Teachers Talking Through Podcasts

Podcasting is a way of getting information to others, whether it be at the time of filming or at a later time. They can be video or audio episodes, depending on what the creator wants. This creator becomes a podcaster. These podcasts that are created can be directly downloaded or streamed. When downloaded, they can be put onto multiple devices, such as Ipods, phones, and tablets. They have many different kinds of podcasts available, for multiple purposes and interests.

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As teachers, we can utilize podcasts in our classroom. There are many different podcasts out there for different fields of study. Teachers can find episodes on what students are studying in the classroom. Teachers can also have their students create their own podcasts for projects.

One podcast I found was on ESL Teacher Talk. The website had a lot to offer ESL teachers. They provided a lot of activities and games that could be used in the classroom. They also provided a lot of resources for teachers to use as well. The specific episode that I will be discussing is called Dolch Sight Words- Using them in ESL classes. ESL teachers would find this extremely useful when they are thinking about teaching sight words to their students. They talk about what sight words are for those who are unfamiliar with the term. Matt, who is the teacher who is talking during the podcast, then moves into talking about his class and how learning sight words helped to sped up reading and the learning process. Matt modifies the original list for his ESL class and the list is available for teachers in the resource section of the website. They also talk about when to start using sight words, the importance of knowing the word before memorizing the spelling, using a book to create a list of sight words and then immediately applying knowledge to context to inspire the readers, and then games and activities that can be used to practice the sight words. Podcasts like these are a great way for teachers to get ideas about what to do inside the classroom.

Let's be ePals

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While browsing through the ePals website, I have found a lot of resources and ideas that are very useful for teachers.

The first thing that I noted was the program called in2books. In this program, students in 3rd to 6th grade are connected with an adult pen pal. They then select and read 5 books closely throughout the year. The pen pals also read the same book that the student is reading. The student and the adult pen pal then exchange 6 to 10 online letters with each others. Through this program, students are able to
get encouragement from caring adults. They are also receiving instruction and guidance on how to read, write and think. Through this interaction with peers, teachers, and adults, ideas are able to be exchanged while being intellectual relationships with each other. Students are building a support group that is there to motivate the students to perform to the best of their abilities. Students are also able to express ideas and learn and learn about different points of view in real-world situations.

Another aspect of the website that I enjoyed was the teaching resources that it provided. This section was labeled Tools For School. They sectioned this off into best materials on the web and education insights, inspiring ideas, latest tools blog. They included free material and material that could be purchased. They also have sections for different grade levels and subject areas. They also included different languages as well. It is nice to have material available that is provided by teachers in your fields. That way you know that it works. The blog is also very informational. Hearing about your profession for others in the field can always allow you to grow. It also allows you to communicate with others and get feedback and information on things going on in your own classrooms.

Animoto in the classroom

Thanksgiving Vocabulary

I created a video on Animoto previously in my undergraduate studies, for my English education methods class. I used this to make a book trailer for a lesson where I was introducing students to the book we were going to read in class. I was really proud of my video because I thought it came out so well. I would use this in the classroom for students to present material that we have been learning about in class. I would also use it to deliver information, especially for gaining interest on what we would be learning in class. Digital storytelling sites like Animoto can be very useful to teachers.

Educational Comics

When I used GoAnimate, I was a little confused at first. After I fiddled around a little and explored the website, I began creating a comic strip. It was actually a lot of fun. I think this would be a  great tool to let students use. Differentiated instruction and assessment is a crucial part of being a teacher. By letting students create comics, you can allow another medium for learning to be expressed. I believe that students can use this to create real-life dialogue situations. They can practice making sense of the language that they are learning.

This is the video that I created. It was meant for the teaching purposes of discussing idioms. I would show my students the comic and then we would discuss what those idioms meant.


English Idioms by laura.walker1990 on GoAnimate

Telling Your Story Through Digital Storytelling

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I enjoyed reading the article "7 things you should know about Digital Storytelling", by EDUCAUSE Learning Initiative. I originally had no idea what digital storytelling was, but I feel that  the definition that was given in the article was very informative. That is that, "digital storytelling is the practice of combining narrative with digital content, including images, sound, and video, to create a short movie, typically with a strong emotional component". I have seen different kinds of various digital stories without even realizing that they were forms of digital storytelling. I think in a world where technology is continuously growing at a rapid pace, this format of storytelling can be beneficial to use as teachers. Many times we play long movies or documentaries, but we can no use digital storytelling to convey information to students. In the article, they state that, "digital stories can be instructional, persuasive, historical, or reflective". This means that teachers could use them in a variety of contexts and even give students the opportunity to create their own as well. When creating a digital story, the article says, "a digital story typically begins with a script. The storyteller then assembles rich media to support the ideas and emotions in that script, including music or other audio effects, personal or public-
domain images, animations or video, and other electronic elements". I believe that students have become very creative and innovative with their technology uses. Every time I work with someone on a computer, I always feel that I am learning something new to use or do on the internet. Digital storytelling can be used in a variety of ways, and can "let students express themselves not only with their own words but also in their own voices, fostering a sense of individuality and of “owning” their creations". It is important for us as teachers to provide our students with a learner centered environment. When students take their learning into their own hands, they are able to explore and create in a positive environment.

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The website "The Educational Uses of Digital Storytelling" provided a list of 7 elements of Digital Storytelling that I believed to be beneficial for those who were planning to create their own digital stories. When having students create their stories, it would be useful to go over these elements and why they are important to incorporate in to their stories. The 7 elements are; "1. Point of View (what is the main point of the story and what is the perspective of the author?), 2. A Dynamic Question (a key question that keeps the viewer's attention and will be answered by the end of the story), 3. Emotional Content (serious issues that come alive in a personal and powerful way and connects the audience to the story), 4. The Gift of Your Voice (a way to personalize the story to help the audience understand the context), 5. The Power of the Soundtrack (music or other sounds that support and embellish the story), 6. Economy (Using just enough content to tell the story without overloading the viewer), 7. Pacing (the rhythm of the story and how slowly or quickly it progresses." Going over these elements could be a useful lesson for students.

Serious Gaming

Looking at games to use for educational purposes, there are a great deal to choose from. One game that stuck out to me because of the current government shutdown, was the game Budget Hero. The game has a lot of great information in it, and I was learning new things as well, playing it the two times that I did.

If I were to have my student play this game at home, they would be more advanced speakers because they language would be very difficult for low or intermediate students. In class before they would play we would go over the vocabulary that would be used in the game. We would also have a walkthrough of how to play so that students knew what to do on their own.




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My language learning outcomes would be: Students will be able to define the following vocabulary: budget, deficit, interest, fiscal policy, debt, surplus, taxation, prioritizing, trade-off, and recession; students will be able to become and expert on a certain topic (defense, education, science, housing, miscellaneous, infrastructure, health care, social security, interest on debt, taxes) and will be able to defend their choices on that topic (what is necessary to cut or add); Students will be able to orally represent their ideas in English.

In order to assess my students, the next class day I would have them present to me on the topic that they chose based on the game. They would elaborate on why it would be important to cut or keep certain components of the topic. They would have to use the vocabulary correctly, and show that they understand the concepts that were discussed. They would be provided with a rubric of what would be expected of their presentation and could even use the game in their presentation to illustrate their points.

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Don't Forget to Play Your Video Games

Most parents are trying to get their kids to lay off the video games and do their homework. However, what if playing video games was their homework?

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Gamification, according to the article 7 Things You Should Know About Gamification, is "the application of game elements in non-gaming situations, often to motivate or influence behavior." Gamification provides students with a fun filled environment while learning material. The article also states that gamification "offers instructors numerous creative opportunities to enliven their instruction with contests, leader boards, or badges that give students opportunities for recognition and a positive attitude toward their work. Students enjoy friendly competition that allows them to work together or separately toward attainable goals. Gamification is a positive way to motivate students into doing work while they are under the allusion that they are playing and having fun instead. Using games in not a new concept to teachers, it is a great way to get all students to participate in class. This is especially true in the language learning classrooms of ESL because constantly going over vocabulary can become boring and rudimentary. Games give a new level of creative learning that can occur in the classroom. When talking about the benefits of using games in the L2 classroom, it can be beneficial to discuss the article A Comparison of Computer Game and Language-Learning Task Design Using Flow Theory, by Stephan J. Franciosi. He talks about Digital Game Based Learning (DGBL) and Task-Based Language Learning (TBLL) and how in both, "skill are learned and/or improved through participation in activities that require that application of those skills." The article discusses how in order to provide a beneficial DGBL experience, there needs to be three conditions meet; goals, feedback and skill/difficulty balance. "Goals should be concrete, quantifiable objective, and appeal to learner interests; feedback as a means of fostering flow should be considered in addition to feedback as a means of supporting reflection; task difficulty and player skill are ideally balanced moment-by-moment as the individual level." Using DGBL in a language learning classroom can be beneficial to students, if teachers keep in mind these features.

Looking at games for the ESL classroom, there are a great deal of games that can be used. One genre of games that I am focusing on is Escape the Room games. According to the post Focus on genre: Escape the room games on the blog Digital Play, Escape the Room games are "point-and-click adventure games where players have to escape from imprisonment by exploiting their surroundings." One the blog, Larry Ferlazzo's websites of the day..., I read the post The Best "Fun" Online Video Games For English Language Development and played the game Phantasy Quest. I played the game the first time without reading the walkthrough and died swimming around in the water. I had no idea what I was supposed to be doing or where I was supposed to be going. I feel like the game is a little difficult at first, especially to someone who is not a constant gamer. However, once I read the walkthrough and followed the directions, it was much easier and I was able to complete my quest. It was fun and I believe students would enjoy getting to play a game like this.

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If I were to make a lesson based on using the game Phantasy Quest it would have the following language learning objectives: Students will be able to learn the vocabulary coconut, bottle, ladder, telescope, island, waterfall, stick, tree, lantern, plank, skull, cave, boulder, sand, crab, berry, pirate, boat, hut, village, fishing pole, beach, gold coin, skeleton key, rope, and sword, and students will be able to follow directions instructed by the teacher in English.The students would all be on their own computer, playing the game independently. The teacher's role is to function as a mediator and tell student directions. I am imagining that I would be working with very low level students, so I would be using the walkthrough to tell the students where to go and what to do. I would tell each step to the student, and they would (try to) appropriately follow them. We could use both pictures from the game and other media to show images for the vocabulary they are learning. We could add the images, along with the words to our classroom word wall. I would assess students on if they were able to follow directions correctly, of if they needed more mediation and guidance through the game. If students could do the game on their own, I would allow them to play on their own for next games. if students had a great deal of difficulty following my directions, I would change the wording of the walkthrough, or I would give them games where the vocabulary is easier and more familiar to them.

I'll Tweet to That

After reading more about the benefits or Twitter for teachers, I see it more of a tool that can be used in the classroom. It can be a fun and interesting way for students to participate in the classroom learning experience. 

In the article 6 Best Twitter Tips Every Teacher Should Know About, they provided 6 different tips for teachers using Twitter. The first tip was to maintain visibility. This is important because having a Twitter account it one thing, but you need to be using it. If it is just sitting there, collecting digital dust, it isn't doing you, or the Twitter community any good. Secondly, you need to "rally up support". This is similar to my last post about Twitterchats. Having conversations and tweeting at others allows for information to be shared between community members. Thirdly, you need to "show your fans some Twitter love". This includes following those who retweet you, favoriting tweets, and retweeting others. This allows for a growth in your community of fellow teachers or even classmates. Fourthly, one needs to "share unique content". If you were to use Twitter in the classroom, it can't just be mindless Tweeting. The content being used needs to be focused and worthwhile material. Fifthly, you need to "tweet what you see when and where you see it." Tweeting is the fastest way of spreading information and news. There are always people who are live Tweeting events. Lastly, you need to "be as concise as possible in your wording and length". I think this is something that can be extremely useful when you are in the classroom. When tweeting, you are only given 140 characters. What you tweet needs to make sense with the limited amount of space you are given. 

Another article I read was The Teacher's Guide To Twitter, by Edudemic. It again emphasized that it Twitter is a great way to connect with other, while not only gaining information, but creating information as well. They went on to explain just how much Twitter has to offer. They again emphasize the importance of maintaining your account and keeping in contact with others. They also provided a list of 100 ways in which you can useTwitter, grouping them in categories. These categorizes consisted of: Getting Connected, Search, Organization, Authority Building, and Getting Value. They then went on to talk about the benefits of using Twitter in the classroom. They provided tips which included; don't require that students follow your account, commit to posting at regular intervals, vary the time of day of the posts, post links to content that is user friendly, know your audience's interest, don't just retweet, generate original links, suggest people, organization or magazines to follow, be personal, but also to avoid being overly personal in comments. There is a great deal that microblogging through Twitter can do in the classroom. Teachers just need to be consistently participating in its use, both for gathering information and sharing it. 

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Teachers Twitterchatting

I attended the English Language Teachers Twitterchat on Wednesday. I proposed a question, however no one responded to my post. I am going to try again for some of the different chats. It would have been interesting to hear back from the group, but instead I read through some of the material that they were discussing. I never realized how many people actually used Twitter in a more productive way. I've only ever known Twitter as a way of posting people's random thoughts and what they are doing of every second of the day. Again, my eyes have been opened to the ways that social networking can be a learning experience. I want to be more involved in the ESL community of teachers, and communicating through Twitterchat is one way in which I can do that.

I also enjoyed looking through the different people of Twitter. There are many educators posting different materials and resources to look through. I am looking forward to continue my search through the different educators that are one twitter and see what they have to offer. I never realized how many teachers actually posted educational information on Twitter. I think they will provide a lot of information and I can't wait to be able to look through my feed and see everything they have posted.

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Social Networking for Teachers

I enjoyed watching the video Alan Levine-New Media Consortium. He discussed the importance of networking between colleagues and experimenting with new technologies. I think it is important to realize that he is correct with the statement that we need to give up on the idea that we will be able to keep up with technology. Instead, we should be willing to adjust and take the challenge of keep going regardless of how many difficulties we have. It is important to be willing to keep trying, even it it means re-learning things over again. We need to realize that we are not ever going to know everything about everything, especially in a constantly changing world. This is why networking with colleagues is so important. Emailing, blogging, and joining social networking are great ways to keep up with trends and changes.

This is why I joined the site Flipped Learning Network. The mission statement of the site is, "to provide educators with the knowledge, skills, and resources to successfully implement Flipped learning." Flipped learning is when direct instruction is moved from group teaching space to the individual learning environment. This means that class time is spent more productively because students are using higher order thinking. I think the site is providing a positive outlook on the classroom and providing resources for teachers to "flip" their own classrooms. I thinking that hearing from experienced teachers are a great way to build your own teaching repertoire. It is like the saying goes, two heads are better than one, but in this case its many more!

Learners are like a growing tree

I kept trying to think of something more technologically advanced than trees, but I couldn't think of anything else to better describe what I was thinking. Trees are an important part of our environment, just as students are in the school environment. As trees are constantly taking in carbon dioxide and producing oxygen, students are constantly taking in information and turning it into knowledge to access. Learners of today come from all different kinds of backgrounds and lifestyles. I like to compare these to the roots of a tree. Learners are constantly bringing in new information, but they are still grounded by who they are and where they came from. These roots hold them in place just like the roots of a tree. I think it is important to also relate that trees are also trying to fit into a new world of constantly growing cities and technology. The tree itself, like a student cannot help but adapt to this world. This means that no matter what both are growing through the changes they constantly facing and growing.

When choosing my analogy, I kept thinking about the branches of a tree being similar to students trying to connect with each other and the world and branching out. I have not heard of Connectivism until reading that article, Connectivism: A Learning Theory for the Digital Age by George Siemens. Connectivism talks about how "learning can reside outside of ourselves, is focused on connecting specialized information sets, and the connections that enable us to learn more are more important than our current state of knowing." This ideology of learning emphasized the importance of realizing how important adapting to the idea that the world is constantly changing and what might have been a source of information yesterday could possibly be outdated tomorrow. George Siemens elaborates more in depth in the video What is Connectivism. The video is similar to a PowerPoint, where his lecture is put into different sections and discussed. In one slide he talks about the key points of connectivism and states, "the experience of learning then is one of forming new neural, conceptual and external network, this is increasingly occurring in complex, chaotic, and shifting spaces rather than a somewhat formulaic approach to learning that defines much of traditional schooling." In essence is is discussing how technology is causing us to not only think outside the box, but be willing to travel outside of it to grasp new and better sources of knowledge regardless of the environmental changes.

Learners, like trees, are constantly growing and adjusting to a new world around them. They must take whatever path to continue to grow, even if that means breaking through new barriers.

Organizing Bookmarks and Information on the Web

There are benefits to using both DIIGO and Scoop.it. I think both sites are great ways of storing information based on certain topics. However, there are also some advantages that the sites have over each other.

DIIGO allows you to highlight text within the webpage. This is an interesting feature that Scoop.it does not have. What is cool about this too is that when you open DIIGO in another tab or on another computer, what you had highlighted will still be highlighted. This makes finding information on the webpage much easier. Instead of having to re-read the page and find what you were looking for you can simply just look where you highlighted. Another feature that DIIGO has that Scoop.it does not, is the ability to tag the webpages you find. After collecting so much material on different subjects, it would be extremely difficult to look through all the different pages just to find ones that are relevant to what you need. The tagging that DIIGO allows you to to makes a list on the side of your library. All you have to do when you are looking for a specific subject or theme is go through and click the tags that are relevant to that subject. The webpages you found and tagged are then easy to find.

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Some of the benefits of Scoop.it are that you can create specially themed "folders" to hold the webpages that you found. You become a curator of the information that you choose to find. I also like that people can comment on the pages that you have found. This allows for people to communicate how they feel about certain materials or if they have any materials that are relevant to what you have posted. I also think finding relevant and worth while material can be very time consuming and difficult, so it is nice that they offer suggestions based off of what you are looking for.

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These sites both allow for users to follow each other. I think that they are both great sites to have because they give you a place to put all that information that you couldn't possibly hold in bookmarks or saved material. I also like that you can access these libraries anywhere and are not held down to just one computer. I believe that instead of bookmarking like crazy, which I am thoroughly guilty of, I will use these sites to create a neat and tidy space for my saved materials.

New Age Classrooms

After watching Classroom of Tomorrow, it amazes me how much technology can be used in the classroom. I have seen a lot of use of smart boards and projectors, but that seems to be just the starting point at what can really be done in the classroom. I worry that not all classes are able to afford this kind of technology in the classroom. It is a bit ideological that students will be able to use their phones to pull up a PowerPoint to present to the class. My student teaching placements where in city schools where few students even had paper and pencils to bring to class. I know schools are constantly developing and moving towards better classrooms, however I'd still prefer schools to spend more money on having more teachers with smaller classrooms than to provide an IPad to each student. I guess in that sense I am a little old fashioned. I hope that progress continues to happen and that classrooms do continue to grow. The best investment to make is toward the education of our future generations. I believe that technology is a great tool to use in the classroom. Students are usually tech savvy and are more than willing to show what they can do on a computer. I think technology education is also important because many of their future careers may be based on the functioning and operations of the technology that is available today. Students need to be well prepared for the ever growing world around them.

 

Another video that I enjoyed watching was A Vision of 21st Century Teachers. The video started of with the quote, "adapting and evolving, teachers digitally empower diverse learners to connect, communicate, collaborate, and create in an interactive technology-rich environment." This could not be more accurate. Teachers are the window to helping students use technology in a productive and empowering way. With our help and guidance students can learn to communicate with each other and produce material that is relative to them yet using advances in technology as the medium in which it is shared. I also enjoy that they ended the video with the quote, "who dare to teach must never cease to learn." With a constantly changing world, teachers need to always be adapting and learning new and better ways to communicate and teach with their students. The video gave a lot of examples of how those teachers are, but you could also see that they spend hours researching newer and better ways to develop their classrooms. The video is a good way to inspire teachers to always be willing to learn something new about the benefits of technology in the classroom.

References:
smart board photo
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Teaching Benefits of Blogs

I've only ever really considered blogs to be something similar to an online journal. I guess that was because I was not as educated about them as I believed myself to be. When I picture a blogger, I think of some person sitting in their parents basement trying to tell the world about some conspiracy theory that they've been working on. I know, extremely biased. Know that I've grasped the concept more, I have learned that it is something much larger than that. It can be an extremely helpful tool to opening up the classroom to your students in a new medium.

I enjoyed reading about how a blog can be a tool for working cooperatively. It is a way for students to contribute and provide feedback to their peers. While reading Blogging in Language Learning, by Rita Zeinstejer I felt a connection with what was being discussed. Getting students to work together in a productive and exciting manner isn't always the easiest. However, by using blogs students are able to comment and express opinions and ideas that they may not have been willing to speak up in classroom discussions. Students will be able to engage in real conversations using the English language compared to the often scripted conversations they are often subjected too.

Working online can also be a benefit to students as well as teachers. If allows teachers to constantly be able to update information and provide it to students. It also gives students more time to think or process what they are going to write or say. I know that I was always that students that couldn't work under the pressure of writing at school during a timed session. Allowing students to feel more personalized and giving them time to be creative allows for better material and in turn a chance the students is actually learning.


STANDARDS:
Standard 1: Students will listen, speak, read, and write in English for information and understanding
Performance Indicators-
7: Present information clearly in a variety of oral and written forms for different audiences and purposes related to all academic content areas.
8: Select a focus, organization, and point of view for oral and written presentations, and justify this selection.
English as a Second Language NYS Standards