Group items tagged

Sign-up for the 30-day, but a year - free! Here's info I got in an email notification: We are glad to announce a free WizIQ individual membership for K-12 and College teachers. To be eligible for this offer, teachers need email addresses associated with their educational institutes (e.g., aprofessor@college.edu or ateacher@adistrict.k12.ma.us.) If you are a teacher from K12 or a College, apply and claim your free membership by following the steps below: Steps to get free WizIQ membership: 1.Sign up for a 30-day trial by clicking on the 'Apply now' button below 2. Verify your email address from your email inbox 3. You'll receive a confirmation email from us once your free membership is approved Apply now  WizIQ's free teacher accounts give educators at accredited institutions access to a range of teaching tools. To many educators, the virtual classroom for which WizIQ is best known only means live classes, which they might not need considering they see their students in person every day. But with the WizIQ Virtual Classroom teachers can also: Offer online courses for their school Run virtual office hours and homework help Run summer school online to address transportation and facilities issues Give AP students a jumpstart with virtual summer class sessions Let athletes or homebound students work with their classes, live, even if they can't be there Easily set up classes - without IT help Bring subject matter experts into their classrooms virtually Support group and project-based learning Engage hard-to-reach parents with: Virtual parents' nights Virtual conferences Adult education and community outreach Virtual math and literacy nights Broadcast live school committee meetings on the web Record lectures or flip their classrooms Conduct virtual field trips Run professional development when and where staff are available Share teaching resources among schools Teachers can take full advantage of every WizIQ feature, including screen-sharing, polling, video-confe

The goal of OCEP is to provide the academic community with a criteria-based evaluation tool to assess and compare the quality of online courses. The focus of the evaluation is on the presentation of the content and the pedagogical aspects of online courses, yet OCEP also considers the instructional and communication methods so vital in a successful online learning experience. Existing online courses are identified and measured against a set of objective evaluation categories. These criteria were developed through extensive research and review of instructional design guidelines from nationally recognized course developers, best practices from leading online consultants, and from numerous academic course evaluations.

An article about how some of the academics manage both personal and professional accounts on Twitter, FB etc.

Ms. Johnson's survey findings has made me think on my own personal rule of keeping school and personal separate in cyberspace. Question still remains is: at what age is it appropriate for teachers to mix school and personal...middle school, high school, college?

Abstract: "In academic settings where digital badges are taking over conventional task formats, educators are faced with the challenge of how to deliver and assess content and skills within badges. Imposing a mastery learning approach, where feedback is key, to a digital badge system may be a potential solution to using digital badges within higher education. As a way to support student learning, Guskey, Journal of Advanced Academics, 19(1), 8-31 (2007) emphasizes the importance of not only frequent feedback but specific feedback. In order to examine how students are using feedback to inform their coursework within a digital badge context, an online survey was designed consisting of open-ended questions about the nature and value of instructional feedback within a digital badge system. Results from the questionnaire indicated three major thematic groups illustrating feedback from the students' perspective: Importance and Nature of Feedback, Authority over Knowledge and Learning, and Learning for Mastery."

This is a big issue we are facing in our community. This what I was mentioning about using media as academic resources. Also many different fields required a very specific vocabulary so often interpreters are not able to keep up with academic languages because they are taught the community language.

Good pointers on how to organize orientation to online course and how imp it is for successfull learning

"The tenth annual survey, a collaborative effort between the Babson Survey Research Group and the College Board, is the leading barometer of online learning in the United States.  Based on responses from over 2,800 academic leaders..."

Abstract: In this paper, we examine the use of Facebook (FB) as a social networking tool in an intermediate French class. After reviewing the available studies on FB in language instruction, we analyze surveys that were administered to students as well as student FB posts. We look at the potential benefits of social media, specifically FB, and discuss its impact on foreign language learning. We aim to address how FB is being used in the language classroom, how students respond to the integration of this social networking site in courses, the attitudes of higher education foreign language learners towards FB, as well as the role of FB in new learning spaces and with today's learners. An analysis of survey data suggests that students respond in a positive manner toward the use of FB in education and highlights some differences in the way FB is used in both personal and academic settings.

This is higher education levels, not K-12. They interviewed chief academic officers for this info. The report shows more students taking online courses, a higher percentage of courses being online, faculty acceptance of online courses, what training faculty receive, and compares student outcomes to face-to-face.

I have selected a digital magazine issued by the Office of the Spanish Ministry of Education in the USA and Canada. This yearly magazine gathers lessons, units and projects around a different cultural topic carried out by Spanish teachers in immersion or foreign languages programs in America or other places outside of Spain. These issues don't have a strictly academic tone but they are actually more like real experiences carried out in real classrooms that can be borrowed or inspired by other educators. The magazine guidelines require a very specific format with objectives, level, materials, etc. to describe the experiences.

"Seven tips from a seasoned practitioner on how to select and get value out of your next online academic conference"

Is FaceBook too "nice"??

Fascinating that Facebook does not want to add a dislike button because of advertisers. I am not sure that an "enemy" button taps into critical thinking, how about a disagree button? And then you can explain in the comment section why.

Another side of the cursive argument. I know it doesn't have much to do with language teaching, but it does go with technology. I survived 12 years of Catholic education and had some very bad experiences with my poor cursive writing and nuns.

There was a hyperlink to an article about whether we should still teach cursive. Apparently high schools are not doing it any more. My son stopped cursive in about the 5th grade and didn't have to use it and now he is struggling at the university because he can't read when the professor uses cursive in anything, like comments on his papers. I have to print when I leave him a note. Wow, technology is wiping out one of the long-standing activities that took humans decades to develop.

I like the balanced way this piece presents some of the pros and cons of technology in education. Just this week I had a conversation with another educator who has encountered recent studies suggesting a link between handwriting (of any kind) and certain cognitive development. Some schools are now emphasizing handwriting instruction because it helps boost students' academic achievement.

My daughter is 8 years old and she started learning cursive this year. So it must be back! I'm not sure if will help boost her achievement or not, but I'm glad she is learning it. I think the article made a good point about how students today have a short attention span and easily get off track. If they are typing a paper on the computer, for example, they can open a browser and start surfing the web. They don't necessarily stay focused on the task at hand. It is even hard for me sometimes. If I don't ignore email (just put it off until later, I mean), I would never get anything done!

From History and Anthropology, Volume 21, Issu 2 June 2010, pages 139-157 by Katerina Seraïdari

An example of an academic text

Abstract: In recent years, a sharp increase in the number of academic studies around the use of video games and new media for educational purposes has greatly expanded our understanding of their potential for enhancing learning.

Constantinos, this a great resource of information. Thank you for sharing! I haven't sit down to read it all, but skimming through it I found plenty of interesting information. I was always interested in using video games or educational games for language learning, but never took initiative in reading anything on the topic. In the beginning of "From "Authentic Materials" to "Live Materials" section, the author mentions that the culture should not be described to students, but rather facilitate a platform for them to actually participate in that culture. I see how we can do that through games, but is there any of you using other means to do it? Is it possible to do it through social networks or second language learning networks? If yes, how exactly? Any thoughts on this?

"Over the past academic year, my students and I have been experimenting with the use of a number of web based applications (often known as Web 2.0 tools). My aim has been to enhance our schemes of work by providing our students with new and exciting learning opportunities. In my opinion, using technology effectively has clear benefits for both teaching and learning and can help to improve motivation by engaging pupils in activities which, perhaps, step out of their ordinary school experience and which show them that it is possible to teach and learn about a subject using tools similar to those they use daily outside school. In other words, we have tried to use the types of tools with which they are often already familiar. I have written about each of these individual tools in separate posts, but I thought it would be useful to list the ten most used internet applications on one post. As ever, I aim to provide, not only a list of the web applications we have used, but also examples of practice which you may wish to follow or, indeed, improve upon. Therefore, each of the entries below has links leading to lesson plans which have incorporated the tools as well as working examples of students' work where appropriate. Without further ado, and in alphabetical order, my ten tried and tested internet tools for teachers are:"

from a FL teacher in England - who tries and tests a number of tech tools. Here are his 10 favorite web 2.0 apps.