The Olymipics

http://www.flickr.com/photos/syume/ / CC BY-NC-ND 2.0

      I was reading my blogs that I am following on my google reader and I came across my ESL Lesson plan blog here is the link so you can check it out.  It gave a description of the history of the Olympics and talked about how they bring all the countries together.  Then they gave the assignment to watch the Olympics and embrace their new language as their own.  I thought this was really neat to use such an integrated cultural experience into an ESL classroom.  The Olympics exposes many different cultural backgrounds all at one time, this is a great way to introduce your students to both a history lesson and a cultural lesson.  I like how he wants them to speak in their new language about the Olympics, it brings everyday life into rich conversation.  I also think it is great that he tells them to come with questions about words, or culture traditions they have.

    I definitely like how this lesson plan incorporates culture and language.  Knowing the culture helps you learn and understand the language of a country. I feel like this assignment will help them grow in their language learning. What do you feel about it?

Polls in a Classroom

http://www.flickr.com/photos/av-1/ / CC BY-NC-SA 2.0

      I was researching different classroom response systems.  I feel that these systems can help students to stay engaged, encourages students to participate, and visually learn.  I found various different systems which can be installed and where students have to buy an applicator.  I however liked a link I found, which talked about using cellphones, or computers to send in your response. The results show up in a powerpoint, and there is no extra cost to install this system into your classroom.  I think these systems offer a wonderful opportunity for many shy or reluctant students to learn, but cost can sometimes be a huge issue.  Most students have cellphones they carry around with them, so why not put them to good use! I think it is important to allow all students, wealthy and not so wealthy, with equal opportunity to learn.  These systems allow students to learn from experience, because they are not afraid to give the answer they feel is right.  Nobody knows who gives what answer so students are not reluctant giving there answers.  So why not use this system when it is free or low cost for you and for your students! What a great opportunity, the students watch the results as they come in on a slide in a powerpoint presentation!

Classroom Management

        I was in my education placement this week and there is a student teacher who is in the classroom I am in.  He has trouble controlling the class when their actual teacher leaves.  When the students throw pencils at each other and get up and chase each other around the room, he just yells at them.  This method is obviously not working for him.  But when he tries to implement different rules, the main teacher fights all his new strategies so he is back to square one.  I feel like this is a common situation for most student teachers.  Maybe he could talk to his teacher and see if she will allow him to do a community behavioral system.  He could possibly bring in a fish bowl, and when the class is good add stones to it, but if bad behavior occurs then the stones get taken out of it.  Once the bowl is filled to the top you can reward the class with a few extra minutes at recess, or bring in a small treat for everyone.  This way you are helping the students to encourage each other to behave, also the students learn that their actions affect others.  This allows your students to become more responsible for their actions.  I feel awful for this student teacher situation. What do you think about this situation?  Should he just carry out with chaos in the room? Or should he try and sit down with the teacher to make a plan they both agree on?

Twitter

                                  http://www.flickr.com/photos/myklroventine/ / CC BY 2.0

Twitter is a form of technology that is hard for me to get use to using.  I find it hard to tweet about things, because I feel like it is strange that anyone can read what you tweet.  However I do think it is helpful to  send useful links back and forth to your followers.  In that way twitter is really nice.  Maybe I am just over  thinking twitter, if I could just relax a little more with it, I might be able to benefit from all of the perks it offers.  I feel other things holding me back are the stereotypes twitter brings with it.  Such as using twitter because you are bored and have nothing else  to do with your time, or using it to stalk famous people. However I have learned that yes some people do use twitter for these reasons, but not all people.  Twitter can be used for teachers to learn from each other.  Twitter allows insightful information to be shared with everyone!  It is great, and I am going to try my hardest to get into the habit of using my twitter account.  I think twitter can help me to become a better teacher!  I am going to start to schedule in times to use my twitter account as a valuable resource and I believe I will learn to love twitter and find it very helpful!

Creative Commons and Photo editing

One of our assignments this week was to take one of our personal pictures and licence it through Flickr with Creative Commons.  This is my photo I licensed with Creative Commons.

                                    http://www.flickr.com/photos/47181928@N06/ / CC BY-NC 2.0
I choose to do this photo, because I ran across an interesting website, http://teachers.net/lessons/posts/1375.html# , which gave an interesting idea of taking photos of each step involved in carving a pumpkin.  This way you are teaching your students how form do step by step directions and at the same time you are teaching them what you need to do to carve a pumpkin.  By using a topic such as carving a pumpkin the students will get involved in the lesson, because they are able  to relate this information to real life situations. This makes learning much more interesting for the students and allows them to connect with the lesson on a much deeper level.  I think this website offers some wonderful suggestions on how you can implement photos into your lesson plans.  It is a great website to get some ideas, you should check it out!



I also had to edit the photo, by resizing it and stripping it of its color.  Then I had to use my snipping tool to take a screen shot of my editing process.  Last but not least I produced a slide show of all of my work, check it out above. It is actually pretty neat! Who knew I would ever be able to do anything like this? 

How Can We Use Flickr in Our Classrooms?

                                           http://www.flickr.com/photos/cogdog/ / CC BY 2.0
      Today I was introduced to a program called Flickr.  It is a program where you can get pictures and videos to use in your classroom.  I like it because they are protected by the copyright law, so as a teacher I can integrate media from everyday life, and legally present it to my students.  Power points are so boring for students to look at when there is just text or even clip art.  Clip art is limited, when it comes to current pictures.   Flickr has just about any picture you can think of! I will definitely use this website to spice up my lesson plans.  I can use it to show a video on "how to do things" or a video to watch and then discuss as a class.  Flickr is nice because I am able to borrow pictures from other people and I can even up load my own pictures and put copyright protection on them.  I feel that my students will be more attentive when I present new material to them if I can use current, up to data media to go along with it! I wish my teachers knew about this website, class would have definitely been more interesting.
      I feel as if the copyright laws scare teachers off from implementing pictures and videos into their lesson plans.  So many things are on the fence and a lot of these materials are hard to find the rights for so you can not credit the owner properly.  This is why teachers opt out of using media in their lesson plans.  They are busy as it is, they do not need to worry about hunting someone down to ask if it is okay to use their picture.  But Flickr makes this so easy and so convenient! This will surely be a website I will treasure.  Try it out and see what you think about it!

Technology in a classroom

This semester I am in a 5th grade classroom. I went on a tour of the school with my CT and she showed me their computer lab. They had brand new flat screen macs and then they plugged keyboards into them for the children to do a music lesson. I grew up in a private school, so we where never very up on technology. To see them play on these keyboards I thought was really neat. They are learning to use technology while learning how to play an instrument too. I thought this was a great way to implement technology in the classroom.