Group items tagged

Adaptive learning games that you or your students can create and share. A great many games and quizzes are already to use on the site and will give you ideas for quick assessments. Similar in some respects to Quizlet.

"A super quick introduction into using the excellent Google Forms. You can quickly create surveys, questionnaires and even comprehension questions. You can then share the link or embed your questions. The data is automatically created into graphs and forms when the participants answer the quesitons. A really useful tool for any teacher or students that I have made massive use of. If you are looking to quickly collect together some data and then see all the results presented to you automatically, then this is great. Students can create surveys for other students in the class, teachers can collect feedback and even use Google Forms for formative assessment. if you are looking for more detailed videos on Google Forms then watch these other videos.

"Educational Origami is a blog and a wiki, about 21st Century Teaching and Learning. This wiki is not just about the integration of technology into the classroom, though this is certainly a critical area, it is about shifting our educational paradigm. The world is not as simple as saying teachers are digital immigrants and students digital natives. In fact, we know that exposure to technology changes the brains of those exposed to it. The longer and stronger the exposure and the more intense the emotions the use of the technology or its content evokes, the more profound the change. This technology is increasingly ubiquitous. We have to change how we teach, how we assess, what we teach, when we teach it, where we are teaching it, and with what." A most interesting site that tells us what the learner needs to know. [Thanks to Bee.]

"Vygotsky controversially argued for educators to assess students' ability to solve problems, rather than knowledge acquisition. The idea of collaborative learning has a lot to do with Vygotsky's idea of the "zone of proximal development". It considers what a student can do if aided by peers and adults. By considering this model for learning, we might consider collaboration to increase students' awareness of other concepts." Excellent, well-documented advise on using collaborative learning and its value for learners.

Using text messaging with computer projection to let students show what they learned. Can be used for very instantaneous feedback on a lesson in class. But as I watch the video, it seems some students keep right on texting (elsewhere) after the lesson is finished?

In this TED talk, Andreas Schleicher describes a new scale, "PISA (the Programme for International Student Assessment), an initiative of the OECD (Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development). PISA not only tests students on their mathematical understanding, reading level and ability to apply learning to new problems, but also looks at what teachers get paid, how long the school day is, what the average class size is and whether quality of education is uniform across schools and social stratifications. It even measures cultural attitudes, like whether people in the country expect all students to achieve or only a small segment of them to. It's this broad approach to data collection that makes PISA so powerful, says Schleicher." An interesting way for a country to compare where it is and how it compares globally.

""Always on" access has created an abundance of learning potentials that scarcely existed even a decade ago. "No, this is not the picture most of us painted for ourselves when we went into education. Most of us went into teaching understanding that school was pretty much the only education game in town, the place where kids came to get information, where, at the end of the day, we were responsible for disseminating the knowledge, we assessed whether our students got it, and we stamped it "an education." For that vast majority of kids (and for us, too) who attended a brick-and-mortar school, that's been the unbending, monolithic vision of schooling for 150 years. "So what do we do when that vision begins, finally, to be undermined?" Technology is changing what it means to be educated. Thoughtful article.

Free book (pdf) from the British Council, written by Gary Motteram. Probably published early 2012. Has sections on primary education, secondary, and general adult language education, ESP and Business English, EAP, and assessment. Nice examples from real classrooms.

Extensive review and comparison of tools that turn review material into games. By Matt Miller.

Log in to Quizlet ad try Quizlet Live -- you need a set with 12 Q/A flashcards and at least 6 students to make teams. You can view a Demo or go ahead and start live. Teams of students get 3 possibilities and must agree on the right one. (Groups are assigned randomly, but you can shuffle teams to re-sort if personalities class.) In class students can sit together. Teacher View of the game shows individual students cues and team scores. At the end of the game, teacher can see what words are confused with what others.

An extensive blog post by Sandy Millin explaining to students (and teachers) what Quizlet is and how to use it. Includes ways to print flashcards, question types, how to use the app for study, etc. Very useful.

A video demonstrating some of the things Google Classroom might do for your classes, and how to use it.

"2011, Badges as credentials, 160,000 students in a MOOC, peer-ratings = students teaching students, Udacity charges 20% finder's fees for grads, MITx, TEDed, free, student loan overhang, tuition going up …. free content, pay only for assessment, transferable credits based on ability, Apple buys Amazon, iTunesU becomes the ed app platform, preference matching, Google buys Udacity and Khan Academy, tied to education model, most colleges wait it out as badges replace degrees, residential college campuses are for the children of the wealthy only, Google unleashes EPIC the all-knowing learning system, 2020. " It could happen...

This web resource is for teachers of high beginning and intermediate writing courses and intermediate ESL learners. The resource provides 8 units that 1) teach about paragraph structure and paragraph elements: topic sentence, supporting sentences, and concluding sentence 2) introduce transition words and coherence in a paragraph 3) provide the opportunity to learn about and practice basic writing skills such as making an outline and staying on topic. Clear explanations are supported by examples; therefore, teacher can use this resource for class preparation, and ESL learners can use it as additional material to learn about paragraph writing. Practice activities provided by the website are not interactive; however, most of the assessment tasks have answer keys. In addition, each unit provides lesson in a PDF format that can be used by a teacher as a handout. -- From Lena Shvidko For ESL K-12 learners, but would be useful for adults as well. Focuses on the paragraph, rather than the essay, so makes a good beginning set of lessons.

This has great videos on how to teach a wide variety of subjects, as well as how to manage students' behavior in class, set up collaborations, assessment, and esp. for US teachers, the common core standards. Very useful for teacher training, though not specifically oriented toward ESL/EFL.

"It occurred to me that, at least for somewhat advanced learners (middle school and beyond?), I'd like to start having the learners propose evaluation criteria for rubrics. Why? Because, in the course of investigating what should be important, they're beginning to learn about what is important. "

ePorfolios and laptops used to enhance learning

Neat idea, though not free. Post-its saved into Evernote may be a help for some teachers. The process described here is one-on-one.

Very useful collection of links to pdf and Word files containing rubrics for various kinds of creative activities: case studies, critic thinking, oral communication and presentations, management and finance, peer evaluations, problem solving, writing, etc.

Eventually, schools and colleges are probably going to fall in step with the trend toward digital portfolios as a way to assess applicants. Schools of art, music, and writing are already using them. Give your students a chance to learn this valuable skil.