Group items tagged

From "Free Technology for Teachers"

Thanks for sharing. I had the same question about KWL. In Spanish would that be SQA? :)

The Scary Guy (and he is!) talking to parents about bullying. 

You are right. At the beginning I was "Whatttt!" but then this had sense. Interesting speech for parents, and for teachers!!

Here is an article that describes boomwriter, a technology tool that allows students do collaborative writing. Activities may have to be simplified for beginning level students, but I can see how this might work well with higher level students as well as with native speakers.

Hitosugi, C. I. (2011). Using a social networking site in Japanese class. In E. Forsythe, T. Gorham, M. Grogan, D. Jarrell, R. Chartrand, & P. Lewis (Eds.), In CALL: What's your motivation? Collected papers on the cutting edge of language learning practice (pp. 72-83). Tokyo, Japan: JALT CALL SIG. This is my article that I wrote a couple of years ago on NIng use. This is much shorter than the original one, but still conveys what I wanted; SNS has a place in classroom, students concern privacy.

from teaching culture to intercultural communication competence

oh, well, highlight somehow did not stay when submitted... ;-(

I could finally make bookmark work for me. I found this Youtube very helpful. how to highlight and sticky note on Diigo

Discussion on how technology is being used and why we're still struggling to give more control of learning to students. A good read!

"A 2014 paper by researchers at Michigan State University, in East Lansing, provides a tangible example: Teachers and students in the small-scale study were found to be making extensive use of the online word-processing tool Google Docs. The application's power to support collaborative writing and in-depth feedback, however, was not being realized. Teachers were not encouraging group-writing assignments and their feedback focused overwhelmingly on issues such as spelling and grammar, rather than content and organization." This really gets to the heart of the idea of combining education and technology: the technology has to serve the goal and it doesn't sound like the teachers' goals were the same as the stated goals of the assignment. So obviously Google Docs is a fantastic tool, but it has to be utilized appropriately for it to be effective.

I must say I have sat through many workshops in my tenure at my university that included the modification of some practices and even included, to my frustration, the basic structure of a lesson from stating outcomes to assessment. The problem with our particular situation is that usually it is directed to a "one-size-fits-all" use of a given technology that may not apply to many disciplines. I have found them somewhat useful for upper-level courses at times, but the language classes often pose the need for a kind of collaboration and interpersonal technology that isn't presented. Hence my desire to take this course. Another difficulty is the overwhelming number of technological applications presented--I can't tell you how many--and the students really become overwhelmed, since they often have to learn new technologies in almost many courses. Some work and some don't, and since they are the guinea pigs and there are no guarantees that everything will work as planned, and given the astounding changes in tech, the newness never seems to end, neither for the student nor the teacher. So focusing on just 1 or 2 to begin with seems like the only way to deal with it. Finally, I think that, at least in our university, the huge courses found often in the sciences reflect the slowness to adopt meaningful change. Many in these disciplines have simply used the tech to deliver more lectures on topics students must memorize, perhaps adding clickers for comprehension checks. There seems to be a great disconnect between what happens in the classroom and the amazing advances in tech they have made for their hands-on work--labs, collaborative work, etc.

Word of the Week from DW.de. Highlighting & annotating for creating a lesson based on this material.

The expert interviews are something I need to do more of. Love the idea of a virtual Career day. Would be a good way to keep alums connected.

site filled with activities for various levels of EFL

I found this by chance just exploring around. If you check the SUPPORT section on the VoiceThread site, you will find a list of publications. They posted a collection of abstracts with links of scholarly articles written about using VoiceThread for language learning, K-12, higher education and professional development. I just skimmed through the lists, and some of the articles are accessible, while some are behind a password.

"Facebook" option for elementary?

This looks pretty promising. I also think the connections you made on this site are great - asking for resources and someone commented back with great resources on kids safety on the internet. Awesome!!

I also liked the description. I will make an account to explore it and see if it is something we can use with older students as well.

What does the social media say about you? I am attending a three-day conference of state teachers and one of the strands is Media Safety. One of the topics discussed was creating a personal brand via the social networks you post information. I decided to see what I could find out about the topic and add some links to the group

This article addresses the issue of 'noise' on Twitter, which has come up often in the discussion boards about his weeks experiences. I thought you all might find it interesting!

I've read enough this about Google+ and its positive aspects to make me want to be able to use it. Just waiting for their email... @Alyssa - thanks, since I wrote this, I got in. Now I just need time to explore.

Jan- send me your email and I can "invite" you.

I liked how the teacher videotaped the skype conversation with a flipcam in order to replay it for her students. Then, they could focus on parts of the conversation in more detail.

I like the idea of the flipcam as well. I also like how she manages to have those kids skype, which is a difficult tasks to do. This is a very good example on how a whole group can skype with another located in another part of the world.

At our school there is a phenomenal social studies teacher who uses Skype to talk to students in the Middle East. I would love to chat with students from Mexico or another Spanish speaking country, but am unsure about how to get started. Does anyone have any tips about how to find a partner school and set up interaction? I think this is essentially part of 'ePals'. Does anyone use this? Share your experiences, please, if you have!