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.