Monthly Archives: March 2010
Learning prepositions with games
“Imagination is more important than knowledge. Knowledge is limited. Imagination encircles the world.”
Albert Einstein
As a 21st century teacher we need to engage our students in a different way. Learning prepositions has always been very difficult for non-native English speakers. Luckily with the advent of new technology learning prepositions can be real fun!!!
Flash Hangman Game: Students must guess the correct preposition.
Basketball Game: In order to win the basketball match you have to choose the best preposition for each sentence.
Preposition Desert – Help the baby kangaroo rats arrive home before it rains!! Students must determine if the word is a preposition of the object of the preposition.
Find the hidden mouse: Elementary game to learn prepositions of place. Point to the different points in the room to learn the prepositions.
Tidy your room: Learn the prepositions of place and tidy up your room. The teacher must dictate where you have to put every object.
Websites to foster writing
How can you motivate your students to write 300 to 400 words? Are we able to achieve this using different Web 2.0 tools? We are able to motivate students to learn how to write in an engaging and meaningful way. Take a look at the different ways I am using technology tools to enhance learning.
First I start with this really nice song Hip-Hop in the classroom that explains how to plan the five elements in a short story (plot, character, conflict, theme, and setting)
Is a fun way of writing stories. Students have to pick an image and then write a story based on the different pictures they selected. ” You are dealt five random photos for each draw, and your task is to select one each time to add to a selection of images, that taken together as a final set of 5 images- tell a story in pictures.” Once your story is finished you can share it using Twitter or embed it. Take a look at the stories my students created Middle 1 stories
This is the best website to introduce students to different writing styles. Using text organizers to assist students with the writing process. It also provides clear examples that can be downloaded and printed to use in the classroom.
Fun and entertaining proofreading activity.
Students must spot the mistake in a short text. There are many different levels to choose from.
Then drag and drop the correct proofreading over the error.
Web 2.0 Easter activities
Do not abandon yourselves to despair. We are the Easter people and hallelujah is our song.~ Pope John Paul II
Easter is a very special celebration. Teachers can use so many different online activities to enhance their teaching. I have been adding some links to my school wiki and thought that it would be a nice idea to share it in my blog.
Web 2.0 tools we can use for Easter
Create your own Wizard Text Generator
This is an online Notice board maker. Today in the computer lab I made students write down something about Easter in the Wallwisher I created.
Footbabble: Listen how to use this Web 2.0 for Easter. Click here.
Make students create an online diary on what they did during Easter holidays. Upload your pictures from Flickr and start writing.
Easter Holiday around the world
Students work together gathering information about Easter using www.earthcalendar.net.
They must compare how the holiday is celebrated in each place. Then make students share how they celebrate Easter by creating a cartoon using Toondoo.
Easter Games
A kids heart: You will find several games such as: Decorate you Easter egg, Find the difference game, Egg Hunt game and many Easter cross puzzles.
Primary Games: Choose among all the games below.
Using speech bubbles
Speechable is a nice tool to add bubbles to your pictures. Today I used it at school. First I had to teach student that they can´t use any picture from Google images to create their bubble.
The concept of Creative commons was introduced and I allowed then to choose whatever picture they wanted from Flickr creative commons. The purpose of this activity was to make them write a bubble about any place they liked or visited in Argentina.
They had to upload the picture to speechable and add a word bubble.
You can take a look at what they created and at the same time learn a little bit about our country. Please check this link.
Which places would you visit?
A dream came true
This is the kind of post I would like all teachers to share. Finally I have a computer in the classroom!!!!
As from March I am working as the ICT English Coordinator at a Bilingual school in the Province of Buenos Aires. After so many years integrating technology as an after school activity this year I have the whole computer lab!!! I must coordinate the effective use of ICT across the whole curriculum and encourage aspects of cross-curricular planning in the English department.
This was a job that I had been waiting for a long time!!!
I created a wiki that is still under construction because I started this new position last week.
The wiki is our online classroom book where students will not only learn about computers but also how to use different Web 2.0 tools to learn English. I am also planning a cross-curricular online project on Digital Storytelling.
All the knowledge acquired throughout these years has been possible thanks to the most vibrant and inspiring online community “Webheads in Action”. I would also like to thank all my PLN for guiding me, and making me what I am today.
Using Twitter Part II
Twitter offers endless possibilities. How can we use it in our classroom to engage our students? Below you will find some clear examples on how to use this powerful tool.
Twitpic allows you to share pictures on Twitter. How can we use this in our classrooms? I`ve just found a wonderful article by Prudue University giving several examples on how we can use Twitpic in an elementary setting and in a secondary setting.
Tweetgrid allows you to follow up to 9 students at the same time. Everytime a new tweet is created, the grid is automatically updated.
QuoteURL for twitter can be used to quote students best ideas in one single page with a permanent URL.
To collaborate on projects
We can use several set up group applications if we are planning to work together on project. Below are some Twitter applications that will help facilitate the communication among the people participating in the project.
Tweetworks You can create a private group for your conversation.
Twitter lists Makes it easy to follow your students tweets.
Twitter groups Create a close group to follow your students tweets.
Use Twittories to participate in creating a story where each person can add 140 characters to contribute to the story as a whole.
Arcall and Webheads 2010 Monthly Activities
We are pleased to announce ARCALL free monthly activities. In order to become 21st century teachers we need to constantly update our ICT knowledge and it is much better to do this sharing and collaborating together.
We welcome you aboard!!!!
Below you will find the different tools we will explore during March.
March: Creating word clouds
What is a word cloud?
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Jump to: navigation, search
A tag cloud with terms related to Web 2.0
A Tag Cloud for Searching on Google
A tag cloud or word cloud (or weighted list in visual design) is a visual depiction of user-generated tags, or simply the word content of a site, typically used to describe the content of web sites. Tags are usually single words and are normally listed alphabetically, and the importance of a tag is shown with font size or color.[1] Thus, both finding a tag by alphabet and by popularity are possible. The tags are usually hyperlinks that lead to a collection of items that are associated with a tag.
Our topic this month is Creating Word Clouds with Wordle, Image Chef, Word it out and ABCya!
Many teachers are already using Word Clouds in their classroom. Let´s read about their wonderful ideas:
12 Word Cloud Resources, Tips, & Tools by Shelly Terrell
Tech Tools & Pedagogy II – Word Clouds by Marisa Constantinides (check “A quick comparison chart”
Using Word Magnets in the ESL classroom by Russell Stannard
Using WordSift in the ESL classroom by Russell Stannard
Are you using any of these tools in your classroom? How would you integrate these tools?
Our main idea is to discuss the pedagogical use of these tools.
Examples of Word Clouds in the ESL classroom
| http://blog.vaughany.com/tag/wordle/ | ||||
| http://dougpete.wordpress.com/2009/09/15/a-wordle-example/ | ||||
| http://tinyurl.com/yczywuv by Mariel Amez |
