Digital chasm

Another easy and quick video about one of the negative consequences of ICT, that is the digital chasm.
Anyway, I don't feel the last statement in the video is suitable... they compare two facts that cannot be compared, both are different and both are important. What do you think?

Social networking

Listen to the explanation.

Rock ESL

A little naf but curious anyway!

Web 2.0 and languages

Let's see how the Web 2.0 can encourage our language students.

Web 2.0

Web 2.0 in the classroom?
What does it mean?




What's the difference between Web 1.0 and Web 2.0?
Is there a dark side of the Web 2.0? Are these disadvantages great enough to stop us, as teachers, from using the Web 2.0?

Digital learners

There are so many videos about the way we teach and the way our students learn. Let's see some of them.

Our students are digital learners... are we engaging their interest?
If we learn by doing, what are we learning sitting all day?



Why are our schools still the same?



Learners 2.0. How do they learn?

Blogs in education

There is a lot of theory about blogging in education. Let's check it!

Read this article about getting started.BLOGS IN EDUCATION
Download the PDF document here.

Read the summary of the article Educational Blogging by Stephen Downs.

Stephen Downes

Stephen Down is a philosopher of the Internet and Web 2.0.

In his site, there are lots of videos of him and presentations where he explains different relevant items on this topic.
Watch this video. It is just a single example of his thought and all the interesting stuff in his site.



I especially share some of his conclusions:
1. You are the centre of your own personal learning network.
2. And that the three principles expained in the video -interaction, usability and relevance- should guide not only the way we learn, but also the way we teach.

Why let our students blog?

Reasons to let your students blog.

Marià Villangómez in English?

Why not?

Read here about him

Reason to learn another language

Why should we learn another language?
Watch the video and you'll find a pretty answer.

A better Internet for a better world

Interesting reflection exercise about the way Internet shold work.

Second Life

Do you think Second Life can have an educative use?
Shall we avoid it or shall we benefit from Second Life?

WebQuests

What's a WebQuest?

It is research done by the students through the Internet. It is a longer research than the one done in Treasure Hunts.
They are given a task that has to be done through a guided process. At the end, the student has to hand in a sort of essay or project. The great difference in WebQuest is that the assessment has to be carefully planned.
It was first developed by Bernie Dodge.
In Spain, the two main people who have developed WebQuests are Isabel Pérez, especially English Webquests, and Sebastià Capella, who focuses on Maths and Science.

Definition in Wikipedia

WebQuest.org

Five rules for writing a great WebQuest by Bernie Dodge

Isabel Pérez Webquest in English

Treasure Hunts

What is a treasure hunt?

It is a little task in which students research a topic. They are given questions and the webs where to find answers. At the end, they will have to write a short essay with the answers to the questions.

Here you can see some examples:

Lots of examples here, at Isabel Pérez's site
My own examples

ICT teaching

Read this interesting document about ICT in Education Faculties.

Are Faculties of Education meeting the professional development needs of future and practising teachers?

Integrating ICT in teacher training: a challenging balance

CLIL

CLIL stands for Content and Language Integrated Learning

CLIL fosters teaching English through a non-linguistic area.

CLIL compendium is an interesting web about CLIL:

http://www.clilcompendium.com/clilcompendium.htm


Isabel Pérez's web is one of the best webs about CLIL, with a lot of ideas and resources:

http://www.isabelperez.com/clil.htm


Here you can find lots of interesting DU:

http://www.xtec.cat/crle/pla_le/cataleg.htm


And I strongly recommend the following one:

http://www.xtec.net/%7Emaltemir/


Read the following document about CLIL:

Using languages to learn and learning to use languages by David Marsh


Have a look at Macmillan Publisher's web about CLIL


The following video can be considered as a good example of how we could take advantage of a lot of multimedia material already created to learn English through a non-linguistic area, eg. science:



Check all the ppt presentations of the speeches in Palma, May 2008, in the WEIB site. The Conselleria d'Educació i Cultura de les Illes Balears offered a course on CLIL to teachers starting CLIL projects in the following school year.

Why do we use technology in the classroom?

There are five main reasons.
Look and listen.

Steve Jobs' speech

Listen to Steve Jobs' speech. He is one of the founders of Apple.
I love the last words of his speech.
To be a good teacher you have to believe in what you do, and how you do it.
Do you agree?

New tools

Don't be afraid!
We all feel the same when faced with new tools.




The same video with subtitles.