I'm looking forward to attending the TESOL Convention in Dallas later this month. I'll be sharing what's happening here on my blog and on Webheads and Friends in Dallas 2013.
Denise and I will be giving a presentation on our EVO session, *Neuroscience in Education: Braining Up Your English Lessons* in the Electronic Village on Friday, March 22 at 8:30.
Can't wait to see my TESOL friends and colleagues!
Showing posts with label webheadsinaction. Show all posts
Showing posts with label webheadsinaction. Show all posts
Saturday, March 09, 2013
Friday, March 01, 2013
TGIF
I had a great time blogging this week and had a chance to interact with educators around the world and here in Japan. In fact, through Thomas' post F2F Instructional strategies and comment here, I had a great chance to reconnect with one of the first people I met when I moved to Japan 10 years ago. Also, he informed me that my globalcookbook international collaborative project appears on the Voicethread 4 Education wiki EFL & ESL page. Although I haven't worked on this project for a while, I'm happy to see that it might still be inspiring other educators.
To finish off this full week of blogging, I'd like to recommend this random collection of recent and interesting articles:
Five habits of great students: Lessons from top-ranked STEM school
Studying the humanities, developing good habits, and choosing one's own reading material
How to have the best. appointment. ever.
Be prepared before consulting a tutor (or teacher) about your writing.
The Disposable Worker
The 30 Scariest Books Ever Written
The Stranger by Albert Camus is on this list so it caught my attention. Do you agree with the author's picks?
8 New Punctuation Marks we Definitely Need
Just for fun!
Have a good weekend!
To finish off this full week of blogging, I'd like to recommend this random collection of recent and interesting articles:
Five habits of great students: Lessons from top-ranked STEM school
Studying the humanities, developing good habits, and choosing one's own reading material
How to have the best. appointment. ever.
Be prepared before consulting a tutor (or teacher) about your writing.
The Disposable Worker
The 30 Scariest Books Ever Written
The Stranger by Albert Camus is on this list so it caught my attention. Do you agree with the author's picks?
8 New Punctuation Marks we Definitely Need
Just for fun!
Have a good weekend!
Wednesday, February 27, 2013
Annotation
I'm getting ready for the new school year that starts in April and I have been thinking about my upcoming lessons. One of the skills that students learn during the first few weeks of my class is annotation. While reading fiction and nonfiction texts, I encourage students to mark important information and take notes. Although each student is free to develop his or her own system of annotating, I do provide some instruction on the basic methods. In general, it seems like a skill that students tend to improve by practicing and comparing annotations. Peer and teacher feedback on annotation can also help students refine their system.
During our EVO session, Carla, Karen, and I have been discussing this general topic through blog posts and comments. Carla wrote a post, Learning by Retrieval: Forget Highlighting. I started thinking that annotating is a step above highlighting because the reader is more engaged with the text and can use these annotations at a later date to help prepare for an examination or essay. Karen's post, Are Tags the Answer further explored the ideas of marking texts and retrieving online information though tagging. Although everyone has different preferred methods, the key point is that students need to USE their annotation! By simply asking students to compare annotations, summarize main points of the text, or write review questions, they can revisit the content. Furthermore, students need to take one more step and reflect on their readings and annotations too. By engaging in class discussions, writing responses, or even dramatizing scenes from a novel, students need to revisit the text, their notes, and their understanding; these will lead to deeper processing.
I think annotating and notetaking serve several important purposes. One is to be an active reader. Another is to make thinking visible through writing questions, connections, summaries, or ideas. Annotating can even be a way to communicate with others. Most of us have the experience of borrowing a book from a friend, buying a used textbook, or paging through an old, forgotten book in the family library. These books and their notes are windows to the minds of those who read the words before us.
During our EVO session, Carla, Karen, and I have been discussing this general topic through blog posts and comments. Carla wrote a post, Learning by Retrieval: Forget Highlighting. I started thinking that annotating is a step above highlighting because the reader is more engaged with the text and can use these annotations at a later date to help prepare for an examination or essay. Karen's post, Are Tags the Answer further explored the ideas of marking texts and retrieving online information though tagging. Although everyone has different preferred methods, the key point is that students need to USE their annotation! By simply asking students to compare annotations, summarize main points of the text, or write review questions, they can revisit the content. Furthermore, students need to take one more step and reflect on their readings and annotations too. By engaging in class discussions, writing responses, or even dramatizing scenes from a novel, students need to revisit the text, their notes, and their understanding; these will lead to deeper processing.
I think annotating and notetaking serve several important purposes. One is to be an active reader. Another is to make thinking visible through writing questions, connections, summaries, or ideas. Annotating can even be a way to communicate with others. Most of us have the experience of borrowing a book from a friend, buying a used textbook, or paging through an old, forgotten book in the family library. These books and their notes are windows to the minds of those who read the words before us.
Tuesday, February 26, 2013
Surprises and Stories
Recently I was a co-moderator of the EVO session, Neuroscience in Education: Braining up your English Lessons. Some people asked me how I became interested in this topic and one of the reasons was attending First Annual Brain Days: Connecting Neuroscience with ELT Conference.
This event was held in 2011 (Osaka) and 2012 (Kitakyushu), and when I
attended TESOL 2012 in Philadelphia, I discovered that Carla had also developed an interest in the brain. We discussed the
possibility of developing an EVO session on neuroscience with Denise as content expert. In this post, I’ll briefly describe last year's Neuroscience
and ELT conference and make some connections to our EVO session.
At the 2012 Neuroscience and ELT conference, there were many presentations, and here is a sampling of the presentations I attended:
R. Murphy: Neuromyth-busters, Brain Anatomy for TEFL, Memory & Learning
C. Oana: Why is music helpful in teaching English: Some cognitive neuroscience evidences
C. Kelly: The neuroscience of lesson design
D. Paul: Personal Construct psychology and it’s implications in the classroom
M. Broide & I. Shiloh: Harnessing the narrative brain: An account of a learning experiment
I found Kelly’s presentation on the Neuroscience of Lesson Design to be interesting and practical. He discussed factors of learning. Students need to have physiological and psychological needs met, such as getting enough sleep and not having too much stress. Also, the lesson should be meaningful and relevant to the students and should include some emotion and challenge. For deep-processing, repetition, engagement, problem solving, and multi-sensory input can be taken advantage of. Finally, he highlighted that for brain compatibility, the lesson could include elements such as surprise and stories or songs. Audience members were encouraged to think about how to get dopamine into the class!
For me, the most interesting points from this session were surprise and stories. Since hearing Kelly’s presentation last summer, I’ve become more aware of the element of surprise in the classroom. For example, last semester, I was able to observe one of my colleagues teaching a humanities class. When I looked at the class handout, I noticed that it included some numbers and names, but there were no explanations and this was surprising! The teacher asked the students to speculate about what these meant within the context of the short story and the themes that they were studying. This led students to be curious and to engage with the material. Also, I noticed that when I’m teaching my humanities class, students are interested in novels, stories, and films when they’re surprised by the plot or characters. As previously mentioned, including a blank slide in a presentation is another way to surprise the audience. Just doing a little something different is enough to catch everyone's attention.
In addition to surprise, stories are also brain compatible. In his presentation, Kelly delivered some information in lecture style and then in story form. He asked the audience questions about the content, and everyone remembered the details of the story more readily. I think that not only telling stories, but also reading or writing stories can engage learners and their emotions. During our EVO session, Carla brought up the topic of attention hooks and stated that she often uses stories to illustrate grammar points, even keeping the same characters throughout the semester. These strategies also allow space for creativity in the classroom.
Finally, check out this information on DIY Neuro-ELT from M. Helgesen. If you remember, I blogged about his ELT and Happiness site at the end of 2007.
Karen, a participant in the EVO session, wrote an excellent post on attention hooks.
I hope to be able to attend another conference on neuroscience to continue learning and sharing with others!
At the 2012 Neuroscience and ELT conference, there were many presentations, and here is a sampling of the presentations I attended:
R. Murphy: Neuromyth-busters, Brain Anatomy for TEFL, Memory & Learning
C. Oana: Why is music helpful in teaching English: Some cognitive neuroscience evidences
C. Kelly: The neuroscience of lesson design
D. Paul: Personal Construct psychology and it’s implications in the classroom
M. Broide & I. Shiloh: Harnessing the narrative brain: An account of a learning experiment
I found Kelly’s presentation on the Neuroscience of Lesson Design to be interesting and practical. He discussed factors of learning. Students need to have physiological and psychological needs met, such as getting enough sleep and not having too much stress. Also, the lesson should be meaningful and relevant to the students and should include some emotion and challenge. For deep-processing, repetition, engagement, problem solving, and multi-sensory input can be taken advantage of. Finally, he highlighted that for brain compatibility, the lesson could include elements such as surprise and stories or songs. Audience members were encouraged to think about how to get dopamine into the class!
For me, the most interesting points from this session were surprise and stories. Since hearing Kelly’s presentation last summer, I’ve become more aware of the element of surprise in the classroom. For example, last semester, I was able to observe one of my colleagues teaching a humanities class. When I looked at the class handout, I noticed that it included some numbers and names, but there were no explanations and this was surprising! The teacher asked the students to speculate about what these meant within the context of the short story and the themes that they were studying. This led students to be curious and to engage with the material. Also, I noticed that when I’m teaching my humanities class, students are interested in novels, stories, and films when they’re surprised by the plot or characters. As previously mentioned, including a blank slide in a presentation is another way to surprise the audience. Just doing a little something different is enough to catch everyone's attention.
In addition to surprise, stories are also brain compatible. In his presentation, Kelly delivered some information in lecture style and then in story form. He asked the audience questions about the content, and everyone remembered the details of the story more readily. I think that not only telling stories, but also reading or writing stories can engage learners and their emotions. During our EVO session, Carla brought up the topic of attention hooks and stated that she often uses stories to illustrate grammar points, even keeping the same characters throughout the semester. These strategies also allow space for creativity in the classroom.
Finally, check out this information on DIY Neuro-ELT from M. Helgesen. If you remember, I blogged about his ELT and Happiness site at the end of 2007.
Karen, a participant in the EVO session, wrote an excellent post on attention hooks.
I hope to be able to attend another conference on neuroscience to continue learning and sharing with others!
Monday, February 25, 2013
Week Two: Emotion and Learning
Week two of our session, Neuroscience in Education: Braining up your English lessons, covered the topic of emotion and learning.
From James Zull book, The Art of Changing the Brain, page 58
Narrated by Mary Hillis
Images by Brazilian educator Cleide Frazão
When recording the above video, My Student Tony and Me, before the session started, I started thinking more and more about the role of emotion and learning, so for the “expanding your learning” task, I chose to research this area.
After all, I’m not only a teacher, but also a learner. I’m always learning about something and recently I’ve been studying Japanese, neuroscience, literature, and writing pedagogy just to name a few. However, since I’m a language teacher, I’ll focus on my recent experiences as a learner of the Japanese language. Actually, this is why I chose the topic of emotion and learning because I have complex emotions about studying and using Japanese and these affect my motivation and performance.
Living in Japan, I have felt frustrated when I get a cafe mocha everytime I think I’ve ordered a cafe americano. I have felt left out when I’m talking with a group of Japanese mothers. This frustration has even led me to take breaks from studying. On the other hand, these examples cannot be classified purely as negative because they helped me to identify my weaknesses and reinforced the need to continue studying. As a result, these so-called negative experiences could lead me to be motivated. In contrast with the real world, during my private Japanese lesson, my teacher is extremely supportive and creates a positive learning environment. Nevertheless, my experiences and emotions come with me every time I attend Japanese lesson.
From the various readings I’ve done recently, I’ve learned that negative emotions are linked to the amygdala and the fight or flight response while positive emotions are linked to dopamine and the frontal cortex. As the previous example demonstrates, emotions are not always easy to classify as positive or negative and there may be some interplay between the two.
For practical tips on emotion and learning, this pdf file was useful. Because I teach a literature themed course, I was particularly drawn to the following tips from the list which inspired me to consider my current teaching practice from a new perspective: emotion.
There are some other aspects of emotion and learning that I will leave for further research and many more useful resources and points to consider about emotion and learning. This is just the beginning!
From James Zull book, The Art of Changing the Brain, page 58
Narrated by Mary Hillis
Images by Brazilian educator Cleide Frazão
When recording the above video, My Student Tony and Me, before the session started, I started thinking more and more about the role of emotion and learning, so for the “expanding your learning” task, I chose to research this area.
After all, I’m not only a teacher, but also a learner. I’m always learning about something and recently I’ve been studying Japanese, neuroscience, literature, and writing pedagogy just to name a few. However, since I’m a language teacher, I’ll focus on my recent experiences as a learner of the Japanese language. Actually, this is why I chose the topic of emotion and learning because I have complex emotions about studying and using Japanese and these affect my motivation and performance.
Living in Japan, I have felt frustrated when I get a cafe mocha everytime I think I’ve ordered a cafe americano. I have felt left out when I’m talking with a group of Japanese mothers. This frustration has even led me to take breaks from studying. On the other hand, these examples cannot be classified purely as negative because they helped me to identify my weaknesses and reinforced the need to continue studying. As a result, these so-called negative experiences could lead me to be motivated. In contrast with the real world, during my private Japanese lesson, my teacher is extremely supportive and creates a positive learning environment. Nevertheless, my experiences and emotions come with me every time I attend Japanese lesson.
From the various readings I’ve done recently, I’ve learned that negative emotions are linked to the amygdala and the fight or flight response while positive emotions are linked to dopamine and the frontal cortex. As the previous example demonstrates, emotions are not always easy to classify as positive or negative and there may be some interplay between the two.
For practical tips on emotion and learning, this pdf file was useful. Because I teach a literature themed course, I was particularly drawn to the following tips from the list which inspired me to consider my current teaching practice from a new perspective: emotion.
“Discuss people’s and literary characters’ motivations”
“Incorporate storytelling, myths, legends, parables, and metaphors”
“Try role-playing, skits, and debates”
“Incorporate suspense, cliffhangers, and things left open-ended and unresolved”
There are some other aspects of emotion and learning that I will leave for further research and many more useful resources and points to consider about emotion and learning. This is just the beginning!
Sunday, February 24, 2013
Art
In preparation for Neuroscience in Education: Braining up your English Lessons EVO sessions, I read The Art of Changing the Brain by James Zull. As you can see, the title of this book includes the word “art.” Although the field of education can be informed by science and quantitative research, I believe that teaching remains an art. When I read “Plenary: Neuroscience and teaching” in the IATEFL 2012 Glasgow Conference Selections, Zull discusses the question of how to change the brain and I found the following quotations that speak to the idea of teaching as an art:
“This is why the title of our first book is The Art of Changing the Brain. The skill of generating such change in learners remains an art. Many teachers have discovered their own art through years of experience, but still cannot explain or define its elements. And despite the intense interest in neuroscience, the art is not revealed there either.”
I think this is one of the main reasons I enjoyed Zull’s book so much; he incorporates the science of the brain with the art of teaching. Furthermore, he acknowledges the complexity of learners, teachers, and classrooms. As an educator, it makes sense to look at education in this way and I’m happy to have been a co-moderator of the EVO session Neuroscience in Education: Braining up your English Lessons.
Chapter 8: Sense Luscious
Note: This post relates to Chapter 8 of The Art of Changing the Brain by James Zull. It was originally posted on Braining-up your English Lessons Posterous blog. Since this service closed in April 2013, I have copied the post here. If you’d like to know more about the one-minute paper and similar activities, please refer to Engaging Ideas: A Professor’s Guide to Integrating Writing, Critical Thinking, and Active Learning in the Classroom by John C. Bean. If you’d like to know more about teaching The Great Gatsby, I highly recommend The Great Gatsby in the Classroom: Searching for the American Dream by David Dowling.
The brain receives input from concrete experiences and enters the body through sense organs (eyes, nose, mouth, ears, skin). The input from these organs goes to different parts of the brain, so for example, input from the ears will go to the auditory cortex or input from the eyes will go to the visual cortex, and input from the skin, muscles, bones, etc. is related to the somatosensory cortex. The brain can detect little bits and see many details, but we can make mistakes because of barriers to paying attention or general misunderstanding. However, if the sensory input is threatening or dangerous, instead of going to the sensory cortex, it will go to the amygdala which will trigger instinct, and although the resulting response is fast, it misses details.
Zull uses the term “sense luscious” to describe experience which involves data from all the senses. He suggests that teachers should make use of concrete learning experiences and active learning methods, such as internships, research projects, collaboration, role playing and other active learning methods. Although Zull focuses on visual input, such as the use of pictures and diagrams to show concepts, he states that all senses--sound, smell, taste, touch, body position, as well as emotion--have a powerful role to play in learning.
I think that many of the activities that teachers set up in the English language classroom involve the pictures, senses, and active learning techniques. As you know, I primarily teach academic writing and literature, so here are a few activities that came to mind when I read this chapter.
Using pictures to show concepts: In a writing class, it might be useful to use images to represent the construction of different sentence types (compound, complex, compound/complex). Also, asking students to take photos or draw pictures to accompany their written work can be effective. When teaching literature, ask students to draw pictures of specific scenes, characters, or settings. At first, students might balk at the task and think it is easy or childish; however, once they realize how closely they have to re-read the text to gather details, most understand the value of this task.
Engaging all the senses: Sometimes when I teach compare/contrast essays, I teach the basics of the essay and then use a candy theme for skill practice. I bring in two different kinds of chocolates, like Snickers and Kit Kats. The students should look at the label design and information, taste/smell the different flavors, think about memories related to the candies, and anything else they can think of. Then, in pairs, students make a chart detailing the similarities and differences they found. Finally, they write a comparison/contrast paragraph.
Research Projects: Students conduct research projects on various topics. This semester, in preparation for reading The Great Gatsby, students conducted a 1920’s research project on topics such as flappers, prohibition, baseball, and jazz music. The did internet research, created documents with written text and pictures, and presented the information to their classmates. I had always thought that this project required students to learn/use a variety of skills, but now I’ve discovered that it is also brain-friendly!
Collaboration: Pair and group work is often used in any English language class. Asking students to make or discuss questions, brainstorm in groups, do peer review, participate in literature circles, perform jigsaw tasks, do think/pair/share, compare work, and so on are all examples of collaboration.
Role Playing: Thinking of The Great Gatsby again, students act out some of the scenes from the book. This requires them to read carefully to understand the situation and the movement of characters; also, students must grasp the voice and personality of each character in order to play the role effectively. I think role play is not only limited to speaking activities, however, Students can write diary entries, letters, and blog entries as if they were characters from a book.
Other active learning methods: I was curious to find out about other active learning methods, so I did a Google search and looked through a few of the top links. I came across something called “Just in Time Teaching.” This is something I’m not really familiar with, but it might be useful, especially for content based courses.
And a suggestion here (#6) is to insert a blank slide into the presentation to catch students off guard. This use of surprise and curiosity was mentioned many times at the Neuroscience in EFL Conference I attended earlier this summer.
The One-Minute Paper: This is something I learned about when I was doing my MA when I took a class on Writing Across the Curriculum. Students write for a short period of time of the topic of the class. Writing is one way that teachers can see a student's thought process. Often, I ask students to spend about 10 minutes writing a reflection about what we did in class that day. This is an open question, so sometimes they summarize the topic, ask questions, reflect on the various opinions from the discussion, and so on.
Do you have any additions or corrections to my summary of Chapter 8? How do you use the senses, images, and other active learning techniques in your classes?
Tuesday, January 22, 2013
New beginnings
This year I'm a co-moderator for the 2013 EVO session, Neuroscience in Education: Braining up your English lessons. This morning as I was reading and commenting on participants blogs, I realized that it has been over four years since I've written a blog post. Time for a new beginning!
Here is my new online introduction on about.me
Friday, November 07, 2008
Online Circles of Learning
Carla Arena and I gave a presentation called Online Circles of Learning: Your Micro-revolution for the Network of Trainers in Europe Conference. Our abstract: New and emergent technologies enable trainers all over the globe to pursue professional development out of their institutional settings. Connections are now possible in new dimensions of the online world. In this session, presenters will show some possibilities of informal learning through the participation in Communities of Practice, online sessions and spaces that can impact positively on the way trainers learn and enhance their professional development.
We had a fabulous time presenting, although the time went too fast- we had 15 minutes to present! During the 20 minute discussion that followed, we had some great questions and discussed the concept of "amplified worker" in more detail. According to The Future of Work, the amplified worker is someone who is social, improvisational, collective, and augmented - the worker for the future who uses social media for his or her own professional development. Check out our slides below and if you'd like more information, and see what online spaces and communities of practice Carla and I use during a day in our amplified lives! We also invite you to go to our wiki page where you can also join in the conversation on our Voicethread.
We had a fabulous time presenting, although the time went too fast- we had 15 minutes to present! During the 20 minute discussion that followed, we had some great questions and discussed the concept of "amplified worker" in more detail. According to The Future of Work, the amplified worker is someone who is social, improvisational, collective, and augmented - the worker for the future who uses social media for his or her own professional development. Check out our slides below and if you'd like more information, and see what online spaces and communities of practice Carla and I use during a day in our amplified lives! We also invite you to go to our wiki page where you can also join in the conversation on our Voicethread.
Wednesday, May 14, 2008
Reflections on why I blog ... sometimes
I haven't blogged lately, so when Carla Arena tagged me to answer the question, "What are YOU blogging for?" I thought it would be the perfect chance to create a post for this blog.
For me, I started this blog in the beginning to continue my learning and professional development. At the beginning, I thought learning to blog was just a set of technical skills; however, I quickly realized that blogging isn't just a technology thing, it is people thing, and it is all about learning, reflecting on learning, and connecting with others who are interested in continuing to learn as well. Especially this year, as I co-moderated Blogging4Educators, I found that commenting and sharing our learning was very powerful, indeed! I commented on participants' blogs, and they commented on mine. By working together and finding connections, we discovered the power of synthesizing our reflections through blogging, tagging, and RSS.
That's why after watching this video, I couldn't agree more with the second speaker, who stated,
"Not only did it [blogging] enable me to comment on their [the students'] learning, which they were reflecting on in their blogs, but they were commenting on my learning, and I thought that was really very powerful."
As for this blog, sometimes I blog a lot, and other times I blog little here. Unfortunately, a lot of posts I only think about, but don't carve out the time to actually write. As a teacher, during the last school year, I blogged with students for the first time, and we ended up making some amazing contacts with people from many countries through our class blog. To be honest though, I have blogged most consistently on my personal blog and this has allowed me the opportunity to deepen connections with friends and family, even though we're miles and miles apart. Blogging lessens the distance somehow. We can see and feel each other's thoughts and that's why I blog -- to feel connected -- both personally and professionally to those I care most about and those who I'm just meeting.
I would like to pass the question on to a few bloggers who I hope will share their thoughts about blogging: AnaMaria, Monica, Jen Verschoor, Illya, and Patricia.
For me, I started this blog in the beginning to continue my learning and professional development. At the beginning, I thought learning to blog was just a set of technical skills; however, I quickly realized that blogging isn't just a technology thing, it is people thing, and it is all about learning, reflecting on learning, and connecting with others who are interested in continuing to learn as well. Especially this year, as I co-moderated Blogging4Educators, I found that commenting and sharing our learning was very powerful, indeed! I commented on participants' blogs, and they commented on mine. By working together and finding connections, we discovered the power of synthesizing our reflections through blogging, tagging, and RSS.
That's why after watching this video, I couldn't agree more with the second speaker, who stated,
"Not only did it [blogging] enable me to comment on their [the students'] learning, which they were reflecting on in their blogs, but they were commenting on my learning, and I thought that was really very powerful."
As for this blog, sometimes I blog a lot, and other times I blog little here. Unfortunately, a lot of posts I only think about, but don't carve out the time to actually write. As a teacher, during the last school year, I blogged with students for the first time, and we ended up making some amazing contacts with people from many countries through our class blog. To be honest though, I have blogged most consistently on my personal blog and this has allowed me the opportunity to deepen connections with friends and family, even though we're miles and miles apart. Blogging lessens the distance somehow. We can see and feel each other's thoughts and that's why I blog -- to feel connected -- both personally and professionally to those I care most about and those who I'm just meeting.
I would like to pass the question on to a few bloggers who I hope will share their thoughts about blogging: AnaMaria, Monica, Jen Verschoor, Illya, and Patricia.
Saturday, January 12, 2008
Blogging4Educators 2008 EVO Session
It isn't that long until the kick-off event for TESOL's EVO 2008! This year, I am going to co-moderate the session Blogging4Educators with a fabulous group of bloggers: Carla A, Gladys, Erika, Ana Maria, Nina, Carla R, Claudia, Cris, Vance, and Dennis. It is so exciting to share and learn with them. Even though I have never met them face-to-face, we have been working together on a regular basis over the past six months preparing for the session. Their messages greet me every morning, and because we are all in different time zones, it seems like at least one of us is always working on the session!
We are going to explore both Blogger and Wordpress. Since I have been blogging with Blogger, Ana Maria and I have been working on our Blogging4Educators Blogger blog. It is always exciting to create a new blog, knowing that it will soon become a collaborative space for sharing personal reflections and experiences. Carla A and Carla R have been busy creating Blogging4Educators edublog. We are all eagerly awaiting the official start date of the session - January 14.
The next six weeks promise to be exciting, enriching, and undoubtedly exhausting as well. After EVO finishes, some of us will gather at TESOL's Annual Convention in New York, New York! In fact, Carla A and I will give a presentation for the Electronic Village Fair about our Blogging4Educators session.
Hope you will join us online or in New York. Here is an introduction to our session:
This six-week EVO2008 workshop (Jan 14th to Feb 24th, 2008) aims at introducing teachers with no extensive experience in blogging to different ways in which this technique can be integrated into their teaching and professional development.
By the end of the workshop, you will have experimented with creating and enhancing blogs, posting and editing entries, inviting members to your blogs and commenting on others' blogs - using either Blogger or Wordpress platforms. You will also have explored blog comment management, template personalization, tagging (labeling) and RSS (really simple syndication).
You can join us, and follow the session by visiting our Yahoo! Group.
We are going to explore both Blogger and Wordpress. Since I have been blogging with Blogger, Ana Maria and I have been working on our Blogging4Educators Blogger blog. It is always exciting to create a new blog, knowing that it will soon become a collaborative space for sharing personal reflections and experiences. Carla A and Carla R have been busy creating Blogging4Educators edublog. We are all eagerly awaiting the official start date of the session - January 14.
The next six weeks promise to be exciting, enriching, and undoubtedly exhausting as well. After EVO finishes, some of us will gather at TESOL's Annual Convention in New York, New York! In fact, Carla A and I will give a presentation for the Electronic Village Fair about our Blogging4Educators session.
Hope you will join us online or in New York. Here is an introduction to our session:
This six-week EVO2008 workshop (Jan 14th to Feb 24th, 2008) aims at introducing teachers with no extensive experience in blogging to different ways in which this technique can be integrated into their teaching and professional development.
By the end of the workshop, you will have experimented with creating and enhancing blogs, posting and editing entries, inviting members to your blogs and commenting on others' blogs - using either Blogger or Wordpress platforms. You will also have explored blog comment management, template personalization, tagging (labeling) and RSS (really simple syndication).
You can join us, and follow the session by visiting our Yahoo! Group.
Monday, December 31, 2007
Using Chinswing to create authentic listening materials
What is your favorite sweet? What do you think it represents about you, your life, or your culture?
It is that time of year when I start to think about yummy holiday foods, like Buckeyes! That reminded me, earlier this year, I posed the above question in a on Chinswing. Responses ranged from my memories of Buckeyes from Ohio State, Carla's musings on Brigadeiros from Brazil, and a host of other tasty treats from all over the world!
According to their web site, Chinswing is "a global message board where anyone can add voice messages to ongoing topical discussions" and it incorporates "podcasting, text forums and live voice chat".
The goal of this project was to collect some authentic listening material on an interesting topic for a university course I teach. Students listened to the recordings (7 people in 5 different countries have recorded messages for a total of 17 minutes), and then continued the discussion on our class blog.
By the way, if you would like to record a message about your favorite sweet, go ahead! I plan to use this voice thread again in another class, and I just heard that my proposal for "Using Chinswing to create authentic listening materials" has been accepted for TESOL 2008 Electronic Village Fair!
This post was included in the Teacher Potluck Carnival: New Year's Edition! Check it out!
Saturday, August 04, 2007
Get Hip to Learning English!
The first semester of our school year has just ended. One of my major goals for the term was to use blogging with my students. I started a class blog at Motime called Get Hip to Learning English IES. Overall, it was a good experience, thanks mostly to the comments of great friends from online communities of practice! The students felt really encouraged to know that they were making connections with a larger audience.
There are some points that I want to improve about the blog for next semester. First, I want to make it more visually appealing and interesting, so students won't lose interest. Second, I hope to use the blog to conduct a collaborative online project with a guest or guests from another country. Finally, I hope to get students more involved in generating content for the class blog, or to have them start their own individual blogs. In addition to those items, I want to become involved in Dekita, and help students to create some relationships with student bloggers in Japan and other countries.
By the way, I chose the title "Get Hip to Learning English" because "to get hip to something" means to become more aware and appreciative of it (M-W Dictionary).
Since I'll be continuing the same blog with the same students in our next semester beginning in September, I'm looking forward to the chance to work toward the above goals. Please share your reflections or suggestions about blogging with students!
There are some points that I want to improve about the blog for next semester. First, I want to make it more visually appealing and interesting, so students won't lose interest. Second, I hope to use the blog to conduct a collaborative online project with a guest or guests from another country. Finally, I hope to get students more involved in generating content for the class blog, or to have them start their own individual blogs. In addition to those items, I want to become involved in Dekita, and help students to create some relationships with student bloggers in Japan and other countries.
By the way, I chose the title "Get Hip to Learning English" because "to get hip to something" means to become more aware and appreciative of it (M-W Dictionary).
Since I'll be continuing the same blog with the same students in our next semester beginning in September, I'm looking forward to the chance to work toward the above goals. Please share your reflections or suggestions about blogging with students!
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)