hope!
I agree that as you state Alecia, it should only be ONE of several ways to deliver lessons/curriculum. But a very effective one it is. I do hope you have the horseshoe and open concept lab which is ideal for language instruction? The old row by row labs are not conducive to the proper functioning of a language lab.
It really is NOT difficult to do but the teachers need a day long workshop inorder to both learn how to deliver the content / use the computers and try some of the content. Some prior computer skills are needed.
Students come to class and immediately log in with individual ids. Either have the main url and activity on the whiteboard in front of the class and go through what you want the students to do. The students are divided into "talk teams". As they proceed on their computer lessons -- the teacher calls out a team and they conference and dialogue in the middle of the lab. Each student gets basic conversational practice with a teacher and the other students are busy on their own tasks. NO classroom management problems and teachers who've adopted this model experience zero fatigue and actually WANT to get to school and teach. A big plus.
How? Vis a vis the computer? There are a lot of ways you can design this. You can use a closed system whereby you are using bought language software. Or you can use an open system whereby you use public online content -- 5-6 quality sites. Students are restricted to those sites and after they finish their day's assignment, they can do whatever else on these sites they wish (very important with computer based learning to give students at least 50% of their time online with CHOICE). Part of the content will also be a computer based project which students can work on with this extra time.
All sites/content should be fully text to speeched and with audio. There are some great options out there. I just did some consulting for this new beta site Yolango. Students watch videos and do language activities (soon you will be able to preselect the videos and restrict student access). Mystudiyo has great potential in this area of quizzes too and supports the Spanish language. Here are some quizzes I've done on my own network for students. Of course, Voicethread. See my own EFL network for hundreds of stories/karaokes/readers/games for EFL / ESL / ELLs. It is for both teachers and students and with the same ID/PW students and teachers can both log in and use the content (Ning supports multiple users on one ID/PW!). So you could also start a Ning site and list content there for students to tackle....
I know I didn't go into too much detail but it is a start....good luck.
David
http://eflclassroom.ning.com…
earn EFL...
I give also the VoiceThreads for training... Next sessions next sat with a new one for italian language with Vincenzina...
Can you tell us if you are interested to be a teacher/learner in your own language, and what do you think about it ?
Learning chinese with Yumei:
Trouvez plus de vidéos comme celle-ci sur L'Ecole Hors les Murs - School Beyond The Walls
Learning french with Vincent (me)
Trouvez plus de vidéos comme celle-ci sur L'Ecole Hors les Murs - School Beyond The Walls
The VoiceThreads for training :
…
with some of these tools- the value in meaningful learning for elementary level students was not clear to me until recently.
Using wikis - what a great way to add new dimensions to projects.
Blogging - the uses for teacher collaboration will be a great help for me this year. I will be working with students and teachers during the school day this year. Plans and ideas for integrating technology will be so easily shared this way.
Voicethreads (that was shared by Susan in this network) will get a great work out this year -what a great concept.
One of my next goals will be to use my webcam with skype - I have put it off because I am not comfortable with it yet. I will read what folks in here do with it to see about it - not quite sold yet.
I need to experiment with wikis and blogging with a group. Today's aha was that what I envision may not be how each of these tools actually works in a computer lab setting.
Last year we made many videos on many different topics. We used Digital Blue Movie Creator, Movie Maker, and Photstory3.After seeing dotsub.com, I see that my students can edit each others videos and include translations.…
f drug problems, usually no dad in the home, and all kinds of abuse going on that we may or may not ever find out about so that we can report it. So, let's not leave these kids out of the "close the school" discussion. For many, as we all know, going to that particular building away from the chaotic home is likely the only semblance of order and meaning in a child's day. Maybe the only full meal also. I use lots of technology with my kids, connect them with the world, but I supply that technology in my classroom -- it is not available in their homes. Computers usually get hocked for drugs. Flickr, Skype, Google Docs, Jing, VoiceThread, Podomatic, ...on and on are great, but not consistently available to low-income groups beyond the school building. Even when they might be available, there needs to be a responsible adult to make sure the kid is on schedule, make sure the computer is working right, make sure assignments get done....etc.
So I believe, with all due respect, that we are in the realm of ivory tower thinking when we start talking about closing the buildings. The concept is basic: there is a location to which a child can go to be in the presence of some kind of learning, maybe not the best, but better than staying on the streets all day. -- Terry…
Added by Terry Smith at 8:58am on November 1, 2007
chen Englisch-Kenntnisse - strengt mich immer ein wenig an, alles rauszufinden, was es so gibt.
Unsere Classmates hatten wir zur Probe 4 Wochen vor den Sommerferien bis zu den Ferien...haben dann rausgeschunden, dass wir sie nochmals bis zu den Herbstferien bekamen. Nun hat die Gemeinde einen Leasingvertrag gemacht und die 6. Klasse besitzt nun diese Netbooks. Problem ist, dass ich "nur Fachlehrerin" bin und die Klasslehrerin sich zwar tapfer schlägt, aber doch nur sehr wenig Erfahrung hat. Wird schon noch. Wir benutzen außerdem auch Moodle.
Was ist das mit dem Comenius?...Mich würden auch deine diversen Schülerblogs interessieren - bin mal über eine 9. Klasse gestolpert, aber ich finde den Blog nicht mehr...interessiere mich für Voicethread...auch wie man Videos macht, weiß ich noch nicht so recht. Vielleicht kann ich ja Einiges von dir lernen, was ich dann an andere Kolleginnen und Kollegen weitergeben könnte?
Gruß Evi…
Added by Evelyn Frank at 6:58am on December 28, 2008
3 steps:
(1) Navigate to the Sue Hellman page. Part way down on the left is a Canadian map under My Groups. If you click on that and then look beneath the main banner (right of center) on the group page, you should see + Join this Group. Click and you’ll be in.
(2) Invite me to be a colleague please.
(3) If you add yourself to the map, please include a name or a photo of some sort. 'Anonymous' cannot be distinguished from ‘Unknown Location’ when I try to clean up the false starts. THANKS!!!!
"Highlights are many, but one that stands out for me was finally getting my podcast to work and being able to embed it onto my blog (this was almost a lowlight had I let my frustrations get the best of me!0" -- oh how I identify with these words -- we were doing a family Voicethread for my mum for Christmas and when I couldn't get the mic to work on Christmas Eve -- I almost deleted the whole thing in frustration. At the last minute all went well & I felt on top of the world.…
Added by suehellman at 9:34pm on December 28, 2008
.
See also this list of online image galleries.
More general tools like Weebly and PBWiki could work well, too, I think. Maybe even Tumblr? Pageflakes? Oooh, what about Mixbook and Voicethread?
Here's a student (at the University of Mary Washington) who effectively created a "blogfolio." No reason a student couldn't do that using Blogger.
Finally, Dr. Helen Barrett has been thinking, writing, and sharing about electronic portfolios for a LOT longer than I have. You can check out some of her work here.
Want more? If you're a social bookmarker (and even if you're not, actually), poking around in the sites tagged with "portfolio" in del.icio.us or diigo might turn up some good stuff.
As I sometimes say to my students, That ought to keep you busy! :-D
in peace,
Shelley…
es around special ed as well as management concerns about proper use of tools and appropriate communication have made me wary of using the tools. Additionally, acceptable use policies around students using sites that require logons also slow me down.
But, I love using Web 2.0 tools for me as professional development and I find they have been absolutely invaluable. I've also managed to incorporate a few Web 2.0 projects into class.
1. I took an online class through my ISD on Web 2.0. I was curious to learn what it was and it was timed with a maternity leave. Perfect. There wasn't much else to do while recovering from surgery at home but sit at a table with my laptop.
2. My online class had us doing blogs, wikis, delicious, and a bunch of other stuff, but the first thing I did on my own was probably either Animoto, Voicethread, or Classroom 2.0.
3. The usefulness and fun of using Web 2.0 is what keeps me using it. It is self perpetuating. The more I learn from PLNs, the more I use them. The engaged my students are in Web 2.0 projects, aka, having fun with them, the more I want to use them.
Ann, thanks for asking this question. I'm really enjoying reading the answers.…
Added by Kate Fanelli at 7:47am on October 12, 2009
earning process better with marker and white board and all those flash cards,role paly activity cards...puzzles etc (am a great fan of these theaching aids ever since i completed my CELTA).....should i go back to a simple PPT or try out a prezi...should I set a writing activity and ask them to write in pen (we have paper-pen based tests at school so ultimately the students have to actually write and not type)...
Furthermore, I realized that i was using technology as a medium to communicate what I was otherwise doing with worksheets, oral instructions or simple handouts...I also felt that I was more focused on the 'nice to know' aspect rather than the 'need to know aspect'. I started using tools just because they looked good or had a lot of interesting features...I was looking at methods of increasing the effectivness and not effeciency. As they say, awareness comes before change...I somehow feel that i need to change the way I use technology in my classroom. I need find that magic key to strike the right balance between pedagogy and technology.
One of my colleagues suggested I join classroom 2.0 and so I'm here to understand how technology is being used in different contexts...to learn and to share.…
issues once we dumped Windows 7 switched to Linux. We are very much into blogs, wikis, voicethread, Google docs, etc. in the pilot classrooms. We are still learning, but these pilot seem to have some promise. Netbooks are not sexy, but they seem to mitigate the whole electrical issue a traditional notebook has during a 7 hour school day.
We also implemented 300 iPod Touches, primarily for use by our Special Education teachers as intervention tools. While the use by the teachers and students has been very positive educationally, the management of these devices is problematic. Brutal actually. Apple will need to develop better enterprise level management tools before these devices can be considered in a large scale (>5000 student) implementation. They are devices meant to be managed by a single consumer, not an organization.
We are building out our wireless infrastructure to handle the increased density that a 1:1 will bring. We are moving to all 802.11n access points connected back to the closet with 1 gig Ethernet. It will take us a year or two, so we will focus the updates on the instructional areas in each building. We currently have around 200 managed AP's in our district and are currently testing density levels for a 1:1 deployment.…