Children's News Podcasts

Here is a link to the BBC World News Podcast for Children, which features short podcasts about (you guessed it!) world news made specifically for 7-14 year olds.

Because the news videos are short, sweet, and designed for children, I think that they would be great for ELL's to practice listening and writing skills. I would ask my students to listen to one news podcast from this website per week and turn in a 7-10 sentence written response summarizing and discussing what they learned. Students could ask questions about the news and write about what surprised them or what they learned. Because reading/writing and listening/speaking usually go together, I think that using these podcasts to create a listening/writing ESL and social studies exercise is a great way to change things up.

SWBAT listen to the news with the purpose of relaying current events to others.
SWBAT ask questions about current events.
SWBAT summarize what they have heard in writing.

Animoto: Creating Picture Slideshows

Animoto is a website that allows you to easily create photo slideshows with musical background tracks. Most importantly, you can add captions to your photos, which changes Animoto from a nice way to share your photos to an educational tool.

For my trial video using Animoto, I made a simple video about the growth of flowers. With this video as a model, I could use this assignment to assess students' understanding of sequence of events expressions following an in-class lesson. Students could create their 30 second photo slideshow online using Animoto and then email me the link to their work.

I could also use this online tool for different assignments, such as assessment of spatial words ("above," "underneath," "next to," etc.) or, as the syllabus suggested, an assignment asking students to describe their daily routines would be an excellent way to use Animoto.

I like this website. I found it very easy to use and I recommend trying it out if you haven't done so before.  

Storybird: Making Picture Books Online

This week, I explored online picture book creation tools (or comic strip creators, although I completely disagree with that description.) Storybird is a cute website that features tons of artwork from uploaders from all around the world. You can use these artworks to create a picture book, a full chapter book, or even just a poem. Then you can share your story with others or even publish your story on the website for anyone to view.

Here is the link to the story I made using Storybird, which is the tale of a lonely young girl whose wish for a friend is granted by the Princess of Heaven. It was a fun experience to make the book, but I will say that it was a little difficult to find enough corresponding images to make a full story.

If I were to use this online picture book creation tool with students, it would be as a general writing project for intermediate level ESL students.  I could use it to test students' story structure understanding by making sure students create a story with a beginning, middle, and end, including an obvious conflict. I would also be checking the students' use of punctuation when writing quotations in English (comma placement, quotation marks, proper placement of sentence ending punctuation markings, etc.)

Due to the difficulty I encountered finding enough coherent pictures to make a full story, I would not limit the students in any way other than the objectives I stated in the paragraph above. Students would be able to write about any topic of their choice using Storybird OR they could create a picture book with pictures from elsewhere.

My First Attempt at a TED-Ed Lesson

This week I was asked to create my first lesson on the TED-Ed platform. I have been working a lot with literacy and story comprehension strategies this semester so I chose to center my lesson around the fable of The Three Little Pigs.

This lesson asks students to view one animated version of the fable and answer multiple choice questions about it. Then, students are asked to skim an advanced article about the meaning of the fable. Afterward, students watch another animated version of the fable--this one being far more detailed--and then compare and contrast the two videos. Finally, students must answer a discussion question about the meaning of "being prepared."

The objectives of this activity are as follows:
SWBAT answer basic comprehension questions about The Three Little Pigs.
SW compare and contrast two different versions of the same story.
SWBAT understand the meaning of "being prepared" and explain it in writing when talking about the third little pig.
SW practice skim reading strategies.

The first three objectives can be assessed within the TED-Ed lesson itself, as students answer multiple choice comprehension questions within the lesson, and answer short-answer discussion questions within the lesson. As the lesson creator, I will be able to monitor the student responses and see which areas of the lesson gave students a hard time. If I had a real classroom, I would make sure to go over these answers in class and reinforce the trouble areas through further activities.
The four and final objective cannot be measured on an online platform, and I'll be honest in admitting that I only included it because the assignment called for two links to be included in the lesson.

Flipping the Approach

The idea of a "flipped classroom" is gaining popularity, especially among ESL teachers! If you haven't heard about "flipped classrooms," basically the idea is very similar to any college seminar class:

1.) Teach yourself by watching teacher selected/ prepared videos or texts before class.
2.) Arrive at class having already digested the content material and spend class time collaborating and working with others on comprehension activities directly relating to what you have read or watched ahead of time.
3.) Reflect on what you have learned and practiced through some sort of writing or final statement of understanding.

According to Flipping your Classroom: A Primer and Three Reasons to Flip Your Classroom, this strategy of using class time to work on comprehension of pre-learned materials can work well for any age, not just university students. This approach can increase students comprehension, collaboration skills, and critical thinking!

What I connected to the most from the above articles was the idea that often times students go home after a lecture and are unable to complete their homework due to a lack of full understanding. I remember struggling with this all the time in high school. By moving the traditional "homework" into class time, students are able to access help from both the teacher and other students when they get stuck. This is a huge advantage, and something that has definitely peaked my interested in trying a "flipped" approach in the future.

#langchat is a Go!

This morning I participated in a Twitter chat for World Language teachers. The chat is held on Twitter every Saturday morning from 10-11am EST and is linked through the hashtag "langchat."
(By setting your twitter feed to view "All Posts" when searching a tag, new tweets containing your chosen hashtag are popping up on the feed every few seconds, resulting in a Chat environment.)
When I joined the #langchat conversation, I tweeted to introduce myself to the group and was instantly welcomed in by several people, which made the activity feel even more like a chat. There was a chat leader, a woman named Collene, who posted three questions to the group dealing with cross-subject collaboration and language learning. Other tweeters responded to the questions, essentially brainstorming answers rather than really discussing or talking back to one another too much. That being said, some people did respond to others' posts by retweeting and commenting on them.

The topic of this particular chat--cross subject collaboration--was something that I have been discussing in other classes as well, which made it very relate-able to me.
I can see, even from only this one experience, that teacher Twitter Chats are a useful tool. You can gain whole lists of ideas on any given teacher-topic each week! (depending on the weekly topic.) Despite having a deep seeded dislike of Twitter as a social media platform, using it as a chat platform was more agreeable to me than I expected, especially once I downloaded the app on my phone. The view was very easy to read and refresh and I could keep up with the Q & A's flow easily.

Introduction to Twitter for Professional Development

This week, as I have been exploring Twitter through my online course about using technology in the classroom, I keep hearing about Twitter Chats. We are required to participate in one for our class, but even as I read some articles about how Twitter is useful for professional development the topic came up over and over again.

In Education World's article Using Twitter for Professional Development, they describe Twitter chats as a cheap and easy method of professional development. According to Dr. Peter Dewitt, practicing teachers around the world are the true experts in the education field, as they have continuing firsthand knowledge about what's going on in classrooms from year to year. For this reason, connecting with other teachers seems to be the best method to improve our craft. This is an idea that I have been exploring for awhile now, and according to the article, Twitter Chats are one of the best ways to accomplish this. Apparently groups of teachers live chat by posting questions and responses to one another at a designated time using an specific hashtag.

I'll be honest in admitting that Twitter has never been a site that interested me in the slightest. Despite the fact that links can be added to tweets, making them intellectually worth more than just 140 characters, as the article mentioned, I still find the site to be one of the least visually pleasing of all the social connectivity sites I have explored (other than diigo.) However, I am somewhat intrigued to experience a Twitter Chat and see what all of the fuss is about.