Plickers might be interesting for quick multiple choice responses.
giving them opportunities to contribute to a class blog or something where their classmates will get to see their hearts and minds in this other forum. I think that really opens things up.
But Cain particularly feels for one group of introverts: the quiet kids in a classroom.
Our most important institutions, like schools and workplaces, are designed for extroverts,
why is it that kids who prefer to go off by themselves or to work alone are seen as outliers?
How about the very definition of “class participation?”
how best to cultivate the talent of those students.
a student who has one or two or three friends, and prefers to go deep with their friendships instead of being one of a big gang, there’s nothing wrong with that at all, in terms of it being a predictor for adulthood.
If the kid is perfectly happy the way they are, they need to get the message that the way they are is cool.
make sure to build quiet time into the school day, especially when kids are younger. Have 15 minutes set aside every day where the students just read.
maximize choice.
less group work in general.
do more work in pairs, which is a way that both introverts and extroverts can thrive.
challenge teachers to rethink what they mean by class participation and start thinking of it as classroom engagement instead.
account the research of Anders Ericsson, who invented the concept of “deliberate practice.”
tools that allow students to participate through their electronic devices as opposed to raising their hand.
Apps that allow students to contribute to class discussions, sometimes anonymously and sometimes not.
I agree this statement of "Number one would be to make sure to build quiet time into the school day, especially when kids are younger. Have 15 minutes set aside every day where the students just read."
Question: As a classroom teacher, I am with my students 42 minutes per day, how can I take almost half of this time for reading? Shouldn't this issue be addressed as a whole school wide??
I agree with you Diane - that would be way too much time for reading in just your class. In some classes, I do a 5 - 10 minute "free-writing" exercise that is individual. It seems like you'd need to scale the time so that it's appropriate for your class.
A lot of students who might be reticent at first will feel emboldened by having first discussed it with a partner.
Wow, just imagine how much calmer the world could be if classrooms were set up to allow for multiple temperaments as well as learning styles?!
Also, the think-pair-share concept is fantastic; I've been using the "alone-paired-large group" sequence for language learners in groups since I got my CELTA certification and it's been hugely successful. Nobody wants to be wrong in public, and when learners have a chance to discuss it with a partner first, they are more likely to share their ideas.
Nice list of tools that can be used with (or without) Skype.
Skype is one more free and infinitely useful tool that educators can add to their toolbox
1. Use it to collaborate with other classrooms.
3. Enable participation (and catch-up) for students outside of the classroom.
2. Use it to conduct expert interviews.
Q&A or more of a lecture
doing some research and coming up with questions in advance, so they have an opportunity to interact with the expert and learn more.
Students will get a glimpse into different career options and learn a little more about their peers, and parents get a chance to be more involved with the class
"Teachers can use digital storytelling as a teaching tool in the classroom. This page addresses how to best utilize software such as Photo Story 3 in ESL or foreign language classrooms."
I noticed that I was only getting about 3 days' worth of tweets in Seesimic and then they didn't show any more - especially in the group hashtags for the "storytweeting" activity - so this interested me. You may also be interested in how to keep student tweets for classroom purposes.
What do you do if you need to go back to find an old tweet or want to assess a student based on a series of tweets-archive the tweets.
here are 10 ways to archive the tweets.
Downloadable educator's guide by Linda Fogg Phillips, written at Facebook's request. The homepage says:
"Our commitment to you is to provide an easy way to stay updated as changes occur with Facebook. We created this website to do just that, in addition to providing you with even more insights, guidance, and resources."
but that still doesn't tell me much about what's in the guide...
I think this is a great way to bring popular culture into the classroom. TV shows provide a more authentic representation of language than educational videos.
I like this listing of ice breakers. Many would work in a language classroom with some tweaking, depending on the level. I like 2, 7, and 9 for novice low-mid students.
This video shows you how to change the URL of a YouTube video to skip ads, start and stop for just a section, remove the "recommended" videos at the end, and autoplay. Fabulous! Thanks, LARC!
This may seem obvious, but judging by the notices we have received, many teachers (and especially students) are under the impression that if it is on the web, then it is up for grabs.
This is protocol in my classroom-they may as well learn it right the first time rather than the hard way later. When using Google images: go all the way to the cog wheel pull down on the right side of the toolbar; 2) go down to Advance Search; 3) inside Advanced Image Search, all the way at the bottom is a pulldown for usage rights, select "free to use or share" or, if you need to alter the image in anyway "fee to use share or modify."
That is, in some cases, if an image, text, video, etc. is being used for educational purposes, there might be more flexible copyright rules.
Just yesterday I was watching a webinar from a national organization, and on one of the PowerPoint pages I saw a picture of one of my district's students with his PE teacher. I was shocked and wondered how it came to be in this webinar. I can only guess that there was a newpaper article with this picture in the local paper, and that put it out there on the web, and it was found and inserted into this PowerPoint. I also thought it was pretty cool - one of ours in something like that. It was crazy just happening upon it like I did though.
But make sure to check specific copyright restrictions before uploading anything you’ve scanned to the web!
This is a biggie! I know of some teachers who upload all their homework handouts in .pdf format. I can think of only one who might have asked permission to do so. But, why bother buying that textbook's workbook if I can download it from another district for free. I can certainly see publishers having issue with that.
This answers my earlier question about using a video in eduCanon. Seemed really wrong to do that, but guess it is understood when you upload if you allow others to borrow, they will.
I guess that's why on some music videos, there is a statement that there is no ownership in the content? I don't know. I also bookmarked this article as I know I will need it as time goes on.
Once the group is created, you can create student accounts. No email addresses needed. You create the username and password.
There are groups for all these where members can share their saves to not only their inventory but to the group as well. Diigo will email you once a week with all the new content. Pretty neat, huh?
There are loads of other features as well, like highlighting on a webpage, adding sticky notes to pages, saving pages to read later without actually adding them to your collection and so much more.
I am so mad I never used this earlier! It is really fantastic.
One of the most powerful features is the tagging. Basically, if I save Google.com and don't tag it, I will have to remember the name of the site or something in the address
your saves don't travel with you from computer to computer and device to device.
So if students are working on a group project they can share their saves together, automatically. Or as a class, if you are working on something everyone can contribute information they find.
I love this concept--in level 3 I sometimes have the students do peer-editing of papers or projects, and I think Diigo could pair well with a pre-editing phase where they could collaborate on research as well as composition!
There are always good themes but we need to figure out how to make them focused, comprehensible and doable. That is the key.
Lots of comprehensible input there! They learned about new genres. Some said they added music that we learned about in class to their playlists. Love that!
Comprehensible and compelling input. Plus, added Spanish music to their audio files. The best language learners are the ones who listen to music and watch videos.
Seeing how she described the cultural aspects of the unit really brought into focus what she was trying to accomplish. From here she will be able to set up tasks and activities that meet these goals.
I like how these three areas help define what the students will be able to do.
For example, for the last presentational goal where they tell what happened, they only used a few verbs (won, nominated, said) as memorized chunks. Intermediate students were able to give more details and it sounded like a true narration of events with transitions.
Posted by Kara Parker on April 17, 2017 in 3 Activities, Interpretive Reading, Reading, Techy Stuff, What's New
Highlighting is one of my top go-to interpretive reading activities. Today I will review an app for Apple devices and Chrome. Let’s see how highlighting can go digital!
I blogged about this “Highlight Away” activity before… It was Idea #71 in 2012! If you haven’t read it, take a minute to see where this idea started.
Why I love highlighting…
It gives a focus while reading
It takes away the frustration of “not knowing every word” (adjust the task, not the text)
It preps them to summarize
It preps them to discuss the reading
No comprehension questions needed (low teacher prep)
It lets them figure out the meaning and learn new words in context
It shows comprehension without translating
Here are a few examples of highlighting activities we’ve done in lessons:
This is a great idea - they could also highlight in an app like Notability if you use that
s in the Street Art unit. They were reading opinions about graffiti before they gave their opinion. It was awesome seeing how this activity gave them so many solid reasons that support their opinions.
template for you to adapt and use if you are doing the activity with highlighters and printed articles. Copy and paste the image to your preferred program (Word, PowerPoint, Pages, Keynote, etc). Add text boxes over the image to create your categories.
Great suggestions in this article for using Flipgrid. I really like the idea of keeping track of completed assignments (in my school that would be considered a Habit of Work as we do not grade homework anyhow) and perhaps using Flipgrid as part of a summative assessment at the end of the semester...lots of no stress practice and, by the time the assessment comes, they are all familiar with the technology.
I enjoyed reading Connie's story, and I think we all have "Connie" in our classes. Flipgrid can be a great opportunity for students show the side that others don't see in class.
Thanks for sharing this article! I liked the idea of different context and different identity :-) Sometimes students express themselves more comfortable at the beginning through the use of alternate identities. Specially if they have to video record themselves when they are learning the language.
This is a good reference that was made as a blog for Arabic Grammar, that I use all the time when teaching Arabic.I think the group can use the same idea and create simple grammar lessons in FL, these lessons can be useful for all the teachers teaching for example French, German all over the world.