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Graca Martins

History of English - 0 views

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    History of English (Source: A History of English by Barbara A. Fennell) The English language is spoken by 750 million people in the world as either the official language of a nation, a second language, or in a mixture with other languages (such as pidgins and creoles.) English is the (or an) official language in England, Canada, Australia and New Zealand; however, the United States has no official language. Indo-European language and people English is classified genetically as a Low West Germanic language of the Indo-European family of languages. The early history of the Germanic languages is based on reconstruction of a Proto-Germanic language that evolved into German, English, Dutch, Afrikaans, Yiddish, and the Scandinavian languages. In 1786, Sir William Jones discovered that Sanskrit contained many cognates to Greek and Latin. He conjectured a Proto-Indo-European language had existed many years before. Although there is no concrete proof to support this one language had existed, it is believed that many languages spoken in Europe and Western Asia are all derived from a common language. A few languages that are not included in the Indo-European branch of languages include Basque, Finnish, Estonian and Hungarian; of which the last three belong to the Finno-Ugric language family. Speakers of Proto-Indo-European (PIE) lived in Southwest Russia around 4,000 to 5,000 BCE. They had words for animals such as bear or wolf (as evidenced in the similarity of the words for these animals in the modern I-E languages.) They also had domesticated animals, and used horse-drawn wheeled carts. They drank alcohol made from grain, and not wine, indicating they did not live in a warm climate. They belonged to a patriarchal society where the lineage was determined through males only (because of a lack of words referring to the female's side of the family.) They also made use of a decimal counting system by 10's, and formed words by compounding. This PIE language was also highly infl
Meredith Suits

Wrong Focus: Teacher-Centered Classrooms and Technology - LeaderTalk - Education Week - 0 views

  • Look at the front of the classroom from the students' perspective. What do they see? In schools where it is feasible, they see a tech rich experience for the teacher: a computing device, an IWB, a projection device pointing at the front. Perhaps we see a teacher with an iPad, an iPod, or a doc camera. Regardless, we see a very tech rich experience for the teacher - a teacher-centered technology environment. Now flip it. What do educators see when looking at students? Paper. Pencils. Print texts. Notebooks. Pens. What an absolute disconnect!
  • I'd rather see teachers improving their ability to create contexts for powerful discussion, engage students with diverse approaches, facilitate project-based learning, etc. I'd rather see teachers open the doors to the kids getting their hands dirty with technology. I'd rather see teachers focusing on transformative aspects of the classroom than minor upgrades.
  • In fact, I'm not sure when it comes to EdTech, you need all this technology to teach better. Where its purpose is strongest is in the hands of students as they create their path and connections. It isn't when they watch from the seats this high-tech, fun flashy devices and hardware
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    A great reminder about why & how teachers should integrate technology in the classroom.
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