:00.001-07:00

Digital Students

2009-08-31T05:48:00.001-07:00

Very interesting video

7th CTJ TEFL Program

2009-07-25T17:40:00.000-07:00

I had the pleasure of taking part of the seminar in CTJ.
It is always nice to learn and be inspired by people who you admire.
Among these people I admire is Carla Arena - enthusiastic Edtech teacher.She presented a very interesting session called Digital Magic which I will talk about later on. I also had the pleasure to meet Claudio Azevedo from the blog Movie to Asess Grammar Goals. Unfortunately I wasn't able to attend his session but I talked to him a little bit.

I also meet Jack Scholes who presented an inspiring session about how to deal with adolescents.
I will also write about it here.
Stay tuned.

Jack Scholes and I

Carla Arena and I

Men and Women

2009-05-31T20:04:00.000-07:00

Unit 3 of Intensive 3 starts out with a discussion focusing the differences between men and Women.

I prepared a class with a lot of stereotypical views of both genders which generated a lot of discussions.

I opened the class with these videos and it was a lot of fun.

Teachers or Superheroes ?

2009-05-27T13:40:00.000-07:00

When it comes to teaching, the work in class is the easy part and I mean it.

The work we have to do out of the class is the one that can sometimes " do the damage". Do you feel like that?

Let's see:

Prepare classes....No! Wait a second: prepare GREAT classes- that takes a big chunk of your time.

Prepare homework, correct the homework.

Learn new things, be updated on the latest technologies, have a blog, keep your blog updated, share activities with teachers, upload your material at Edmodo.

Gee! There goes my mornings.

Go to class, try to stablish a good rapport with your students, try to get respect and discipline at the same time, try to get along with parents, try to get their children to speak English, try to get their children to do homework.Put everything in the system.

Check the files, check who is going to stay after class, send students to the library, call the parents, put everything in the system.

Write the absences, hand the control slip of absent student, record everything in the system.

Check who is discouraged. Call, send e-mails. Talk to the mother, father, aunt, nanny.Put it in the system.

NOTE: Have an orkut account will help you "remember" their birthdays

Record it on the system.

Be aware of the schedule! Record it in the sy.....Ops!

While you keep an eye on the schedule come up with a presentation for the students to perform to their parents.

Worry about their grades, worry about their motivation, worry about their feedback. Put it in the system???

Participate on the institution's meeting, discussion, tests....

In the end of the day, you might hear a compliment and that is always nice. Right?

In the end of the day you might have to deal with criticism and that is natural and bla bla bla but it is also soul crushing sometimes.

That is a typical day. Just one.

Is it normal to go to bed at night and mentally go through the things you did hoping that you didn't leave anything behind?

Is it normal to wonder if all this work is worth it since- Let's face it- you are never gonna get rich doing it?

I must fall under a cliche to answer that one:

The love for an institution won't be enough. You must really love the choice you've made, the path of education. That information will NOT be in the system.

Movie Twilight To review Modal Verbs and Conditionals

2009-04-21T16:36:00.000-07:00

I prepared this activity for my T6 students to review a little bit of their content for the test which is Modal Verbs and Conditionals.
They've been asking me for that movie since the beginning of the semester. Hope it goes well.

Movie Twilight

Publish at Scribd or explore others: School Work esl movie twilight

Dealing with negativity or criticism in class

2009-04-20T20:09:00.001-07:00

Learning how to deal with negativity in class is quite important and can be also crucial while maintaining a balance and a good athmosphere in class.
That it's important we all know. On the other hand, it can be quite hard separating the remarks that come from laziness and the ones that are truly legit.

I find that hard to do mostly because I can be very protective of my classes. I struggle while preparing them, thinking about best ways to provoke and practice the structures....So, when- in the middle of the class- I hear something such us " This is boring!"- I have the urge to scream from the top of my lungs
- HOW DARE YOU?
Obviously, I don't do that. Instead I control myself and have recently come up with something really magic that has been changing my level of stress, which is: it's not personal.
Simple, isn't it?
Truth is: not everything is about you and there is a considerable chance that your students are not together in an evil plan to make your life miserable.

Having said that, there are acceptable ways for your students to crticize something and I am sure you know when a student is saying something that can be taken into consideration and when he/she is just crossing the line.

While doing that we may want to consider that some students don't have much people skills and it is up to you to stablish limits and appopriate ways to build an open and respectful communication-rapport- between you and them.

What about you? How do you deal with criticism in class?

Creating Images in a heart beat

2009-04-13T19:59:00.000-07:00

We all know how important it is to work with images in class.We also know that sometimes we are workloaded and have to come up with something ASAP.

With no further delay I'll show you the PIMPAMPUM- PHRASR

This is a feature from Flick, which is from Yahoo. They have great images.

When you open the homepage you'll be asked to type a sentence, but it doesn't have to be a sentece. Write words from the vocabulary you want to introduce.

I prepared one for my T6 class with the vocabulary of Legal and Illegal.

Here it is- Legal and illegal

When you finish selecting your images, send it to your e-mail so you can get the link and that's it.

My only complaint is that the images are shown very quickly and we can't control them.

How to register at Edmodo

2009-04-12T15:11:00.000-07:00

First of all, what is Edmodo?

It defines itself as a micro-blogging tool for education.

Edmodo is a private microblogging platform that teachers and students can use to send notes, links, files, alerts, assignments, and events to each other. Teachers also have the ability to mark any post from their classes as public to share with the outside world. You can also create private groups for you and your colleagues to collaborate. It's free & simple to use!

It is NOT public and that makes it much more useful for education. Think of it as a social network for a specific class, with some very basic file transfer and scheduling tools. I wouldn't use it as a substitute for Moodle, but it could be a neat way to engage students in a class and augment the regular methods of information transfer.

So far at the CCBEU we have a few teachers who are registered and already benefiting from sharing work, videos and classes.

I prepared a tutorial to help who doesn't have a hand out from the meeting.

Teaching and Technology

2009-04-12T14:47:00.000-07:00

Teaching is my career choice and technology is hands down one of the best friends I've found through this process.
As it usually happens with "best friend", the first impressions are NOT the ones that last longer.
At first it was scary but now I do not fear it anymore.I am curious about it, I am excited about the possibilities and the different ways I can reach my students.

I realized that the barriers we face at first are more related to our way of thinking than to unability to use certain tools itself. The thinking that holds us back is that New is bad, Old is good,, trutsworthy, solid.
The thing is we don't have to dispose the positive skills we have and trade them for technology. We can combine both and overcome chalenges and become better professionals.

Every beginnig is a little bit harder because when you feel overwhelmed you have no memories to hold on to. You have to create them.
Let me spare you some time and share what I have learned so far:

- When you see something neat and don't know how to do it, ask questions. People are a lot more willing to share that you might think.

- The more you use it, the more familiarized you'll get and the better will become.

- Images are very powerfull tools.

- Students know that you really prepared the class for them and will apreciate it even if something doesn't work perfectly well.

- The first classes I prepared for the eboard were nothing but suffering for me.
I felt stupid and I HATE feeling stupid. My students, however, seemed to like it so I carried on.
Once I realized that they were talking more, looking at pictures and asking questions and that I didn't have to get like a psycho in class trying to squeeze information out of them.....I was bitten.
At first I kept using the eboard because they liked it, now there is a very big chance that I like it more than them.

- Be careful! Manage your time to spend with famliy, pets,sleeping... because it is quite addictive.

What about you? How has your experience with technology been?

Peace and Gigabytes

Magic 8 Ball

2009-04-08T20:12:00.000-07:00

I had wished for a Magig 8 ball so many times while working with predictions.
Now I have one.

I've found it through the widgetbox which is a great link to add cool stuff to your blog.

Will I have a fabulous vacation strolling through Europe with my husband???
"Definetly"
If the Magic Ball said so......

Magic 8 Ballgreat free widgetsWidgetbox

Morphing Pictures and making a Slideshow

2009-04-07T06:08:00.000-07:00

I was looking for an easy site to change pictures and I came across this one:
Morphthing

I played with it a little bit and Morphed my own pictures with other celebrities. I'll show some results:

I thought about using this website in class with my K3 group because we are learning how to describe people.
So we could Morph our own pictures and play in class while describing the "new images" of themselves.

To gather the information in the end we can create a Slideshow with music or using the bubbles just like I explained in a previous post here

I used a different website to create a slideshow with music. It's called: SLIDE
It's just as easy as the others and the result is right here.

Click to see the presentation

Edited- I can't listen to this song any longer.

I plan to send to their parents e-mail after class.

BTW, if you decide to Morph pictures it's important to- obviously take their pictures in a class before, previously prepare the photos at the site so you don't waste this time in class.

Can you feel it?

Shift happens....

2009-04-05T07:11:00.000-07:00

Change is not necessarily bad. It may be scary but not bad.
It's far more dangerous indeed to dare to live something different than to stay where you already know it's safe and working.
I can't help but think that we change every single day...In spite of what happens, because of what happens....change comes.
This is what I reflected while watching this video.
Although it can be a bit too much to be said in class, I think it's very interesting and you can use it to work with predictions, conditionals, comparative and superlative.
As a matter of fact it might be great to review the content of T4 for the midterm.
What do you think?

Photos and Writing with a twist

2009-04-03T19:46:00.000-07:00

Hi teachers,

I am very happy with this new website I just found. It's called BubbleShare
I had been looking for tools that would allow me to create a slideshow with bubbles but the ones I had come across were way too complicated.

This one on the other hand is AMAZING.

First of all, it is FREE!

It also allows you to upload pictures from your computer and it is very simple and clear.

In one of the features you can edit pictures and accessories.

To make it even better- they give the html code to publish in your blog.

I think this tool can make the writing assignments much more appealing.
I am talking about the Lesson C of every unit from American Adventures Book.

Teachers can previously select pitures and have the students putting them together and formulating the bubbles.

I'll share my first trial with you.
Sorry for gushing over my puppy. I really can't help myself

BubbleShare: Share photos - Easy Photo Sharing

Now, I am going to enjoy my weekend. And my puppy....of course.

Peace and Notebooks OFF

Making tutorials

2009-04-03T08:40:00.000-07:00

Hello and TGIF!

I discovered this great website called Screencast which allows us to create tutorials.

One of the many positive things about it is that you don't have to download it.
It's fast and simple.

I decided to give it a try by making a tutorial explaining students how to comment on blogs.
Check it out :

Is there ony other Tutorial you would like to suggest?

Getting started

2009-04-02T21:30:00.000-07:00

I will use this space to test and let you know the results of some interesting features available at the net.

Speaking of which, how about starting blogging-or a class- with a beautiful listening activity by one of the best movies ever made?

Check it out by clicking at the link

*Dead poet's society

There are other links to explore:

Mission Impossible

Back to the future

The site is this one here.

Peace and Blogs