* Vocabulary: words I learned *

Lists of words that I learned during this Semester:

Language input 

Language output

Podcast

Baladodiffusion

Social network

Rookie

Labels

Cognitive

Layout

Template

Blog entry /blog

What did I learn ?

During this Semester, I've learned many things about technology, I learned how to use some tools and it would be very interesting to use them when I am a teacher. Wordle, Edublogs, Storymaker(if you don't what I'm talking about, it means you didn't read all of my posts !!), those websites could help me to make my teaching more attractive, to make my pupils want to learn ! 

I also learned how much stories can be useful to teach vocabulary, to teach them things through activities they like. I hadn't realized that games, songs, and all the creative activities are the best way to teach. I understood that if we don't adapt ourselves to the pupils, they won't feel engaged, they won't feel like learning new things every day ! Knowing what are the new technologies, in what world children evolve, we will be able to know how to make the teaching interesting, how to make them want to come to school day after day. 

I also learned many things concerning the use of the computer such as screenshots, lists of vocabulary on Wordle, creating stories on Voicethread, creating a blog... I really liked all of these activities, I think it helped me to be more open-minded concerning the integration of social networks or technologies within the class.

My language didn't improve as much as I expected, we rather learned technical words, but it benefited me too.

I didn't encounter many difficulties, the explanations for realizing each task were very clear. The fact that I study  English really helped me. But I'm not saying that I didn't make progress, I have learned many things, much more important than new words of vocabulary such as methods of teaching.

Very interesting semester ! 

The girl who talked to animals

The girl who talked to animals

21st Century Teaching Strategies

Produced by Edutopia, this video was realized in Singapore, at the NGEE ANN Secondary School. Singapore is recognized as one of the world's top education systems ! This podcast is very interesting. It deals with adapting teaching methods to pupils, to the world we live in. Several teachers explain how they try to find interesting technics to make their lessons attractive, they explain that using Technology, their pupils are engaged in the class. They collaborate instead of being focused on themselves, there is interaction between the pupils, they can exchange ideas, learn from others and teach their comrades things they know. I think this is very important that pupils feel integrated, that they are interested in what they learn. At first, I thought it was maybe something bad to introduce technology within the class because children would use it all the time, without interruption, and I think they have to interest themselves in other things than Internet, Facebook, etc. But I realized that computers, smartphones, and all things that belong to technology are "new ways to connect with the kids", if teachers adapted their methods to what pupils like, learning would become very rich, interesting. As Adrian Lim says in the video, it is important to consider how the world has changed to be able to make our teaching methods more attractive. Watching this video, we see that all the pupils seem happy to come to school, to learn with their comrades. Technology facilitates interaction between the teacher and the pupils; when there are 40 pupils in a class, it is not possible to listen to each pupil, whereas using smartphones, all the questions can be read on a board and each pupil feel that his question is important, is considered by everybody. I would myself use some kind of technologies because I realized how important it is to pay attention to what pupils want to learn, HOW they want to learn and how much it is important to adapt ourselves to them instead of asking them to adapt to our old methods. But I still think that we have to combine technology with books, with things that would help pupils not to be cut from the real world. Please, watch this video because it is very enriching ! :)
If you want to see it, click ItunesU, Teaching and Education, search "Teaching in the classroom" and click Technology Integration (Edutopia) on the left corner.

Web 2.0 for Rookies

What I would like to talk about is just a part from "Web 2.0 for Rookies" : Twitterfiction

The principle is simple: it's a way to make people like writing, so they have to find it interesting to like it. With this application, people just have to invent a short story on any subject, using only 140 characters. 

Here is an example that I took on Twitterfiction:

"As she left, the sun broke through and hope sprung up like an explosion. She had tried for a scholarship and got none, but she went anyway."

Here is mine:
"She smiled, while looking at him. They ran as fast as they could and they laughed loudly. He took her hand and they lay down in the grass. Here began the best day of their life."

10 Reasons to Use Technology in Education

This video is very interesting. It exposes the best 10 reasons to use technology like Ipads, Tablets, Computers, Listening centers... You should watch it and try to see how it could help as a teacher.

Technology in Education

1) Students love it

2) It engages the four key components to learning

3) Professional development

4) Makes life easier for Teachers

5) Improves test scores

6) Helps students with low attention spans (duration)

7) Learn from the experts

8) Encourages completion (achievement) of homework

9) Saves money

10) Remove obstacles

I think that the most interesting ideas that I would retain are the first, the second, the sixth, and the tenth because they would be the most useful for the students. But as a teacher, I wouldn't abandon the traditional methods of teaching because they are very useful too. Links have to be made between the two methods, it's my opinion.

Story Maker

If you want tocreate, invent your own story, this website is very well-done and it takes a few time to make it ! Try and tell me if you like it :) Enjoy ! You can also look at the story I've done and comment !

Story Maker

Help me Grow

A podcast from Family & Childcare (Teaching and Education)
To find it quickly, do a research on ItunesU and you'll have the podcast
Watch the video and answer the 20 questions ! Good luck !!

1)In which state was it realized ? 

Minnesota

2)Complete the sentence: When parents ....., Children ......

Know, Grow

3)Which age does the video deal with ?

Five-year-old

4)Which type of development is analyzed ?

Cognitive development

5)Which colours are children able to pick up ?
-Red, Blue, Grey and Black
-Red, Yellow, Green and Blue
-Red, Yellow, Blue, Green and Orange                                          Red, Yellow, Blue, Green and Orange  

6)How far can the little girl count ?

Up to ten and perhaps beyond

7) What is the second type of development that is analyzed ?
-Social and cultural development
-Social and emotional development                                                         Social and emotional development
-Emotional and cultural development

8)Are Five-year-old children more sensitive to the needs and feelings of others around them ?

Yes, they are

9) Complete: They can sometimes be ...... about the other children

Critical

10)Write the third kind of development:

Large and small Muscle development

11)What is the child writing on his sheet of paper ?

The beginning of his first name: Colli

12)What is the child able to do at 5-year-old ? (2:35-2:57)

                                                                                                 They are able to use building toys, they can go down the stairs, they can run and skip

13)What is very important for children's learning ?

Physical exercice

14)Complete the fourth type of development: ........................ Development

Language and Communication

15)What is the child able to do concerning the language skill ? (3:19-3:40)

                                He can speak clearly enough so that he can be understood, he can use longer sentences and tell longer stories. He can use future tense in his communication.

16)What can parents do to help their children grow and learn ? (3:55-4:45)

                                  To get ready for the kindergarten, to play fun games, to provide a lot of opportunities to practice writing letters, to sing songs together, to read books and tell stories

17)Complete the following sentence: Sometimes, children ..........................................................................

aren't developing as typically expected

18)What indicate these signs ?

                                                                                                        That your child may not be developing as other five-year-old children

19)Quote at least three signs of unusual development of the child:

-Unable to separate from parents without major protest

-Seems unhappy or sad much of the time

-Has trouble eating or sleeping

20)How many signs can help parents to understand their child's problem ?
-Two                                                                                                                                                 Eight
-Five

-Eight                                                                  

WORDLE

A very useful website if, as teachers, we want to teach our pupils some specific vocabulary. The idea is to create a kind of poster that we could put in the classroom, so that pupils would be able to remember the words easily. My vocabulary was about the Bathroom.
 Here is the link, you should click it !

WORDLE

My Poster

Using Facebook to teach

I really liked the video that Carmenne posted on her blog so I want to share it with you.

It deals with the using of Facebook to teach. I think that this teacher had a very good idea when she decided to use it in her class. It's very interesting to use a modern tool to work on past events, History. 

Her pupils appreciated to use Facebook to speak about religious leaders, politicians, people who were part of the History. Each of them was in the skin of one of these people. It feels like they were still alive ! They gave them a second life writing on Facebook as if they were speaking themselves ! I think that the project was really interesting because the teacher made it attractive, lively and interactive whereas it could have been boring. 

This is a way of teaching that we could use in our future classes :)

Using Facebook to teach

Reflection

Do you think it is possible to incorporate a social networking website like Facebook for teaching English as a foreign language? Why or why not?

How would you do so as a primary/ middle/ high school teacher? 

Any concrete ideas on how you would use a particular element from Facebook?

* I think that it could be a good idea because children and students are fond of social networks ! But I also think that a special group should be created, concerning English and its learning. In this way, only people concerned by this topic would be members of the specific group. 

* As a primary/middle or high school teacher, I would post videos they would have to watch and comment; I would ask them to post on Facebook a photo report on a topic they would choose, concerning English culture. We could also use it to help some associations, I mean pupils would have to create a group in English and raise money for a cause they would defend. People from every country could participate but pupils should only speak English ! 

* The particular element I would use from Facebook is "Articles". People can write articles on every subject they want. We could, as teachers, use it and ask pupils to write an article, as if they were newspapers' agents. The whole article would be in English, they would have a given time to inquire about a topic they like and then write the article. Or I also think that they could write an article about memories of their holidays or special events of their life. They could improve their english.

To sum up , I think that Facebook could be useful if its using is interesting and helpful for pupils. :)

A perspective on teaching by Lee Shulman

Resume of the video: (Very interesting by the way ! )
At the beginning, we can see a woman who is a teacher, she says that "investing in teaching and teachers is the key to K-12 education". Then, she introduces Lee Shulman who is a retired teacher. They worked together.
He says that he has spent his life "excellenting teaching". He was awarded for the things he created in order to improve teaching. Then, he speaks about he and Pam (the other teacher) who watch the same TV Channel: a food one ! It deals with candidates who have to realize courses with mistery ingredients. And he compares it to teaching: when you arrive at university, there are lot of surprises, pieces of curriculum you don't know, and you have to do something magic with it ! He asks this question: Who has never experienced the fact of talking about something you don't know ? He brought a book entitled: How to talk about a book you've never read ? And he tells some experiences he had with students who hadn't read a book, how they said interesting things without knowing what it dealt with, how people reminded him things he wrote in his books that he didn't remember and he thought: "What he/she says is far better that what I've written ! " He thinks that people who have read the book are sometimes blinded by all the information they get. His opinion is that it's not a problem to put some info aside. The same phenomenon can be experienced with Internet: when we read a text, we move to another one very quickly because of the links. The essential point is to teach pupils the sense of what they read ! "When you read a book, you're reading yourself" ! It's a combining between me and the book, it develops the imagination !
Then, he explains what he saw on a blog from the N-York Times entitled: "Speaking up for patient safety and survival better hand-washing through technology" (by Tina Rosenberg)
He talks about patients who got infections they hadn't before entring hospital. It's paradoxical.
To avoid this, nurses and doctors made a checklist, some things they had to do before being in touch with the patients.Result after that --> 0 infections thanks to one principle: every one is responsible for another people. You have to "feel collectively responsible for the quality of the work rather than individually responsible".
How to bring the two texts together ? "Reflecting on their work as teachers". Teachers have to combine the need for creativity in performance, practice (the book) and the need for developing a quite strict routine (checklist). Some experiences made in class proved that creativity can't be separated from routine. It means teachers have to link the past and the present in order to keep pupils motivated, interested.
Eventually, Lee Shulman congratulates teachers for "how they manage engaging in this remarkable profession that requires routine and spontaneity !
I think this video is very useful to understand what we have to do, what we have to focus on and what we have to forget as teachers ! Watch it ;)

EduBlog :)

Yesterday, we learned what Edublogs are and I think it is very useful for teachers and also for pupils ! That's why I visited some Edublogs and here is the link if you want to see what a Edublog looks like :

http://huzzah.edublogs.org/

http://borges.edublogs.org/
ELODIL

Those blogs are very useful, teachers can share their ideas, they can create events for their class, communicate with their pupils, with the parents ! A lot of great ideas could be developed thanks to blogs and Edublogs, in order to make the class more attractive and interesting , and the communication easier ! 

   Have fun !

Sources: Google

What is technology for me ?

I think that technology is not just linked to computers and Internet and so on ! Technology is every kind of tools that can help human beings in their life. I mean it could be a computer now as it could be the discovery of the fire and its using during the Stone Age. Technology is a very practical concept. We use it every day, sometimes without being aware of it. A knife, a spoon, this is also technology !! Human beings are the ones who make the technology, they imagine it and create it. In the everyday's life, for almost every act we do, we need technology.
To sum up, I would say that even if technology is digital media, Internet, computers, television, etc, I think that each historical period has had and created its own technology. Today, it's more modern than 100 years ago, but when we are parents and married, our technology will maybe be considered as has been !

Home sweet home

When the weather is dreadful and cold as it is currently, I like to warm me up with a chocolate, while watching TV or reading a book ! I think it is very pleasant and relaxing . . . 

 

  Do you think so?

Do you think so?

 Do you think so?

Web site visited: Google