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El artista Gustavo Cabral, conocido como Ciruelo, denunció en redes que se expone una imitación.La pieza en cuestión forma parte de la muest
Informe de la UNESCO sobre el impacto de las pantallas en los procesos de enseñanza-aprendizaje. ¡A enseñar cómo usarlas en beneficio propio!
Haven't posted for long.... bit this microblog is not dead... just dormant!
Top 10 ESL Websites Worth Trying in 2018
Welcome, English Language Teachers!
ELTs like us spend an incredible amount of time surfing the Web. We educate, question, advise, inspire, and collaborate online. We learn. We create. We post. It seems as though we are on a constant quest for educational websites, tools, and information so that we are continually growing and developing in our profession.
Here at iSLCollective.com, sharing resources among educators is our passion. We have decided to take this concept one step further and share ten of our all-time favorite free or freemium websites with you. We hope it saves you time surfing the Web, and more importantly, we hope you enjoy utilizing the resources below as much as we do.
And now iSLCollective proudly presents our top ten favorite ESL websites worth trying in 2018.
Film-English.com
Description
Film-English is a place where teachers can find ESL lesson plans created around short films. Each ready-made is plan is broken down into simple steps that build upon one another. The site is incredibly user-friendly and well thought out. All materials are created by Kieran Donaghy, a university teacher, trainer, and materials writer.
Benefits
“Thanks so much for these detailed lesson plans. I really like that your site uses film. There’s something about moving images on a screen that keeps the attention of students much better than I can on my own! Great resource for English teachers, thank you so much.” Jon Sumner
“Thank you for such a brilliant website. It is the best website that I have found for teaching English – I just love the clear, coherent way that you organise it all, but mostly it’s the content of the lesson ideas that is great. Each one makes you think. Through your website I find that, primarily, I learn things whilst planning my lessons, as each lesson plan makes you want to explore other things. And indeed, learning English can be seen as not just learning a language but learning other things IN English at the same time.” Ruth Lessells
Nik’s Daily English Activities
Description
Nik Peachey’s blog is designed to help English Language Teachers use digital tools for English literacy.
Mr. Peachey is an award winning course designer & a teacher trainer, materials writer, blogger and international conference speaker. He is an author of a number of books related to Educational Technology and Co-Founder of Peachey Publications. He is also Co-Editor of Creativity in the English language classroom.
Benefits
Teachers can enjoy browsing through blog posts that best suits their interests. They can also gain access to Nik’s lesson plans, presentations, and books.
Quizzizz
Description
Quizizz is an interactive quiz game for classrooms. It can be played in class, or assigned as homework, and let’s students practice questions together in a fun game format. Teachers get detailed reports that can be easily synced to LMSs like Google Classroom and Edmodo.
Benefits
Quizizz has tons of great features for teachers and students, including:
The ability to conduct student-paced quizzes in class with live stats, or assign as homework.
Avatars, leaderboards, and fun memes help keep students super-engaged! (You can toggle all the game options to your liking)
Works on all devices, laptops, tablets, mobile devices etc.
Easily create your own questions, or create quizzes by combing questions from other teachers (over 20 million of them!)
Easily push grades to Google Classroom and Edmodo.
View detailed reports to identify where students are struggling.
News in Levels
Description
News in Levels publishes articles for students of English covering latest world news. Each article is written in 3 levels of difficulty and includes a corresponding audio recording. This allows students to keep using one source of interesting articles for a long time, gradually increasing the difficulty. They can even first read an article in Level 1 and then try to read the same article in Level 2 and so on.
Benefits
Articles in text books are great for students because they usually match their level of English and contain just about right amount of new words to learn. However, they are quickly outdated and do not cover latest world events. On the other hand, latest news in media always cover topics that are currently being discussed in public and therefore provide more motivation for students to read. However, it is very hard to know in advance if a randomly picked article is going to be too easy or too difficult for students. News in Levels allows teachers to use just one source of up-to-date articles and audio recordings even for different groups of students.
Flipgrid
Description
Flipgrid is the leading video discussion platform for millions of PreK to PhD educators, students, and their families around the world. Flipgrid promotes fun and social learning by giving every student an equal and amplified voice in discussing prompts organized by the educator.
Benefits
Backed by an incredible community, getting started on Flipgrid is not only free but extremely easy: create an account and browse the Discovery Library for launch-ready discussion topics created by educators around the world. With a free account you can create an unlimited number of discussion prompts and collect an unlimited number of student videos!
International Teacher Development Institute
Description
Since 2012, the International Teacher Development Institute (iTDi.pro) has been building a global reputation for quality professional development courses for pre- and in-service English language teachers. We pride ourselves on an inclusive and caring community based on our core belief that all teachers, regardless of their location or financial resources, deserve ongoing online opportunities to improve themselves as professional teachers. So far, over 1000 teachers have joined our iTDi Global Webinars, Advanced Skills Online Courses, and Teacher Development online lessons. Our latest offering is a 130-hour, online TESOL Certificate Course, unique because it offers a personal mentor as well as world-class online video and written materials by internationally-respected educators such as Scott Thornbury, Adrian Doff, and others. As part of the new TESOL Certificate, The Teachers’ Room is an integral learning community where teachers gather weekly to explore the art of teaching as well as enhance their classroom practice. The Teachers’ Room is free for teachers enrolled in the TESOL course, and available by subscription to all other teachers.
Benefits
Here are some benefits that teachers tell us they receive from iTDi:
• “I love the quality of the courses – they are always practical and useful.”
• “It’s great to work with teachers who want to improve as much as I do.”
• “I really like the international nature of the sessions.”
• “Even when I can’t attend the live session, having a recording makes me feel like I never miss a thing!”
• “Everyone shares great ideas and feedback, both in the live sessions AND in the Discussion Forum.”
• “I got a lot of confidence from iTDi – they always made me feel equal and valued my opinions.”
• “My boss accepted my iTDi certificate and I used it to get a promotion.”
• “I have found my voice as a teacher – talking with enthusiastic teachers around the world was just what I needed.”
TINYCARDS
Description
Tinycards, created by the team at Duolingo, was designed to reinvent flashcards and make it into a fun learning experience. Using the same game mechanics and learning techniques that made Duolingo the most downloaded education app worldwide with 200 million users, Tinycards helps students and lifelong learners alike memorize anything while having fun.
Benefits
Why use Tinycards? With Tinycards, learners unlock new levels, share cards with friends and solidify their knowledge by filling up a strength bar. In the background, science works to help everyone learn efficiently: smart algorithms adapt to each person’s progress and keep them from forgetting newly-learned concepts. Thousands of decks already exist for almost any topic imaginable, and you can always create your own deck for any topic you need.
Screencast-o-matic
Description
Screencast-O-Matic is an easy-to-use, powerful video creation and publishing solution including Screen Recorder, Video Editor, Video CMS and more. With our fast, free screen recording app designed for Windows, Mac, and Chromebooks you can record your desktop and/or webcam with the option to add narration and system sound to your recordings. Our powerful video editing tools enable you to deliver compelling videos to your students, insert text and graphics overlays, add animation, mix in other media, automate captioning, and much more.
Screencast-O-Matic also provides a set of Video CMS and Hosting Services for teachers that prefer a dedicated space for managing and serving their screencasts.
Screencast-O-Matic supports many scenarios for k-12, Higher Education, and Professional Development including:
• Flipped or blended learning
• Lecture capture: teach while your lecture is recorded
• Video announcements
• Teacher-student screencast mentorship
• Student video assignments
Benefits
Very intuitive and easy to use set of tools
• Powerful set of drawing and editing tools to make stunning videos
• Free version and extremely affordable Pro Tools
• Passionate community consisting of millions of global users
EFL MAGAZINE
The aims of EFL Magazine are simple yet ambitious: to be the world’s number one magazine for English language teachers, to improve teachers’ lives by supplying the best content and access to the best people to the reader, and to be an arena for change and innovation in how English is taught in an era of massive change in education.
EFL Magazine was born out of the idea of bringing truly great content from the best people to English language teachers worldwide, to improve the lives of those teachers and their students.
iSLCollective.com’s Video Quiz Maker
Description
Since 2009 iSLCollective.com has amassed over 2.5 million registered teachers. Its core success is founded on the ability to download and upload ESL resources absolutely free.
iSLCollective has recently launched a brand new interactive feature; an easy-to-use interactive video quiz maker. It’s actually so simple that even the least tech-savvy teachers will be able to figure out how it works. It allows a teacher to create a video which intermittently pauses and pops up interactive questions. You can create an interactive quiz with any video from YouTube or Vimeo.
Have a look at the 3 minute video below which explains how this works.
We are excited to share this wonderful free resource with you and encourage you to browse through our library and try making a video quiz lesson of your own!
Benefits
1.5 years after our launch there’s already a huge library of 2500 ready-made video quizzes created by teachers around the world available to you free of charge. Every video is clearly categorized allowing you to make a precise, narrow search and find a suitable quiz for a specific age, level and interest.
Once you see how much your students enjoy learning through this tool, you’ll be keen to create your own video quizzes. Doing so is as easy as 1, 2, 3!
I’m already a great fan of most of the sites recommended here... Definitely, my teaching wouldn’t be the same without my regular integration of resources generously shared by NIck Peachey (not just his “Daily activities”), isl collective video lessons and quiz maker, or without Screencast-o-matic. And whenever I’n working with “the news”, “News in levels” is definitely the site to visit! Planning to look into the others ASAP!
Happy birthday!
Tumblr tells me my microblog “Thought of the week” jsut turned 13 yesterday... I have never posted to it once a week, and I’m not even sure who’s reading me.... but I’m glad I still keep it going!
“Collaboration for professional development” (Paula Castro)
And the last day on CambridgeDay2020 starts (for me!)
NB: Assuming learning as a social and contextually situated activity implies that “best practices” will necessarily need to be socially and contextually assessed.
How does teacher learn to teach? Paula takes two metaphors from learning to answer this question:
Learning as acquisition
Learning by participation (Vygotskian views of interaction)
Conscious knowledge = PCK - “pedagogic content knowledge” (ie what we study/learn intentionally for professional development) does not coexist with TK - “tacit knowledge” (which is stored in our working memory, and is retrieved when conscious knowledge is overwhelmed by demands). Most of what we do as teachers is based on our TK (esp now, when faced with new challenges).
For teacher learning to be effective, it must be social (not in isolation), situated (in the classroom, not outside), mediated. We need to collaborate and network.
What makes teacher learning different from other cases of professional development?
Other barriers to teacher learning: most classroom observation is judgemental rather than formative; focus on public policies rather than on “action research” (my words, Paula talked about “the classroom out”).
Practice can be shared, but not transferred.
Good professional development must:
mobilise collaboration, dialogue and professional community
problematise practices
make learning visible and accountable
build relational trust, reciprocity, easement to take studied risks
be continuous
Take place in the classroom, where all things happen
be school-based, embedded in routine practice
take the form of peer-to-peer collaboration
Paula introduced a Japanese word: Kaizen, which means constantly reflect on what you do to get it done better, and went on to point out the importance of a school culture of continuous reflection on teaching. Suggesting lesson study as the process which could make this a reality for teachers, she advocated for “schools learning with, from, and on behalf of each other”. (My question: will I get to see such a change of paradigm???)
To keep thinking: an extensive lesson study carried out recently suggests teachers systematically underestimate students’ learning.
Brain-friendly teaching (Joaquín Triandafilide)
And here go my notes for the only session I’m attending on Day 4 of the fabulous Cambridge Day 2020 (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E8kB-ZU8lD4&feature=youtu.be)
Interestingly, when teaching a lesson, we deal mostly with our learners’ working memory. However,when testing them, it is their long-term memory they need to appeal to (Joaquín pointed out it is the transfer of working memory to long-term memory that we call “learning”):
Multi-tasking can interfere with our working memory (made me think of sts who keep “glued” to their mobiles).
TIPS TO AVOID COGNITIVE OVERLOAD (whether teaching online or on site):
At any given time, go for new content OR new modality (eg. tools or learning environments)
Store by similarity, retrieve by difference
Manage the emotional atmosphere (show you care regardless of their success in your classes, respect different opinions)
Don’t promote multi-tasking. Use the Pomodoro technique. Choose your words and graphics carefully. Remove interesting pictures which are not essential (coherence). Highlight key words or pictures (signalling). Avoid on screen text if possible (redundance), prefer graphics + oral narration.
Teach students thinking routines (Eg: the 3 Ws: “what did I know? What did I learn? What should I learn more about?”)
Provide cognitive “helpers” (scaffolding - facilitate transfer). Give them checklists, case studies, graphic organisers, to help them store and retrieve information.
See a possible organiser students can work with when learning vocabulary:
Promote collaborative work (group work helps us self-regulate and improves self-esteem)
To finish, Joaquín asked us to choose ONE strategy to start using TOMORROW (OK, let’s say on 5 August, when classes start again!). My choice? “Teach thinking routines” (I challenge myself to do it with ALL my groups, not just high school students). He finished with this inspiring quote:
Recommended site: https://bebrainfit.com/
“Professional Development in times of lockdown”(Gabriel Díaz-Maggioli )
Day 3 on Cambridge Day - (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PijHJOBfOk4&feature=youtu.be)
Always a pleasure to learn from this inspiring educator!
Here I’m sharing some of Gabriel’s reflections on CPD (continuous professional development):
In this “new normal” we watch lots of webinars.. but they’re not curated. Anyone with access to a camera and the Internet can start their own channel and give others tips...
We are learning new ways of keeping students focused through technology.
We need to ask “What kind of CPD initiatives result in better learning, not just for the students, but also for their teachers?”
When we go back to f2f teaching, we need to remember our students won’t have heard English at school for X months... It’s only natural to expect a reversion to shyness and difficulty to interact...
Good CPD is: impactful, needs-based, sustained (over time, and through mentoring), peer-collaborative (teaching is a social, gregarious profession), in practice (allowing us to learn to unlearn what we did wrong), reflective and evaluated.
In the current situation, as regards CPD, “we teachers are (mostly) alone”...
Don’t resort to “experts” for CPT, turn to “expert teachers” in your own teaching contexts. Foster coaching, mentoring, communities of practice, blended learning..
3 important Cs for CPD: communication, chunking & community.
“Favourite teaching methods” (Scott Thornbury)
With a very personal selection of “favourite methods”, Scott Thornbury (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XERPdwe0HHQ&feature=youtu.be) started by defining “method”, ...
.. toured us around the history of ELT methodology and discussed the value of “methods” today...
.. and ended up advocating eclecticism and pragmatism!
Quite an interesting talk, indeed!
Engaging activities for online lessons with teens (Dan Vincent)
Cool, practical ideas to keep teens involved in online lessons (as Vincent himself pointed out “the fundamentals haven’t changed”):
* Polls (using Mentimeter or the text chat) to introduce a topic, check grammar or vocabulary, trigger off a discussion (NB: meaning should prevail over form). NOTE: Zoom has voting features.
*Webquests (ask them to find out the answer to one question, checking with different sites). Eg.: How is a new emoji chosen? How can your survive a crocodile attack?
*Jigsaw dictation (a variation of jigsaw reading): each student in a group gets one sentence. In breakout rooms, each learner dictates their sentences to the other members of the group. They discuss their sentences in groups to reconstruct the story (Eg: a joke).
*Projects: online museum tour (in groups, they choose a period in history and an area of research to create their exhibition, then present to the class).
(Faced with remote emergency teaching) “Teenagers have been extremely understanding, forgiving and supportive, helping teachers overcome the challenges of learning to work in new environments”. (my personal experience indeed!)
Teaching teens online (Samantha Lewis)
Watching Samantha Lewis presenting on “Tips for teaching Teens Online” as part of Cambridge Day 2020 (Day 2) at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=92JpPPsLxm0&feature=youtu.be
What follows is MY selection of useful ideas from what she told us:
Tip #1: Start the lesson with something which is fun, so that they get involved while they wait for everyone to join in, before you actually start teaching. Suggestions: captions for a photo - alphabet race on lesson topic - word puzzles.
Tip #2: Remember they’re not just “learning English”, but actually developing 21st century skills.
Tip #3: At the end of a session, ask them to complete statements reflecting on their learning (e.g. “3 words I’ve learned today” /”Before next class I have to...”)
Tip #4: Teach them how to record and review new language (different strategies)
Tip#5: Record and recycle emergent language (which you teach in response to needs that emerge during the lesson) with word games (eg: taboo, mime-it-out, anagrams).
Tip#6: Teach how to prepare effectively for your online meeting carrying out reading and listening tasks before, so in the online lesson you can maximise speaking and collaboration.
Tip#7: Encourage not only self-assessment (”I can name 12 sports in English”. “I can use 13 verbs related to sports”. etc), but also help them decide “what happens next” (ie build an action plan).
Tip#8: Ask questions about what they see / think (opinions) / wonder...
Tip#9: Teach them to work together, so that they can become independent from you. When working with breakout rooms, make sure they have very clear instructions and an ACHIEVABLE TASK within the set time limit. Assign an option for fast-finishers, and ask them to appoint a spokesperson to report when they come back to the main room.
Tip#10: Try collaborative listening (dictogloss: they work together to write a similar text to one they’ve heard), collaborative writing (eg: creating a text in pairs and commenting on classmates’ text via a Padlet), peer-teaching (e.g. by learning new words in groups and then regrouping them so that they have to teach them to others).
“FUN + SURPRISE + SHORT, ACHIEVABLE & PURPOSEFUL ACTIVITIES”
Enjoying listening to Penny Urr, sharing her “20 Teaching Tips on Vocabulary” at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6FQZrtikKqE&feature=youtu.be (Cambridge Day 2020 Day 2)
She showed us 3 vocabulary profilers (I hadn’t heard of these before - definitely worth using): https://www.wordandphrase.info/analyzeText.asp - https://www.lextutor.ca/vp/eng/ - https://textinspector.com/
Enjoying an AWESOME presentation on PBL by Mariano Quinterno. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FTn_Bq6D8fA&feature=youtu.be (Cambridge Day 2020)
An idea worth remembering: Do you want to be a “deeper teacher”? If you want the answer to be YES, you must work to pay attention to :
* Pedagogical priorities:“Depth over breadth” (be selective about content)
* Views of knowledge: Uncertainties over certainties
* Ethos: Rigour AND joy
Herbert Puchta: "Teaching English online: principles, personal reflections and propositions" - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=frcdtO-KmZA&feature=youtu.be
Some quotes I’d like to keep in mind:
*On learning: “ Our brains want to learn... but only that they consider relevant to their future”
* On engaging learners in remote emergency learning: (In this current situation) children often have to do things things that I think are handed out to them to keep them busy... But we need interesting content, we need to have personal contact with our students, we need to show that we are interested in their situation, that we are interested in their learning situation, we need to show them that we are prepared to help, and need to make it absolutely clear to them that we are doing in this situation is extremely important, that we’re doing our best to support them”
Que las evidencias que estamos recolectando ahora sean la base sobre las que acreditemos saberes y aprendizajes al regresar a la presencialidad.
Rebeca Anijovich. “Transparentar la evaluación: el valor de las rúbricas”. Webinar 6 de julio de 2020.
Pareciera que tuvo que venir una pandemia para entrar en el campo y legitimar la evaluación formativa.
Rebeca Anijovich. “Transparentar la evaluación: el valor de las rúbricas”. Webinar. 6 de julio 2020