A Site for Some Great Videos

http://www.ideastoinspire.co.uk/youtube.htm is a web site I found with the aid of Twitter. I started to follow Rita and from there began to follow one of the people she's following. This site was there. These are youtube videos that are recommended for teachers. They seem to be good for discussion or for writing assignments.

The last, last final project

I used the WIKI feature on the Blackboard site. I posted the question,"What did you learn when you first came to the US that might help a new arrival?" I thought I had it all set but somehow my question/comment didn't appear, so I didn't have it up and running until today. I don't know if any of my students will actually do anything.

Final Project II

I finally decided that I would use Voicethread with my group 2 conversation group. I went on the site and twice tried to sign in. The first evening the waiting indicator lasted almost a full 20 minutes and no response. I tried again this evening and it didn't seem like it was going to connect again, so I gave up on that idea. I went back to my idea about asking students to contribute advice about moving to the U.S. As there is a WIKI feature on Blackboard, I thought I would post that as an idea. I got as far as configuring the site and putting in a comment, but I'm going to have learn how to really do this. So far, it's just comments.

Next I looked at the sites listed in the class wiki. I found 2 sites under More Tools... which I think I can use to generate either conversation or writing. The site is edupic.net. There are photographs, specifically "between home and heaven" and "American photography". There is also on open culture video site that looks very promising.

Final project

I thought about using Twitter with my class as a way to possibly communicate with other english language learners from around the world, but decided that I could use Dave's ESL Cafe and the pen pal section. Then I thought maybe I might use a Blog site for students to post advice for new immigrants to the US.- things they learned the hard way. I think now I'm try to use Voicethread for the students to practice pronunciation.

Trying to use twitter

Well, I read all the articles about using Twitter for educators. They made it sound easy. I logged into my Twitter. There was no place to write anything. I clicked on help on the bottom. I watched the video. They sure used a lot of words, spoken very fast. I went back to my twitter. Still didn't look like what the video said. Okay, found the sign in bit. I wrote a tweet. Then I did a search. I found my tweet and nothing else. I found a place to get esl jobs, but no one to follow. I found a place for conversation ideas, but no one to follow. I'll keep trying but not today.

PaY Attention

All things are cyclical. Technology is a tremendously useful tool. In this video, the producers pointed out how much young people use all forms of technology. This is true, and I think using this to interest students is a good idea, but, I think , teachers can develop other creative ways to hold students attention. I'm not altogether convinced that spending so much time "connected" is a truly healthy or useful way to develop creativity. In some ways all the "stuff", has the opposite effect.

More Tools and Voicethread

In the section "More Tools...". a section what seems useful for teaching English is Online Books, Poems and Short Stories. As books become more expensive, this is a great resource. I looked at the Create a Quiz and found this to be geared to classes where knowledge of information is tested. I'm not sure how I could use this for ESL. Voicethreads seems like a really good tool for pronunciation practice.

Blogs and Wikis

50 Ways to Use Wikis... had several ways to use a Wiki that I might use. One idea was the correction competition where students vie to see who can find all the errors in a document filled with errors. Peer editing is another possible for a writing class. To get feedback is another way I might use a Wiki.
From the article about blogs, I thought making use of the commenting feature was possible. Also, if I feel really brave I might try to ask the students to create their own blogs, but I'd have to feel really brave.It might be fun to try and link to another English class somewhere in the world. Journal entries is another possible idea.