Curating Online Conversations: Your Students' Works of Art

Many already know the educational benefits that podcasting offers within the classroom as well as how they can be used to aid professional development. There are so many podcast sites out there that offer videos as often as every week on specific themes and topics.  One such podcast that I found that I feel will be be beneficial for my future ESL teaching is How to Curate and Foster Online Conversations.  This podcast talks about the importance of finding a way to not only engage learners in online conversations for learning purposes within the classroom, but also how teachers can archive and save these conversations to return to at a later date and to just re-visit for learning purposes.  This podcast is beneficial for me as a future teacher because I never really thought of the dilemma of starting/initiating an online conversation with my students on a particular topic, but not having enough time to complete the topic/conversation.  Also, how do I make that conversation readily available to my students to finish at a later date as well as for students who would like to revisit it for personal learning purposes?  Though this podcast does not come up with a definite solution on how this can be done, it does pose many options as well as offers a colorful conversation on the importance of fostering online conversations so students can get all there is to offer out of such a learning tool.  One important point that is brought up during this podcast is that online conversations with students on certain topics may continue for a long time, and is it fair/appropriate to cut the conversation off for time purposes and leave it at that, or how can the teacher save or "curate" that conversation so the students can continue it at a later date?  I thought this to be a beneficial video that really made me think about the online learning component of teaching and how I can make it a better learning experience for my students.

From Pen Pals To Epals!

Project based learning, specifically the Project Approach is one of the prime teaching strategies of the 21st century.  Learning through projects creates a collaborative classroom community that allows students to engage in active learning as well as participate in creating something unique and meaningful with their peers. There are many educational organizations that give classrooms the opportunity to collaborate with other classrooms and students around the world.  One particular site that I have explored is epals, a global classroom that give teachers access to educational tools and the opportunity to connect with classrooms all over the world to engage in collaborative project based learning.  One tool that this site offers teachers is a wiki.  "A wiki is an [online] place where students work collaboratively with other students, adding and editing subject related content."  An example of a project approved by epals that uses a wiki is Collaborative Detective Story--A Community Inspired Project.  This project was initiated by a class in Pakistan who wanted to collaborate with another class from any where in the world to write a detective story.  This is a year long project and it begins with the students from their respective classrooms getting to know each other through a questionnaire and emails posted on a specific wiki.  Once the students get to know each other then one of the classrooms, preferably the one who is learning the language of the other students ( for example English) will write an opening paragraph for the story.  The other class will then proof read and edit the paragraph and then brain storm ideas for the next paragraph.  The process will continue until the story ends.  A wiki is a great tool to use for any classroom because it allows students to communicate on group projects outside of class.  Another project featured on this site is a Level 2 French class in Missouri looking to collaborate with a
classroom in France in order to complete a comparison of a high school in America with one in France.  The completion of the project will involve the students in America creating a video showing the different parts of their high school.  This site also offers a media gallery which gives teachers a place to upload digital files such as word processing files, pictures, power points etc.  This is a great tool to use as an archive of students' work that was completed throughout the year.  This site is amazing and allows for so many learning and teaching opportunities, specifically the opportunity to learn with and from other classrooms all over the world!

Unlock The Story Inside, Unlock The English Inside Yourself

There is no doubt of the effectiveness of internet storytelling tools to facilitate learning in the ESL classroom.  One such site that provides a great way to teach students English is storybird.  This tool is not just helpful for learning the English language but it also gives students practice with creative writing and the components of writing such as sequencing of events, writing/reading for meaning and using the correct story format of beginning, middle and end.  A unique feature about this site is that it provides pictures so all the author has to do is add text; as the site states "Storybird reverses visual storytelling by starting with the image and unlocking the story inside."  This is great for beginning learners of English because it helps guide their story and thinking of ideas and story lines.  This site provides free sign up and use and is really easy to learn how to use.  This is a link to an adventure story I created, The Land of Crystaline.  I hope you enjoy and have as much fun as I did exploring this site!

Thirty Second Stories in the ESL Classroom

In my previous blog I talked about the benefits of using digital storytelling in the ESL classroom and I talked about one site in particular that I have used called zooburst.com.  In this blog I would like to talk about a new digital storytelling site that I have explored called animoto.  This storytelling tool is a great tool to use in the ESL classroom for many reasons as it allows the creator to insert photos, videos, text and music.  It is also very easy to use and to navigate around the site and it gives very clear instructions on how to create stories. This site also allows for free 30 second stories which makes this tool great to use as assignments for students to make their own stories or as mini lessons on particular topics or to supplement in-class lessons.  When I was thinking of a topic to use for my free story that could benefit my ESL students, I remembered an issue we discussed in my LAI culture class about how it is very common for ESL students in immersion classrooms to not be familiar with specific culture references that may be incorporated into daily lessons.  The one instance in particular that I am referring to is from a transcript we were analyzing about how the topic of popular television shows became a part of a current events discussion in an immersion biology class.  The ESL students in the course were unable to participate in the discussion because they were not familiar with the shows being referenced such as The Simpsons, therefor they felt outcasted and inferior.  Our challenge was to try and come up with ways to inform

these students about these culture references.  I felt that animoto is a great way to introduce English culture topics to students so I created a short video exemplifying how this tool can be used for such a purpose:  An Introduction to American Pop Culture.  Not only was I able to insert pictures of popular American singers and actors but I was able to include popular songs that students would be listening to and talking about.  This would even be a great tool to just use to create these mini stories in order to help ESL students become familiar with topics such as American pop culture so they do not feel left out in class and become discouraged from participating. I really like this tool and I feel I will get a lot of use out of it within my classroom. 

It's Your Story Tell It Your Way!

I never would have thought that using digital storytelling within the ESL classroom could help facilitate

learning for my students until I explored its history, uses, and one particular digital storytelling site.  As a matter of fact, I was not aware of this educational practice until only recently; to be exact my first semester at the University at Buffalo about five months ago.  So for anybody who is new to this practice, like me, and is interested in exploring its educational benefits some more you can find information through many sites.  One site I enjoyed, The Educational Uses of Digital Storytelling, explains clearly what it is, some history and gives a clear definition.  Basically digital storytelling is "combining the art of telling stories with a variety of multimedia, including graphics, audio, video, and web publishing."  There are many ways to use this tool within the classroom to facilitate learning.  Teachers can create their own digital stories and use them to supplement lessons to make them more meaningful and interesting to the students or to present new material; these stories can also be used as a way to enhance a discussion about topics within a story.  Teachers can also use this tool as an assignment and have the students create their own stories.  Of course it would be vital for the teacher to first present this tool to the students and show them how it works and give them some examples.  This is a great tool to use for ESL students because it can help them practice how to write creatively as well as

informative writing; they can create fictional stories as well as non-fiction stories based on historical and/or scientific information for example.  This would also be a fun assignment for the students as they are able to insert pictures, videos and audio depending on the site that is used.  They also have a unique finished product to be very proud of and that is published to the web for their friends and family to view whenever. I have experience using zooburst which is a very fun and easy site to navigate.  I created a "story" for my educational psychology course in which I was instructed to use the information from specific chapters of my text.  My story is Classroom Assessment, grading and Standardized Testing.  One feature about this site that makes it interesting and fun is the images pop out of the book.  This was a very easy tool to learn to use and I feel it will be very beneficial in the ESL classroom to use as assignments for my students and to facilitate learning the English language.  I am glad I was exposed to this classroom practice and learning tool and am exciting to incorporate it in my future classroom.

Mission: Conversational English

My previous post discussed the potentials of using games in the ESL classroom to meet learning objectives; it focused on casual games.  This post is going to discuss the benefits of using serious games, specifically for individual learning outside of the classroom.  The game I chose to use as an example is Mission US; it is a series of interactive games that are based off of various events from United States history.  The game that I have experience playing is Mission 1:  For Crown or Colony?  The premise of this game is a 14 year old boy named Nat Wheeler in 1770 Massachusetts who is forced to go apprentice for a news paper right before the revolutionary war breaks out.  He has various tasks he has to complete through out the game as an apprentice along with making the choice of which side to take during the war.  I would introduce this game to my ESL students as supplemental learning material during a conversational unit. This game incorporates the skills of listening and reading, however I would use it during a conversational unit because the main character (the student) interacts with the surrounding characters through dialogue/conversational format.  The other characters actually respond based on what Nat chooses to say (options appear on the screen).  This type of game is also good for an ESL class because it incorporates American culture into the learning of the language.  My language learning objectives would be:  Students would demonstrate language skills necessary for effective communication:  such as listening comprehension skills and

control of English grammar.  I would encourage my students to play this game in pairs and each practice taking on the roles of the main character and supporting characters and reading the dialogue out loud each turn.  I would assess their ability to communicate effectively in English a couple of ways: First I would ask them to create a role play as an assignment initiating a conversation based on the premise of the game.  Then as an in class assignment I would have them pair up and carry on a conversation taking turns initiating and answering/responding.  This would be a good game to use when first introducing conversational skills in the class, it's a good starting activity to get the students used to the "flow" of English conversations.

A "Walkthrough" of the English Language: A Game Play Approach to Language Learning

ESL teachers are always looking for new and exciting ways to present material to students that will facilitate language learning within the classroom by engaging them in the lesson.  Another major obstacle for teachers is creating fun and meaningful lessons that will entice students to become willing participants in the language learning process; to find games and activities that also provide learning contexts.  Gamification is one such teaching technique that allows for a solution to each of the problems listed above.  The idea behind gamification is the application of game techniques and the use of game thinking in non-game contexts to aid people (students)  in solving problems.  One type of game, casual games, specifically Escape the Room games which is a genre of casual games, is especially useful to facilitate learning in the language classroom.  According to Graham Stanley, Escape the room games are effective teaching tools to use in the language classroom because they provide "good live listening skills" through the use of walkthroughs. I have had experience with one Escape the Room game in particular, Mystery of Time and Space (Motas) which involves the gamer completing various mini tasks in order to complete the larger task of escaping from a particular room.  I played about five levels of this game.  The good thing about this game is it has a lot of levels that increase in difficulty and you do not have to play all the levels in one sitting. After reading an article on this game and playing the game for myself I realized the potential for this game in the language learning classroom.  My language learning objectives for a lesson involving Motas would be: learners would demonstrate an understanding of everyday household vocabulary through the successful completion of the mini tasks involved in this type of game; and students will demonstrate the ability to listen to and follow directions in English by making visible progress in the game as they successfully move from task to task and/or room to room. The mini tasks would be dictated by the teacher which are incorporated in the walkthrough for Motas.  As the teacher, my role would be to mediate the students' comprehension of the purpose of this game through giving them detailed and specific directions on how the game works.  Once I am sure that all of my students have a grasp on the purpose of the game I would then shift my role to guide, as I guide the students through the mini tasks presented in the walkthrough making sure to use appropriate vocabulary and give feedback through clarification of steps when needed. Stanley even suggests that the teacher adapt the walkthrough to meet the specific vocabulary needs of the learners.  The role of the students would then be to listen carefully to the directions being dictated by the teacher and try to complete the puzzle or escape from the room through recollection of the vocabulary and completion of the various mini tasks.  One suggested warm up activity, which I really like, before having the students play the game is to show them still images of some of the rooms and ask them in pairs or as a class as a whole to name objects in the room.  I will be able to tell which students understand the target vocabulary and which students are having trouble with it by who is able to complete the tasks and who is not able to complete the tasks.  Another good way to assess understanding is to give the students a printed copy of the walkthrough and see who is able to escape from the room with little to no help from the teacher.  I honestly never thought that this type of game could be seen as a learning tool until I explored and researched the benefits of it in the classroom.  And I have concluded that this is definitely a teaching tool I will take advantage of in my future ESL classroom.

Just a Tweet? Or, So Much More?

As I mentioned in my previous blog, I never realized the potential of Tweeting in regards to professional development.  I have learned so many ways that Twitter can benefit me as an educator just by being part of the Twitter community for only a few days.  I have also explored some very interesting and informative articles that enhanced my knowledge of twitter as a professional learning network.   Ways Teachers Can Use Twitter for Professional Development and The Teacher's Guide to Twitter are two very in depth articles that walk educators through the various uses of Twitter for educational purposes as well as how to use the different Twitter tools correctly.  I feel that Twitter will provide me with many opportunities to connect with current and experienced educators in my field of ESL as well as allow me to share my own ideas about teaching.  One thing that both of these articles touched on was the idea that Twitter is a "two way street," it is giving and taking of ideas and resources.  This means that it is a learning community where people with shared interests can learn from each other and their experiences.

This is especially important for new and future educators; I know that I feel very fortunate to have a social learning network such as Twitter where I can connect with experts in the field of teaching ESL and ask for advice for my future classroom.  I also enjoy and find beneficial just following educators' tweets and connecting to their resource links such as teaching sites and articles.  I am still very new to Twitter and need to learn more about how to use it and get the most out of it for professional purposes, but so far I am enjoying what it has to offer me as a future educator.

#tweetsareeducational!!

Add caption

How in the world could Twitter be beneficial for me as an educator? That is a question many might ask  when told that Twitter is a good tool to use for professional development, and that is the exact question I asked myself when I signed up for the account as part of my educational technologies course.  Up until now I was completely against Twitter; that could be because I only knew it as a means for common everyday people to implicitly stalk their favorite celebrities, and well, as a means for celebrities to get instant attention.  But this view changed when I began to explore the varied uses of Twitter and I attended my first Twitterchat, #edtechchat.  This chat was very informative for me as an educator as it consisted of teachers, students, and other educators posting informative sites and tips on using technology in education as well as information on how to improve the general educational system of today. There was some conversational dialogue happening during this chat as others would comment on and reply to others' tweets, but the majority of the chat was people posting about different educational topics and linking useful sites to their tweets, which I found to be very useful.  I visited one site in particular connectlearningtoday.com, and read an awesome article on using the virtual learning tool augmented reality in the classroom.  Overall, I felt my first Twitterchat for educational purposes provided me with a wealth of information that will help with my future teaching. This experience also showed me that Twitter is indeed a good tool to use for professional development as it helps me to connect with other educators and share ideas and resources.

Flipped Learning Through Social Networking

One thing I have learned from my LAI technologies class is the importance and usefulness of social networking, especially for learning from and through others and their experiences.  There are numerous social networking sites out there that provide people with information and tools to help them advance and be successful in their careers, in particular their teaching career.  One social networking site that I have just explored and joined is the Flipped Learning Network.  I was attracted to this site in particular because I am very interested in learning how to incorporate individualized teaching into my future L2 English classroom.  This teaching method is also very similar to learning how to incorporate individual learning styles and interests into the curriculum, which is a very important and useful teaching method to help facilitate learning in the ESL classroom.
 The Flipped Learning Site is useful for current and future teachers of all areas because it gives educators a forum to share their best flipped teaching practices and also share things that did not seem to work in the classroom; therefore providing current and future teachers with tools that will benefit students as well as with practices that are not useful for students.  I feel that joining this site now during my studies, will allow me time to read up and research some more on how to best implement successfully and efficiently this teaching strategy into my future classroom.  I look forward to all I will learn from educators through this site.

Keeping Up With Today's Learner

A learner of today is like a chameleon who is constantly changing his color to adapt to and survive in a constantly changing environment.  The learner of today is constantly changing his/her ways of thinking and learning to keep up with all the new knowledge that is surfacing so often in today's world. In his article A Learning Theory for the Digital Age George Siemens refers to the concept of half-life knowledge and how it relates to today's learner.  New knowledge is being born so often in today's world, such as technological advances and social learning environments, that people have to constantly change the the ways they think and the decisions they make due to this constant influx of new knowledge.  However, though learner's today are considered "digital natives," those who grew up learning from and through technology, educational systems still emphasize  and practice learning theories that are only concerned with the actual process of learning and "not with the value of what is being learned."
In his brief video, The Conflict of Learning Theories with Human Nature, Siemens elaborates on the problem of educational systems today limiting the way they present information to today's learner based mainly on past theorist's ideas and research.  In this video he explains that it is human nature to make sense of the world around us by externalizing our thoughts, and that through this process meaning is being created and learning is happening.  For today's learner the way they externalize their thoughts and learn is through technology. And connecting with others through technology such as with online specialized learning communities are important activities that allow students to learn through others and from their experiences.  But as Siemens states, educators today have failed to keep up with today's

learner and adapt their ways of teaching and presenting information to meet the ever changing learning environments of these learners:  "To begin to see the power of connecting in an external fashion really requires that we rethink and rewrite much of how we'er currently conceiving  learning and knowledge in our academic settings."

So Much More Than Just Bookmarking

When I would hear the term social bookmarking I would simply think, just a way to save some of my favorite sites on my computer and have easy access to them at a later date.  What was missing from my basic definition of the term was the social aspect of social bookmarking.  I never realized how much bookmarking can become a shared community of favorite topics and interests until I explored two social bookmarking tools for my LAI technologies course, Diggo and Scoop.it.  Diggo is an excellent way to not only save some of your favorite and important sites, but to organize them through the use of tags.  The purpose of a tag is to allow you to search out only the sites you saved that are tagged with that specific key word; for example esl.  Diggo also offers many other extra features such as being able to highlight specific parts of articles and use electronic sticky notes which allows you to write and take notes anywhere on a web page.  Scoop.it is much like diggo as it allows you to save your favorite sites and articles, however diggo allows you to organize your interest sites by topic.  So all you have to do is click on the topic of the articles you would like to share or read and it will take you to all of the articles you saved under that topic.  Both of these websites allow you to follow other users who post articles and topics of personal interest, however scoop.it gives suggestions for related articles.  I thought it was

easier to learn how to use diggo than scoop.it, however once I got the hang of scoop.it I figured I would probably get more use out of that site.  I like how scoop.it allows me to organize sites and interests based on topic.  I feel being able to use social bookmarking sites is essential in today's technological world, especially the teaching world.  Teachers can find so many educational tools and successful teaching methods by searching the internet and we need a way to organize, save and share all of the important information we collect for our own personal teaching. Both diggo and scoop.it are two ways to successfully do all of those things and more.

Educational Paradigms and Technology

For this post I viewed two very informative videos on teaching in today's educational system.  The first video that I viewed was RSA-Animate: Changing Educational Paradigms and the second was classroom of tomorrow.  I really enjoyed both of these videos, not only were they unique and engaging but they were very informative both in their own ways.

The first video, RSA-Changing Educational Paradigms really made me think about how todays educational system has become so obsessed with teaching to the test that it is actually effecting the health and well-being of the children who are subjected to this approach to teaching.  I have always been weary about labeling children, especially with learning/behavioral disorders in which the solution involves medications/treatments.  This video makes an excellent point that so many children today are being labelled with ADHD, almost as if administrators and educators use this diagnoses as a means of medicating children in order to make them focus and calm them down, in order to meet their objectives and make reaching the teaching standards easier.  I also strongly agree with the point this video makes on divergent thinking.  Students today are being taught, because of the educational standards currently set in place, that there is only one answer to questions and problems and in order to succeed in school they have to accept and remember that one answer.  Divergent thinking on the other hand, teaches that there could be many possible answers to one question and lots of possible ways of interpreting a question.  This is the educational paradigm that is emphasized in this video.

The second video, Classroom of Tomorrow, was a very interesting musically narrated video that shows how technology has infiltrated today's classrooms.  While a lot of the technological tools displayed in this video seemed very convenient and great to facilitate learning, this video gave me the feel that technology has also made learning in the classroom very impersonal. Everyone in the video, including teachers were constantly looking down at their devices and not at anyone around them.  I agree that using technology in todays classroom is almost essential and does facilitate learning to a degree, but I also feel that using technology should not interfere with classroom pedagogy or with communication among classmates and group work; all very important aspects of learning and classroom dynamics.

Both of these videos really made me stop and think about how I will teach my classroom; the types of technology I will use and the types of lessons that I feel will most benefit my students in the long run.  I highly recommend current and future teachers to view both of these videos.

vs.

I never realized the potential of blogging, and its educational benefits until I started taking LAI 590: Technologies in the L2 Classroom.  I have never used a blog before but just using it a couple times I can already see how it can be beneficial for my professional development as an educator and for the learning development for my ESL students. I  learned a lot from the articles I read this past week, "Blogging in Language Learning" by Rita Zeinstejer and "Seven Reasons Teachers Should Blog" by Steve Wheeler.
I cannot wait to use blogging as a means to educate myself on ways to becoming a  more effective and efficient teacher in the L2 classroom.  Now that I am becoming more familiar with the blogging community I see myself  searching for blogs that give advice on teaching ESL and that provide links to different sites and learning tools for my students.  I would love to read and comment on current ESL teacher's blogs and learn from their teaching experiences.  Once I am teaching I think I will definitely use blogs as a way of posting assignments and lesson plans for my students and as a way to allow my students to get to know me and their classmates on a more personal level.  I feel that in order to be comfortable in the ESL classroom, where cultures are so diverse, it is essential to give students the opportunity to get to know each other in other environments outside of the classroom; I feel forming an online blogging community will meet that need.  According to Zeinstejer, blogs can do all these things and more.
Upon reading and learning about blogs this past week I realized that they meet a lot if not all of the NYS Learning Standards for All Subjects including English as a Second Language.  In the specific field of ESL two of the main standards blogs meet are:  Language for information and understanding, in which through blogging students will acquire, interpret, apply and transmit information for content area learning and personal use; and language for social interaction.
NYS learning standards/ESL