Shakespeare Games

For all shakespearean lovers, here are some interesting games related to Shakespeare's masterpieces.These games can only be used once your students have finished reading the books, otherwise it would be impossible for your learners to play the games.This kind of activity is the perfect one to revise some concepts related to his plays. 

Hope you enjoy it!

http://www.modernlibrary.com/shakespeare/shakespeare-games/

Useful advice for presentations in the classroom

I was surfing the web the other day when I came across a series of talks in YouTube. I found one of them particularly interesting because I believe it summarizes a couple of concepts that we are acquainted with in ‘Profesorado’.

Roberto Rosler, an Argentinian neurosurgeon, speaks about teaching and learning, digital natives and immigrants, and he gives very useful advice about making a Power Point presentation.

It is a little bit long, but I assure you that you won’t notice that because it’s very funny and highly beneficial for teachers who want to get their students’ attention by using technological tools properly.

I share with you the video and I hope you watch it!

What is Voki about?

   As you have already seen in the previous entry,"wordle" is a useful tool to introduce your students to new vocabulary but there is another one which makes your presentations more dynamic and interactive: Voki. Voki is an animation website that allows you to create your own personalised speaking avatar. This Web 2.0 tool can be used in the classroom -provided that you have access to the internet- since it enables teachers and students to record themeselves on the web in their own voices.

If you want to create you own avatar, click here and follow the instructions. It's worth trying!

 When I created my avatar I thought it would be a good idea to make avatars with different accents or languages so as to bring another culture to the classroom.  Being in contact with a different accent from ours could make us aware of inclusion in the educational field. Besides, the presentation of cultural topics would give students the possibility of learning about other countries.

Have at look at my Voki and have a good time trying it yourself!

Creating your own word cloud

Last class we were shown how to work with a word cloud. A word cloud is a visual representation for the text data used to depict tag on the websites, or to visualize free form text. A tag is a single word whose importance lies on the size and the colour.
There are some web pages that are useful for implementing this kind of tool, for example: http://www.tagxedo.com/ and http://www.tagxedo.com/
I will focus on a third option this time: Wordle.
Now, the way in which we can work with it is easy. First, choose a word you think it would be meaningful to work with your learners. Second, find the definition of it in an online dictionary, such as dictionary.reference, copy the meaning and paste it in the box provided by Wordle. Once you have copied the definitions, press "Go" and you will see your word cloud. Once you send your students the image, they can try to "guess" the word you have chosen by connecting all the words they see in the picture.
Another game you can play with your learners is using this tool for them to find the right order of a sentence. In this way, they will be dealing with grammar and vocabulary while they are having a good time.

I would like you to give it a try. If you find the right order of this sentence, please leave a comment with your answer!

The Selfie

On her visit to Argentina, Mathilde Verillaud -English Language Fellow for the US Embassy- came to explain what a selfie is and why we should apply it in the classroom. The meeting took place at Alicana's school and the  "selfie-expert" started her talk by explaining that it was a tool of the new generation which would help students learn about themselves. Besides, it would enable teachers to connect to their students by facilitating this self-discovery process and speaking their visual language. She also shared with us all the materials that her students had produced with her, and at the same time we could appreciate how a "simple selfie activity" would boost students' motivation. Some of the activities mentioned were: higher order ranking questions, gallery walk, description games and the one that I liked the most, 'Every photo tells a story', where the students picked one photo, then wrote about the person in it and passed it to his/her classmate on the left. After that, the students wrote a quote about the person in the photo that had been passed to him/her and passed it to his/her left. Eventually, the students wrote a paragraph about the photo that he or she had in front of them knowing that both quotes were to be included into the narrative.

This photo of Mathilde and me, which you may think is a 'selfie', is actually known as 'usie'. This is the name given to a 'selfie' that includes more than one person (or a 'group selfie').
More information about 'usies' is available for you in this article.
Taking it a little further, please visit this very interesting article about the 'selfie', more specifically the suffix '-fie'.

"Speed" makes you learn.

I had the opportunity (and so my classmates) to read an article about Digital Immigrants and Digital Natives, written by Mark Prensky. These two categories of people who are interacting, one way or another, with technology, are nowadays interacting between them. The context in which we are interested in is the classroom, and in this article is clearly stated (and I agree with the author, by the way) that we, teachers, being Digital Immigrants, have to change in order to be in the same page our Digital Native students are.

In his article (you can find it here), Mark Prensky claims "Digital Immigrants typically have very little appreciation for these new skills that the Natives have acquired and perfected through years of interaction and practice." I don't think the following Digital immigrant lady has little appreciation for technology (hahaha!). Here is the evidence that the "Speedy lady" finds it utterly fascinating. Now, she is an example to follow and that is why we should try to do our best so that we can work together with our students without feeling the fear of being "consumed" by those Digital Natives.

Watch this video and tell me ... Are you a Digital Native or a Digital Immigrant?

I guess everybody knows her :D

                

Digital literacies in the classroom.

  On  our last lesson we were given information about "Digital Literacies". What we had to do was to read the article written by Nicky Hockly and watched a video( you can find it here) related to the topic being discussed.

In his article, Nicky Hockly refers to  Digital Literacies as:  

             "our ability to effectively make use of the technologies at our disposal. We are not just talking about a checklist of technical skills, but also about the social practices that surround the use of new media. So not just knowing how to create a blog entry, but knowing how to use this to connect with a wider community of readers and writers, and what sort of online persona one projects though one's post. Not just knowing how to upload photos to Flickr ( a photo sharing site), but knowing whether to publish them under a Creative Commons license and what this implies in terms of digital rights and usage."
            

   Here is a chart that summarizes the different "digital literacies".I will now discuss the literacy with a focus on language since as a teacher of English, it is what I care most. Apart from that, I observe how  people are getting  accustomed to  using  abbreviations  as their code of communication thus bringing  some  misunderstanding among themselves.




   From this, I may say that I am familiar with the use of digital literacies but I apply them according to the context, the receiver and the situation in itself. For example, when I want to send an “sms” to a friend of mine, I use digital abbreviations because I know we share the same social code and we understand each other very well. It is different when I am delivering a lesson or I need to speak to whoever is in a superior position; the way I choose to express myself is totally different from his or hers. I need  use a more formal language since it demonstrates respect to the receiver.
  Do you agree that we need to teach digital literacies in our lessons? Why?
  I reckon that we need to teach digital literacies to our learners but we should have a reason why we do so. We cannot teach competency if we are planning to do nothing with it. Another important point that we should turn our attention to is the kind of group of students we have in the classroom since I do not want my foreign learners to misunderstand the correct use of the language. It is true that there are some new phrases that many teenagers use with their mates but it is just part of their own culture. I am not criticising this, but we may run some risks when including them –digital inventions- in our lessons because if they have problems with the understanding of “formal” language, imagine dealing with both together at the same time. For this reason, I would prepare only some activities connected with digital literacies, perhaps in a game at the end of a lesson or of a term explaining that they are the ones they may find on the net and what they are for. Thus, they would find it useful. Also clarifying the meaning and making some association with the ones they already know in Spanish.

Have a look at the following conversation and answer.Is it a formal or an informal one?
Is it clearly understandable? Is it used face-to-face in the same way?

My learning Journal

  In ECO II we are taught, first, how to create a blog and then we discuss the advantages and disadvantages of using it. Besides, we were asked to give our opinion about the importance of including a "learning journal" in our lessons.According to my teaching experience, I may say that It is necessary to keep a record of what the students have learned and in what aspects of the language they need more practice. Through a journal not only the students can see their progress but also the teacher. At the end of a term, the teacher can write reports on their students´ performance either for the student, the school, or even the parent of that student. In this way, everyone who takes part of the learning process can see how things are going. What is more, students can also be extremely effective at monitoring and judging their own language production. They frequently have a very clear idea of how well they are doing or have done, and if we help them to develop this awareness, we may greatly enhance learning. Another advantage of using a blog is that we can offer immediate conversation, that is to say, every time the students want to express something as regards the task given, we can answer them by offering feedback and clarifying their doubts immediately without letting them wait for the next meeting! This can be done by uploading a video, suggesting a website, or a “live-video” where they can see the teacher explaining the topic on his or her own. Last but not the least important is that everybody can participate in the same conversation or topic. Thus, we create an atmosphere of cooperativeness where everyone can express and share his/her point of view by providing the appropriate justification for what they think so.