One of the advantages of being a Webhead is that when you are in the company of such enthusiasts, you never stop learning about new tools to use with students or in your communication with colleagues.
While reading the messages in our Yahoo group yesterday, I came across a very interesting tool - http://www.speakpipe.com/.
The ad on the page summarises the use of the tool. It says:
"Don't force your customers to type a text message. Let them talk and show them you are listening."
It's just what I need for my blog, I thought. It is very easy to install: you can add it as a widget with the HTML code you copy after registering on the page and it can be seen as a sign of a microphone on the right-hand side of the blog.
The use seems very simple, too. All you need is to click on the microphone and send a voice message to the owner of the widget.
Now I'm waiting for the first messages to arrive. And what are you waiting for, dear readers?
Send me a voice message :)
January 25, 2013
January 20, 2013
Keeping young learners safe online
In my PD
plans, January is the month for the first weeks of TESOL EVO online courses. “Digital Storytelling with Young Learners“ is
one of my favourites.
One of the
topics the teachers discuss this week is how we keep our young learners safe
online. Participating teachers from different parts of the world contribute
their ideas and examples from their experience.
This is how
I contributed to the discussion:
How can we
keep our students safe online? What do I do as a teacher?
- Students learn to introduce themselves properly (first names only, no portrait photos)
- I constantly remind them about the importance of keeping the information about their passwords to themselves.
- I carefully choose webpages to use with students. I only recommend the pages safe for kids.
- I teach students to evaluate pages they visit when looking for information.
- I respect copyright and give credit to the authors. I teach about copyright and plagiarism.
- I involve parents. Teachers can't be the only responsible for children. There are “Parent permission“ forms and I encourage them to contact me and take interest in their children's work.
I have added the following sites to my list of the materials to use with students in different age and language level groups:
1 BrainPOPJr video and quizzes, vocabulary exercises, activities, etc
2 Common
Sense Media – a site with great video and text resources which all make great reading and listening material
and a starting point for a discussion in class:
In my
opinion, this is the topic we must teach continuously throughout the school
year, in all age groups of learners. That's why I am definitely going to use
these materials to create some lessons for my students.
January 12, 2013
New Year's Resolutions
Last year was a quiet one for this blog - not too many posts. It wasn't so because nothing interesting was happening in the classroom or various professional development sessions I attended. Simply, teaching and learning took a lot of time, I spent some with my family and friends, wasted some more...
I hope this year is going to be different - my first decision is to blog more regularly. What other New Year's Resoutions should I mention here to mark the end of 2012 and the beginning of 2013? It's not easy to say at once.
I'll embed an Answer Garden here - for me to add more answers when I feel like it, and for the readers to add some they feel would be right for me:)
New Year's Resolutions a Teacher Should Make... at AnswerGarden.ch.
I hope this year is going to be different - my first decision is to blog more regularly. What other New Year's Resoutions should I mention here to mark the end of 2012 and the beginning of 2013? It's not easy to say at once.
I'll embed an Answer Garden here - for me to add more answers when I feel like it, and for the readers to add some they feel would be right for me:)
New Year's Resolutions a Teacher Should Make... at AnswerGarden.ch.
November 11, 2012
Why teach about Thanksgiving?
I teach EFL in Croatia, a small country in Europe. Should I include the holidays like Thanksgiving in my English lessons? A lot of teachers, parents and others who are interested in what children learn at school think it is a good idea, while others say that the children in Croatia have their holidays and don't need American holidays, too.
I teach my young students about a few holiday that belong to other cultures, Thanksgiving included, and my reasons are numerous:
- Children should be aware of how similar and how different countries are, which holidays people celebrate and how. School is the best place for them to discover the world, learn how to ask the right questions and learn.
- Holidays always tell stories that include history, geography, singing, dancing and acting, crafts. They are excellent opportunities for children to make sense of all the school subjects they usually learn separately and to show their talents.
- Thanksgiving in particular is a holiday that can teach my students a lot of positive messages of how to see the world not only through how much of material things we have but what else we have to be thankful for.
This year I've made a selection of great websites with ideas for the use in the classroom. I am going to use them with different groups of students I teach:
- an activity book with pages for colouring , word search, writing a poem, even doing some Maths :)
- a very simple (and simplified as a story) play for a group of students; seems interesting to combine it creating some finger puppets of the characters or simplified paper costumes; or simply as a reading activity after watching a video about Thanksgiving;
- a great listening and reading activity, with a timeline of events, great pictures, a lot of useful information about history and geography, presented in a very interesting way, e.g. The Mayflower virtually, Daily Life at the time of the first Thanksgiving, etc.
- a funny fill-in activity.
- Shelly Terrell's blog: Teacher Reboot Camp : http://teacherrebootcamp.com/2012/11/09/20-thanksgiving-ideas-resources-apps/
- Sue Lyon Jones: ESOL Courses http://www.esolcourses.com/topics/thanksgiving.html
- Larry Ferlazzo: The Best Sites to Learn and Teach about Thanksgiving: http://larryferlazzo.edublogs.org/2008/10/27/the-best-sites-to-learn-teach-about-thanksgiving/
June 2, 2012
Talking Cultures Project
The last day of this school year is approaching and it is
time to think about what went well and what could have been done better, the
lessons that worked and the lessons to be improved if I want to use them again.
Talking Cultures Project is one of the projects I want to continue next school
year.
Talking Cultures is an international online project which celebrates cultural
differences. It is a project for students in grades 7 and 8 of primary school, organized
by British Council,. This school year it has had participant classes from Armenia , Azerbaijan ,
Croatia , Israel , Kazakhstan ,
Macedonia , Russia and Ukraine Armenia ,
Azerbaijan , Kazakhstan and Ukraine
British
Council created a wiki for every cluster. A wiki is a special online platform
designed for students to upload their work and share it with partners. It is a
safe place on the Internet, only members can read and edit it. The teachers are administrators of the wiki
and the students are writers. They edit the pages together, uploading their
writing, photos, video and audio files. The students can edit only their own
project pages but can follow and comment on the work of all the partners on the
wiki, which is an excellent way to learn about a new culture.
At the
beginning of the school year the teachers were offered the Teachers’ Toolkit, a
set of nine lesson plans, with a lot of ideas and materials, to use or adapt. Every
teacher adapts the lessons, deals with all new vocabulary and structures that
appear. After the lessons at school, we add a digital part, different web 2.0
tools to upload students’ writing, discussions, polls, pictures, widgets, audio
files and all other different ways we use to share our ideas with partners.
The topics
of all nine lessons are very appropriate for the age and language level of the
students, but also so general that they can be used with students of all age
and language level groups:
Lesson 1:
Class Biography
Lesson 2:
Our Country
Lesson 3: Food
Lesson 4:
Famous People
Lesson 5:
Festivals
Lesson 6:
Music
Lesson 7:
Holidays
Lesson 8:
Sports
Lesson 9:
Farewell
The work on
the project is benefitting for the students in a number of different ways.
Firstly, students learn to share, to collaborate and to think critically and
decide on the material to present to the partners and share on the internet.
With the
use of the wiki, learning does not stop with the end of the lesson at school.
Students access the lessons in their own free time and do the tasks on the
wiki. That makes them more autonomous in their learning. They are very proud of
their work because it stays on display forever. A very important part is also
reading and commenting on other groups’ work, which teaches the students to be
positive, tolerant and polite.
Working on
the project I have noticed a few problems, too. The first problem I had to deal
with were privacy settings of the wiki. Because of the young age of the
students, the organizers thought it was the best idea to set the wiki
completely private, so that only the members can see any content on it. That
sounds right, but in fact all parents, other teachers or students from our
school would have to become members in order to see our work. The other problem
was that all our partners used the wiki to upload the final versions of their
presentations on various topics. I thought we needed to use one more advantage
of the wiki – collaborating on various stages of the tasks. The problem was we
did not want to be the only ones showing their work in progress.
The way to
solve the problems for me seemed to create another wiki, for my students only.
I set the privacy settings a bit differently – everybody can see the content,
but cannot communicate with students or edit the wiki.
Our classwiki, is safe, too, and it offers one more opportunity for learning for the students
– they have learned about the responsible use of the internet: they never
upload portrait photos, display their full names or write personal information.
The use of our own wiki helps us in two ways: it allows us to use the wiki not
only to share our work on the internet but also to work collaboratively outside
the classroom. We have all our work on the internet and continue working on the
tasks between the lessons at school. There is always a lot of work in progress
on our wiki. Students add their part when they can, correct one another and
help or finish their friends’ work if they think they have a better idea. We
also show our work to parents and other teachers. Our two wikis seem now the
perfect way to finish all the work on time and display its best version for our
partners to see and comment.
Discussing
different aspects of Croatian culture and everyday life, comparing them with
British culture, sharing the information with students from different countries
and learning about their different cultures are the main aims of “Talking
Cultures”, but there are other equally valuable advantages for my students:
- they use English outside the
classroom and understand its importance in an authentic communication with
peers,
- they have become more confident
in the use of the language,
- they have become much more
confident and responsible in the use of the internet.
This
project is making it all possible and my students can’t wait for next school
year. They are looking forward to new topics and the teachers are already
working on the list.
May 5, 2012
Love from the World
Love from the World is not a project with a primarily language learning aim but I didn't
hesitate for a moment to take part in it as soon as I first heard about Sun Ho's beautiful idea to ask teachers from around the world to help students
create the flags of their countries and send photos to her, and send the flags
in the post to her Singapore address.
Croatia 
I loved the
idea behind the project: Sun Ho is going to sew all the pieces together into a
patchwork. I can't wait to see it. It is also great to see the gallery of
photos on the website of the project.
This project
teaches children love and respect for other people and countries and gives them the opportunity to meet children from around the world and learn
about their countries. If they use English language in the process, that's only
one more reason to choose to be part of it :)
March 28, 2012
Easter baskets for irregular verbs
This is the lesson I created this morning, for a group of 11 year olds, to be used in a classroom without a computer, three days before our Easter break.
I was very happy because my students loved it and I could see they were learning and having fun.
The aim of the lesson was to revise a set of ten irregular verbs.
I brought a number of paper sheets in various colours and a pair of scissors and started by cutting out egg shapes. My students immediately guessed they were Easter eggs and joined me. I distributed the paper stripes to be folded and cut. They exchanged eggs because they all wanted the eggs in all colours.
While cutting, we talked about the story we read in the course book. When we mentioned an irregular verb, I wrote it on the blackboard. I chose to write only the ten irregular verbs I wanted to focus on.
I suggested writing the verbs on the eggs. We wrote the simple past form, too – on the other side. Now they could check if they remembered all the irregular forms.
I had more paper. The sheets were square – shaped. I challenged the students to play a game and win a prize, a paper basket to keep the eggs. I saw this beautiful paper basket used in a lesson on http://www.daniellesplace.com/html/easter.html where I also found the link to the instructions on how to make a basket: http://www.wipapercouncil.org/origami.htm
The task was:
1 Ask me a question in the past, using the verb on the egg I pick from your desk.
2 Listen to my answer (Yes, I did / No, I didn't; Yes, I was/No, I wasn't)
3 Make a sentence about what you have learnt (Ms Bozinovic … /The teacher didn't )
While my students were making their questions and sentences, I was quickly making the baskets and giving them their prize. After I'd made a few, some stronger students joined me in making the baskets for friends. Then they asked and answered the questions in pairs and I only monitored.
As a follow-up activity the students wrote five interesting sentences they remembered.
They took the baskets and eggs home with the task to decorate the eggs and revise the verbs,
and to add a handle to the basket ( a piece of thread, wire, a straw, or whatever they find appropriate).
The optional task was to use the verbs to tell a short story.
At the beginning of our next lesson I expect some stronger students to share their stories and the weaker students to show that they can use the past form in single sentences. I am sure they will all want to show me the decorations on the eggs in their beautiful baskets and all kinds of handles.
I was very happy because my students loved it and I could see they were learning and having fun.
The aim of the lesson was to revise a set of ten irregular verbs.
I brought a number of paper sheets in various colours and a pair of scissors and started by cutting out egg shapes. My students immediately guessed they were Easter eggs and joined me. I distributed the paper stripes to be folded and cut. They exchanged eggs because they all wanted the eggs in all colours.
While cutting, we talked about the story we read in the course book. When we mentioned an irregular verb, I wrote it on the blackboard. I chose to write only the ten irregular verbs I wanted to focus on.
I suggested writing the verbs on the eggs. We wrote the simple past form, too – on the other side. Now they could check if they remembered all the irregular forms.
I had more paper. The sheets were square – shaped. I challenged the students to play a game and win a prize, a paper basket to keep the eggs. I saw this beautiful paper basket used in a lesson on http://www.daniellesplace.com/html/easter.html where I also found the link to the instructions on how to make a basket: http://www.wipapercouncil.org/origami.htm
The task was:
1 Ask me a question in the past, using the verb on the egg I pick from your desk.
2 Listen to my answer (Yes, I did / No, I didn't; Yes, I was/No, I wasn't)
3 Make a sentence about what you have learnt (Ms Bozinovic … /The teacher didn't )
While my students were making their questions and sentences, I was quickly making the baskets and giving them their prize. After I'd made a few, some stronger students joined me in making the baskets for friends. Then they asked and answered the questions in pairs and I only monitored.
As a follow-up activity the students wrote five interesting sentences they remembered.
They took the baskets and eggs home with the task to decorate the eggs and revise the verbs,
and to add a handle to the basket ( a piece of thread, wire, a straw, or whatever they find appropriate).
The optional task was to use the verbs to tell a short story.
At the beginning of our next lesson I expect some stronger students to share their stories and the weaker students to show that they can use the past form in single sentences. I am sure they will all want to show me the decorations on the eggs in their beautiful baskets and all kinds of handles.
March 21, 2012
Video interviews - what a treat!
It's been a busy day. I had to miss some events at the conference in Glasgow. The consolation: there are recordings to be watched on a quieter day, there are reports written by four roving reporters and a whole group of registered bloggers. There is no reason to be sad.
What I can't miss is the forum.The forums are very lively. I introduced myself in Young Learners and Teens Forum and already met people enthusiastic about international projects.
The choice of today's videos is also great. The list of people interviewed today is impressive:
Vicki Hollett
Lindsey Clanfield & Luke Meddings
Associates from around the world
Michael Carrier
Penny Ur
Jeremy Harmer
Robert Hill
Associates from France, Japan and Bulgaria
Hornby scholars from Venezuela, Ethiopia, Nigeria from Venezuela, Yemen and Nigeria
Interview with associates: Patricia Rose (the Netherlands), Simon Gillett (Korea) and Dimitrios Primalis (Greece)
Scott Thornbury
Hornby scholars: Awgichew Arega and Getachew Melaku Yitbarek (Ethiopia)
David Graddol
Catherine Walter
Meet the Online Team with Marion
Russel Stannard
David Heathfield
Andrew Hockley
Do you know which interview I saw first? Of course, Marion and the Online Team, the people who have been making this all possible for teachers from all over the world for six years now. Then I had to see a few more videos... :)
What I can't miss is the forum.The forums are very lively. I introduced myself in Young Learners and Teens Forum and already met people enthusiastic about international projects.
The choice of today's videos is also great. The list of people interviewed today is impressive:
Vicki Hollett
Lindsey Clanfield & Luke Meddings
Associates from around the world
Michael Carrier
Penny Ur
Jeremy Harmer
Robert Hill
Associates from France, Japan and Bulgaria
Hornby scholars from Venezuela, Ethiopia, Nigeria from Venezuela, Yemen and Nigeria
Interview with associates: Patricia Rose (the Netherlands), Simon Gillett (Korea) and Dimitrios Primalis (Greece)
Scott Thornbury
Hornby scholars: Awgichew Arega and Getachew Melaku Yitbarek (Ethiopia)
David Graddol
Catherine Walter
Meet the Online Team with Marion
Russel Stannard
David Heathfield
Andrew Hockley
Do you know which interview I saw first? Of course, Marion and the Online Team, the people who have been making this all possible for teachers from all over the world for six years now. Then I had to see a few more videos... :)
March 20, 2012
Glasgow Online Forums
Before a conference starts, interested teachers go through the Conference Programme checking day by day: plenary sessions, workshops, poster exhibitions, events… The most difficult but also the most interesting first activity is to choose the best, the most interesting ones.
Attending a conference online makes the process much easier: the choice is between Live Sessions and the recordings, and you don't think about what you can miss but about what you can follow from home. The website of the conference, if prepared and organised as well as Glasgow Online is an essential part of the conference, even for those attending some f2f sessions, because it helps them do what was until recently impossible – be everywhere at the same time!
Attending a conference online makes the process much easier: the choice is between Live Sessions and the recordings, and you don't think about what you can miss but about what you can follow from home. The website of the conference, if prepared and organised as well as Glasgow Online is an essential part of the conference, even for those attending some f2f sessions, because it helps them do what was until recently impossible – be everywhere at the same time!
Watch live streaming video from iateflonline at livestream.com
The omnipresence of the conference - goers is a talent we wish from a conference website and Glasgow Online gives it abundantly: if I am at work, I follow the conference events during breaks or at home in the evening. I guess I am one of many already used to getting information on demand.
The real gem of Glasgow Online is The Forum. All SIGs are represented and the moderators in all Special Interest Areas help participants feel at home. Teachers introduce themselves, presenters give additional info about presentations, young and less experienced teachers learn from more experienced teachers and teacher trainers who share and teach about the importance of sharing in education. Old friends meet again and new friendships are born every moment, day and night – forums opened before the official start of the conference and will stay open after all f2f participants have already gone home.
IATEFL Glasgow Conference Begins!
It’s the first day of the 46th Annual International IATEFL Conference and Exhibition in Glasgow, Scotland, which lasts 19th – 23rd March, and I am not in Glasgow, but following the online edition.
This is my first post as a Glasgow Online Registered Blogger. I have been accepted to be a registered blogger and so I can have the conference badge embedded in the sidebar of my blog.
By clicking on the badge you can access Glasgow Online, where you can find the latest news about and from the conference, watch the sessions and interviews, live or recorded, see the images shared on Flickr, find all the sessions organised by date and the names of the presenters.
Glasgow Online seems an ordinary web site with all the useful information, but it is not just that. For all of us following the conference from all over the world, Forums on Glasgow Online are the place to meet and share ideas with colleagues. It is the first day and there are already hundreds of posts. Old friends and first-time participants share ideas on teaching, learning, topics specific for various IATEFL Special Interest Areas, and the conference itself.
Live Channel is already active. Today, all online participants could watch and comment in live chat a series of very interesting interviews with Eric Baber, Chia Suan, Neil Ballantyne, Nik Peachey, Gavin Dudney, Ilnur Minkhmetov, Viktoria Ostankova, Sirin Soyoz, Adam Simpson and Jamie Kadie. Tomorrow, there are the plenary session with Adrian Underhill from 9.00 a.m. and British Council Signature Event: Global Primary ELT Issues from 17.35. For those who won’t be able to watch them live, there will be the recordings, of course.
Plenty of learning and fun for someone who “isn’t attending the conference this year” :)))
This is my first post as a Glasgow Online Registered Blogger. I have been accepted to be a registered blogger and so I can have the conference badge embedded in the sidebar of my blog.
By clicking on the badge you can access Glasgow Online, where you can find the latest news about and from the conference, watch the sessions and interviews, live or recorded, see the images shared on Flickr, find all the sessions organised by date and the names of the presenters.
Glasgow Online seems an ordinary web site with all the useful information, but it is not just that. For all of us following the conference from all over the world, Forums on Glasgow Online are the place to meet and share ideas with colleagues. It is the first day and there are already hundreds of posts. Old friends and first-time participants share ideas on teaching, learning, topics specific for various IATEFL Special Interest Areas, and the conference itself.
Live Channel is already active. Today, all online participants could watch and comment in live chat a series of very interesting interviews with Eric Baber, Chia Suan, Neil Ballantyne, Nik Peachey, Gavin Dudney, Ilnur Minkhmetov, Viktoria Ostankova, Sirin Soyoz, Adam Simpson and Jamie Kadie. Tomorrow, there are the plenary session with Adrian Underhill from 9.00 a.m. and British Council Signature Event: Global Primary ELT Issues from 17.35. For those who won’t be able to watch them live, there will be the recordings, of course.
Plenty of learning and fun for someone who “isn’t attending the conference this year” :)))
March 6, 2012
Getting ready for my second TeachMeet
Last Saturday I took part in a professional development online session which was really special – TeachMeetInt'l.A group of teachers from different countries and continents, 24 of them presenters from 17 countries, met in an Adobe Connect Pro Meeting Room to share and listen to three-minute presentations about various educational topics. The moderators of the event, English teachers Arjana Blazic from Croatia, and Bart Verswijvel from Belgium talked to the participants between the presentations and introduced the presenters. Sonja Lusic Radosevic, a Math teacher and ICT expert from Croatia and Hrvoje Lisac, a tech guy from CARNet, Croatian Academic and Research Network, which made the organization of the event in Adobe Connect Pro possible and free, helped the participants with uploading the presentations and all technical issues.
I was very proud to be one of the presenters. It was my first three-minute presentation. It felt great to share my work with colleagues. The biggest challenge was to fit all I wanted to say in only three minutes, but Bart was merciless. He showed me the stopwatch, a mild warning to remind me of the time limit, and after a few seconds, his hilarious monster bell, a sign I had to stop talking. I felt very happy because I managed to say everything I wanted.
This is my presentation about how and why I use wikis with my students:
TeachMeet is a kind of professional development event I would recommend to every teacher. All you need is a computer with the Internet connection, a headset and web camera, and an idea you want to share with other teachers. What you get is meeting colleagues, sharing ideas, discussing various relevant topics, all in a very relaxed and friendly atmosphere.
Next Saturday there is TeachMeetRegional: teachers from Croatia and the region meet and the presentations are in Croatian. This time there aren't so many teachers who applied to present. I wouldn’t miss for it the world and I hope some more teachers join us for one of the future editions of TeachMeet – International or Regional.
I was very proud to be one of the presenters. It was my first three-minute presentation. It felt great to share my work with colleagues. The biggest challenge was to fit all I wanted to say in only three minutes, but Bart was merciless. He showed me the stopwatch, a mild warning to remind me of the time limit, and after a few seconds, his hilarious monster bell, a sign I had to stop talking. I felt very happy because I managed to say everything I wanted.
This is my presentation about how and why I use wikis with my students:
TeachMeet is a kind of professional development event I would recommend to every teacher. All you need is a computer with the Internet connection, a headset and web camera, and an idea you want to share with other teachers. What you get is meeting colleagues, sharing ideas, discussing various relevant topics, all in a very relaxed and friendly atmosphere.
Next Saturday there is TeachMeetRegional: teachers from Croatia and the region meet and the presentations are in Croatian. This time there aren't so many teachers who applied to present. I wouldn’t miss for it the world and I hope some more teachers join us for one of the future editions of TeachMeet – International or Regional.
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