Many believe that learning occurs incidentally. Children will naturally learn by interacting with the world around them even if educators are not in the picture. Sometimes, that is true but I have found that as a facilitator and guide I can help motivate my students to learn in more challenging ways. Let’s face it, many of our students will be watching TV, playing video games, updating their social networks or texting their friends this holiday. They won’t think about the learning potential of these technologies unless we help guide them. And yes, I feel that is important because if not then many will tend to be couch potatoes and not choose to explore the world around them. Let me suggest some activities that will help you as an educator show your students learning happens anytime, anywhere and can be very fun and active! By the way, these activities are always optional for my students but I find even if they aren’t graded they complete a majority of them.

Slide Presentation

These ideas are outlined in the presentation below but I will explain them a bit more in this post.

Motivating Students to Keep Learning During Breaks

Make the Learning Resemble Video Games

I watched this incredible presentation from Paul Maglione where he outlined things we can learn and adopt from video games. His presentation inspired these thoughts of how we can try to make learning in our classes resemble the learning in video games:

• It’s social- Sometimes you need a little help from your friends and often in video games this will be with several on social forums sharing tips or cheats; many games also have virtual worlds players can be a part of
• It’s a representation of the world teens and kids want to be immersed in because it integrates movement, visuals, multimedia, popular music, graphics and more
• It is goal-oriented- Aim to reach the next level; each level is more challenging, but achievable; and the learner must complete tasks
• It teaches learning is all around- characters must collect items that help with the journey and must search for these all around them
• It is a great analogy of what happens when we learn something new in that the learner discovers a new world each time a new level is achieved
• It focuses on positive stress- yes learning is difficult but most learners are willing to invest several hours to complete tasks they enjoy or reach an outcome they want
• It shows that failure is part of the journey- learners try again till they reach goals and are not punished with grades, they are allowed to try again with no penalty except the time invested
• It focuses on the journey- in a video game, every kid can be a hero as long as they keep trying but in schools we punish kids if they stay too long on any level

Tips for Integrating Games into the Curriculum

Ways to integrate games into the curriculum during the break include:

• Add suggested games by theme and topic to a wiki, blog, or website like I have done in my wiki, English Story Time
• You will notice many of the activities for the kids involve online games and games that can be played in a room or outside.
• You will also notice I encourage parents to play these games with their children. Engage parents by listing free events in the community or directing them to free publications with free coupons. In San Antonio, for example, some of our museums are free every Tuesday and we have the SA Kids publication that lists all the library free craft days.
• For kids, you can find several games at the Kindersite
• For teens to adults, get them to practice problem solving ways to improve the world by playing Evoke

Tips for Getting Your Curriculum to Resemble Game-based Learning

Make it social

• Set up a class blog, wiki, Facebook group, Ning, or Edmodo site. Features include private chatting; creating profiles; uploading files, videos, and more; commenting, polling and embedding

Set-up tasks in an advent calendar

• For each day your students are off they can click the calendar to find a new task worth points.
• Sharon Hartle includes a PowerPoint advent calendar here that you can edit and customize
• Use this template to create a calendar in PowerPoint
• This post by Kelly Tenkely will help you create one through Glogster or Wix
• Mix up the tasks to include various activities like visiting museum, attending a play, snapping a picture outside, or using an online web tool
• Provide a points system where they can cash in later to collect prizes
• Tasks could look something like this:

Mission: Snap a photo of graffiti you think could be art and tell us through an audio recording why you think it is art versus just graffiti.
What You’ll Need: Fotobabble App or visit Fotobabble.com
Points Worth: 10
Bonus Points: Post a short reflection in your blog for 5 more points.

More Ideas

• Set-up a scavenger hunt. Do this easily through the SCVNGR hunt app for Android and iPhone where students win prizes for going places, completing tasks and checking in
• Organize a global project! Chances are another school around the world is not on break and this is a great time to sync a meeting with time zones
• Host weekly meetings through Google Hangouts (only 10 videos), Skype, Second Life virtual field trips, or other platforms
• Let the students organize their own chat topics and times. You can do this by having students set-up a calendar and organize their own chats. They may want to have a chat for those interested in discussing poetry, another for music, another for a book club, and so forth. Determine student leaders in your class to lead and manage the discussion.

Turn YouTube into your interactive classroom, complete with message feeds.

These days, you can find a plethora of movies on YouTube ranging from clips of television shows to your brother-in-law’s home video of snowboarding over a vehicle. While a lot of the videos on YouTube are silly, there are also many that are motivational, promotional or instructional. More and more, teachers are using YouTube in their classrooms to show examples of things they are teaching.

Teachers are also starting to use YouTube as a vehicle to teach from. The types of skills vary from vocational to academic: pruning roses to solving second order linear differential equations. No matter what type of learning you are interested in, some basic standards apply for all eLearning on YouTube.

Qualities of a Good YouTube Educational Video

The main indicator as to whether the course is beneficial is the content of the video. Some things that decrease the value of a video are the visual and audio quality. For example, if someone’s hand is covering the screen while they are writing down information, camera shots are blurry or shaky, teachers mumble or do not speak clearly and background noise all diminish the quality.

The formatting of the class also has a lot to do with whether or not the video will be successful. These relatively small segments allow students to absorb concepts a piece at a time. Similar to traditional classes, an endless array of PowerPoint slides is far less effective than a teacher explaining the information.

Each video has room below it for a message feed. This message feed can connect students with the instructor, and vice versa. These messages allow students and teachers to discuss the content of the video clip, ask questions and clarify concepts.

Benefits of YouTube Learning

The learning process is personal. Even in a traditional classroom setting, students learn at different paces. Some need to hear the material repeatedly while others can hear it once and move on. Classroom instruction on the internet can make allowances for these differences. Students can watch the movies as frequently as they need to master the concept.

Another reason YouTube classes are good is because it is not in real time, meaning that the student does not have to watch the video at a set time. It is available on the internet whenever he or she is ready to view it. If they were real time hours, the student would have to be present, either in front of the screen or in the classroom in order to view it. Plus, the instruction is available wherever you can access the internet.

YouTube classes are also beneficial because they can be more interactive than traditional book learning. Students who need someone to sit with them and work through a problem but are also unable to do this because of distance restrictions can receive a similar effect by watching a video. They can view the step-by-step process of how a task is completed, as many times as they need.
The Downsides to YouTube Instruction

ELearning via YouTube becomes less effective when the message is not effectively conveyed from the instructor to the student. If the student cannot see the necessary visual information or hear what the teacher is saying, the video becomes useless and the student frustrated.

Just as in any other learning format, the student needs to feel the teacher’s respect. Attitudes of superiority are just as visible over a computer screen as in person. Mutual feelings of respect are important for the learning process to be successful.

Similar to all eLearning experiences, technology sometimes cannot make up for the lack of the teacher being in the same location. Even with a visual experience and the option of communicating via message feed, some students may not be able to work through their questions. In such cases, the student may need to be face-to-face with the teacher.

YouTube Classes and Online Schools

While most YouTube instructional videos are not delivered through accredited schools, some accredited schools have begun designing classes that meet in person occasionally but do most of their work via YouTube. In the future, more schools may start using YouTube to conduct classes. NorthOrion.com can help you find classes that you can take online or in a traditional classroom setting so you can get the learning experience that’s right for you.

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Kimberly Bowen is a staff writer for NorthOrion.com. She has written for several publications, including TopTenReviews.com, LDSjobs.org, and the Ensign and Liahona’s “News around the Church.” She received her bachelor’s degree from the University of Utah in Mass Communication, with an emphasis in journalism. She enjoys helping people make well-informed decisions about their education and careers.

Part of the series: Cool Sites by Guest Author, Shankar Ganesh

Make no mistake – there’s an evolution happening in education right now. Schools are increasingly embracing technology to enhance learning in their classrooms. Still though, a few processes, like examinations, for example, are done in the traditional way. It’s time schools get rid of the plain old pen-and-paper way of testing and move to online tests. Here’s why:

1. Time Saver

Since online tests are self-graded, Professors can be relieved of the burden of evaluating test sheets manually. There’s also a good chance that students will complete online tests quicker, once they get accustomed to the process.

This is perfect for public schools and universities – all the time saved can help instructors focus better on preparing lessons and course material. Students get their results in no time – enough motivation for them to get involved in academics.

2. No Logistical Challenges

Believe it or not: conducting paper-based exams is logistically challenging. Test times have to be scheduled and test sheets have to be gathered. There’s plenty of work involved and there are chances things could go awry.

An online testing platform eliminates all that cumbersome work. Scheduling tests can be done at the click of a button. Students can be batched and questions can be replicated in random order for each of those batches with little effort.

3. Multimedia

Schools have embraced multimedia by the way of instructions. It’s time to bring all that interactivity to tests. Multimedia is a great choice for authentically assessing a candidate’s level of understanding. Plain paper is inadequate in that respect and it should be chucked.

An online test can be embedded with relevant multimedia elements to make it more challenging, unique and fun for students. More student engagement, guaranteed. It’s not like assembling projectors in classes. Embedding videos and pictures is a piece of cake.

4. Low Cost

Development and delivery of online exams is much more efficient and cost effective when compared to distribution of paper and pencil-based exams. There’s not much effort involved in reproducing questions for tests if they’re done online. Scoring isn’t expensive as well – it is all automated.

In addition, online tests take away the costs involved in storing the enormous volume of data that is associated with the analysis of student scores and report generation. Online tests are your best bet.

5. Reduced Cheating

Better scores translate to more rewards in the US and according to experts, one to three percent of teachers tamper with students’ test scores every year. No disrespect to educators, but that means a few thousand teachers indulge in “actual cheating” annually (NYTimes story).

On the contrary, evaluation in online tests is completely automated – the computers know nothing about the candidates. There’s no way to skew answers and this is possibly the best way to do away with cheating in exams.

————————————————————-

Shankar Ganesh is a young blogger from India. He’s pursuing his bachelor’s degree in engineering in India, and is currently working to make sure that more teachers and educators get to know about Zoho Challenge, Zoho’s sweet quiz maker application.

Part of the Cool Sites series

Today’s Cool Sites series post comes from guest education writer, Karen Schweitzer.

It has never been easier to create your own elearning resources or get a free education online. There are dozens of sites, content management systems, social learning networks, and open source products dedicated to making education more accessible and presentable to the masses. Here are 20 places that can be used to create or find free courses, tutorials, and lessons online.

LearnCentral – LearnCentral is a social learning network that makes it easy for members to share educational materials. Members can also connect in virtual classrooms and meeting rooms to collaborate and discuss coursework.

Connexions – This Rice University site was created for people who want to share their knowledge. Connexions users can publish learning modules and organize these units into courses, collections, or textbooks that can be freely accessed by anyone with an Internet connection.

Udemy – Udemy is a social learning network that allows anyone to create an online course for free. Site tools can be used publish videos, presentations, articles, and other learning materials. Udemy is also integrated with Twitter, Facebook and other applications so that you can market courses to your audience.

WiZiQ – Designed to help people learn and teach online, WiZiQ allows anyone to create or enroll in a virtual course. Users can also upload or view tutorials and tests. More than 70,000 teachers and 650,000 students have signed up already.

Eduslide – Eduslide visitors can create their own elearning courses and access thousands of pre-created courses and lessons. Courses and lessons can be presented through small learning modules, wikis, chat, blogs, slideshows, and more.

Empressr – This rich media presentation tool can be used to create courses, slideshows, and tutorials. Empressr presentations can include text, photos, videos, and audio and may be shared either publicly or privately.

SlideShare – If you already have course materials saved in Word, PowerPoint, audio, or video form, SlideShare is a good place to upload and present your resources to the public. The site supports all of these files and has a built-in system that allows you to organize them into a streaming presentation.

Vcasmo – This multimedia presentation tool can be used to create training seminars, courses, slide shows, and live events. Vcasmo supports a variety of file formats and uses permission control so that you can decide who sees your courses and who doesn’t.

Vyew – Vyew is a browser-based conference tool that can be used to create virtual classrooms, online meetings, and virtual presentations. The free version of Vyew supports up to ten real-time participants per session.

Moodle – Moodle is a popular open source Course Management System (CMS) used for creating educational websites. Moodle can also be used to conduct fully online courses.

ATutor – ATutor is a free, web-based social learning environment that quickly assembles online courses and other elearning materials. Once created, courses and other ATutor features can be easily accessed by enrolled students.

SugarLabs – SugarLabs is an open source learning platform for children. The platform can be used to create courses, lessons, and classroom activities for elementary and middle school students.

Sclipo – Sclipo is a web learning application that is free for K-12 and university teachers. The application can be used to present courses, live meetings, webinars, and resource libraries.

OER Commons – OER Commons is a network of open source teaching and learning materials that can be freely used or re-used. After registering for an account, site visitors can contribute their own content or search for content that has been created by other people.

OCW Consortium – The OpenCourseWare (OCW) Consortium is a collaboration of more than 200 higher education institutions and organizations that offer free educational materials to people around the world. Site visitors can browse individual OpenCourseWare sites or search for course materials using the OCW Consortium search engine.

MIT OCW – The Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s OpenCourseWare (OCW) project is an online publication of nearly all of the school’s undergraduate- and graduate-level course materials. Site visitors can search for a course that interests them and access all of the course’s available materials. Most courses include lecture notes, reading lists, assignments, and audio or video.

Free-Ed.Net – Free-ed.net collects courses, tutorials, lessons, and other educational materials from around the web and puts them on one easy-to-access page. Courses are free to everyone and cover nearly every topic imaginable.

GCFLearnFree.org – Created by the Goodwill Community Foundation, GCFLearnFree.org is a free online learning source with more than one million members. The site offers short, interactive courses and lessons that cover everything from math and reading to computers and careers.

Small Business Training Network – The U.S. Small Business Administration offers several free online courses through their Small Business Training Network (SBTN). Most of the courses are self-paced and take approximately 30 minutes to complete. Courses cover business planning, finance, accounting, marketing, advertising, management, and more.

Education-Portal.com – This site offers a comprehensive directory of course available for free online. Course categories include business, technology, science, and liberal arts.

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Karen Schweitzer is the About.com Guide to Business School. She also writes for PharmacyTechnicianCertification.com.

Challenge:

Try one of these free courses!

You may want to subscribe for FREE to receive regular updates!

February 2010!

February has been quite a journey as I have traveled and prepared for several upcoming presentations in March. This means you probably have been busy catching up as well and may have missed some of the tips, resources, and tools I have been sharing.

What you might have missed…

Your favorite posts this month based on comments and overall traffic:

• 19 Word Cloud Resources, Tools, & Tips- Perhaps, this was the Wordle scare that drove the traffic to find various uses of word cloud resources in the classroom and Wordle alternatives. This post is part of the Cool Sites series which seems to be a constant favorite.
• ESL/EFL/ELL Carnival- With over 35 entries, this carnival is full of great technology, pedagogy, and teaching advice! Easily subscribe to these posts in one click.
• Reflections on the Alfie Kohn Live Chat- If you missed the Alfie Kohn free live chat, then you may want to check out the video and some of his most memorable quotes, including Alfie Kohn’s passionate speech to President Obama.
• My Favorites-
  • At a Loss for Word-le?- In this post, I reflect on why we miss certain technologies like Wordle and Twitter. I asked you what technologies would you miss?
  • Education Panel at the 140 Conference in Barcelona- Don’t miss Graham Stanley’s and Nicky Hockley’s views on the digital native. You have to see their Twitter memorabilia as well!
• Favorite What Did They Tweet Series- In this post, our PLN shared with us the TED video- Play is More Than Fun, the high school student video- What Technology Means to me, Clay Burell’s Keynote speech, the 50 Best Blogs for Education Leaders, what happens when you do away with tests, and several contests to receive free technology in the classroom.
• My Favorite Web 2.0 Tools This Month-
  • Tagul-In this post, you find some amazing tricks and 15 resources to use in conjunction with Tagul to make any vocabulary lesson an engaging interactive search.
  • Vimeo- How can you resist the hi-definition animation videos along with descriptions of how they were made? You also can make videos up to an hour long. This is how I made the Alfie Kohn video. Click here to find my favorite animation videos.
  • Wikis- Get your ad free wikipage by visiting wikispaces for educators and Pbworks for educators. Here are my current wikis for your use:
    • Children’s English classes- Search by theme for book ideas and games for children ages 4 to 10 years-old.
    • Adult English classes- Several topics, tasks, and resources for lower-intermediate to upper-intermediate classes.
    • Skype connection between Oklahoma and Germany- We explore the Gold Rush, Trail of Tears, and Manifest Destiny.
• Guest Posts/ Interviews-
  • Spare the Cane and Spoil the Child- Sudam Panigrahi writes about corporal punishment in India and in response to a recent beating that killed a student.
  • What Do You Do With A Sleeping Student?- Tom King reminds us students often have personal issues that cause their behaviors.
  • Twittering Couples Part I- Listen to my interview with Jo Hart and Phil Hart who discuss the unique ways that educators use Twitter.
  • If you would like to contribute to this blog, please visit this post for more information.
• Where else you can find me:
  • Voki- Read my tips for using this free talking avatar service to help your students engage with your blogs and wikis. This was a guest piece I did on Richard M. Byrne’s Free Technology For Teachers blog.
  • I write the weekly summaries for Parentella’s #PTChat, the parent and educator discussion, which occurs every Wednesday at 9pm EST and 9pm PST.
  • Learn about Firefox add-ons and extensions by viewing the video of my free Edublogs webinar.
  • Visit my upcoming guest post, Children of Immigrants, on Ken Wilson’s blog.
• Where I’ll be this month and next, let’s tweet-up!
  • TESOL Greece Conference- I will be visiting Athens, Greece from March 11th-15th. My presentation will be on PLNs.
  • ISTEK International ELT Conference in Turkey- I will be visiting Istanbul, Turkey from March 26th- April 2nd. If you are in Europe you can ask me how to get cheap flights. I’ll be presenting on PLNs, digital storytelling, and cultural communication.
  • IATEFL Harrogate- I will be visiting Harrogate, UK from April 4th -12th. I will be presenting with Ozge Karaoglu on using digital technologies with young learners.

Thank you so much for your support of my free 30 Goals Challenge E-book. Over 1200 of you have read it and I am truly grateful! Download your free copy here.

What was your favorite post? Leave a comment below!

You may want to subscribe for FREE to receive regular updates!

January’s final edition of the What Did They Tweet weekly series!

Let’s see what our Personal Learning Network (PLN) tweeted in education and social media this week.

TED Video: When Kids Believe They Can

@Flourishingkids shared this TED video, Kiran Bir Sethi Teaches Kids to Take Charge. See the inspiring stories of kids taking charge.

Free ESL E-book

@MBenevides posted the free Creative Commons English language textbook, Fiction in Action: Whodunnit. Adam Gray and Marcos Benevides co-authored this textbook, which will be available in print in the spring. Click here to download your copy to use in the classroom!

Presentation: 7 Tips to Getting Strangers to Connect to You

From @elearningPosts, I found this fantastic slideshare, The Shy Connector! This slideshare has some great points on how to connect on social media even if you are an introvert. The presentation is well designed and interesting.

Video: Power of Creativity

@Nlakusta shared this video, The Transformative Power of Personal Projects, which shows this creative ad campaign written by Ji Lee. There are a few PG-13 words so be warned. It is still a funny and very thought-provoking presentation.

Opportunities for Educators

Two opportunities arose on Twitter this week to win some cool technology for the classroom or earn some cash. Below is a list:

• Nominate your school district site for recognition and donations. Tweeted by @Allofek12.
• Win a $4,000 Lecture Capture/Presentation System for Your School just by leaving a comment on a website. Tweeted by @Simplek12.

Add the people in this post to your PLN by using this mass Twitter tool. Just copy and paste this list!

Flourishingkids, MBenevides, elearningPosts, nlakusta, allek12, simplek12, larryferlazzo, kalinagoenglish

If you enjoy this series, you may want to subscribe for FREE to receive regular updates!

For more tweets, check out these posts:

• Monthly Best Tweets by Larry Ferlazzo.
• Monthly Tweets by Karenne Sylvester, Kalinagoenglish.

Challenge:

Share one of these resources with another educator not on Twitter. Then tell them you got the tip from educators on Twitter!

What was your best find on Twitter this week?

December 1st edition!

My guilty pleasure is…. Twitter… as you can tell by this weekly series, What Did They Tweet?

Kid’s Digital Stories

@JohnMikulski’s students have created beautiful digital stories using Storybird. Storybird is one of my favorite applications that you can read about here! John describes the project which has students write a short story in which the protagonist discovers something he/she would have been better off not knowing. Please read the stories and leave these students comments on their stories. Below was one of many of my favorites!

The Tower on Storybird

Using Scenarios in Your E-learning

This brilliant Slideshare presentation provides a wonderful reflection of how we design our instruction. Although the focus is on e-learning, this really relates to the instructional design of all courses. Cathy Moore challenges us to reflect on our instructional methods to answer the question, “Are we teaching our students to solve problems?” This presentation was tweeted by @EthanKuniyoshi.

View more documents from Cathy Moore.

Project Peace for Students

@ddeubel has created an international global project for students everywhere! If you are looking for an easy project to connect your students with other schools worldwide, then you may want to check out the details here. Join the ning, choose 1 of 8 songs about peace, download the song cards, have students decorate them, then make a video! Here’s an example of one of the video projects.

Find more videos like this on PROJECT PEACE

Virtual Worlds Best Practices in Education Conference

One extremely valuable part of Second Life is the various free conferences you get to attend. @barbsaka, an amazing educator who has attended several Second Life conferences, tweeted about the Virtual Worlds Best Practices in Education Conference taking place on March 12-13, 2010. Last year, over 3800 educators attended the event. Below is an example of what you can expect. If you feel comfortable with your Second Life skills, the conference is looking for volunteers, paper submissions, and presentation proposals. If you are new to Second Life, please join the SLife is Life ning where you will find educators like @barbsaka and me willing to show you around.

Dec. 4th Students Save the Rainforest!

This Friday, December 4th, at 12:25pm GMT, your students and you have the opportunity to ask Javier Dril Bustamente, a native of the rainforest, questions about saving the rainforest via twitcam. DM @chickensaltash to participate in the project. This will be a wonderful opportunity to get students involved in a project that helps them reflect about their responsibility to protect the planet.

Add the people in this post to your PLN by using this mass Twitter tool. Just copy and paste this list!

ddeubel, JohnMikulski, ethankuniyoshi, barbsaka, chickensaltash, larryferlazzo, kalinagoenglish

If you enjoy this series, you may want to subscribe for FREE to receive regular updates!

If you enjoyed this post, you may also want to check out these posts with a more extensive list of favorite tweets:

• Monthly Best Tweets by Larry Ferlazzo.
• Monthly Tweets by Karenne Sylvester, Kalinagoenglish.

Challenges:

Leave a comment for the children’s stories or have your students leave a comment! Join many of the other collaborative projects in this post! Attend the free Virtual Worlds Conference in March!

What do you think of these tweets? Leave a comment below!

Globalization is our current reality. Most successful companies have established themselves internationally. Foreign policy is becoming as much of a concern as domestic policy. The environment, global warming, and lack of resources are international problems requiring international brainstorming and problem-solving.

Problems

Social media, such as Twitter, makes us more globally aware. However, are we preparing our students to effectively problem solve, collaborate, and communicate with their peers abroad? My experience has shown me that several students still live in a microcosm where they carry misconceptions and assumptions about people living in other countries. The problem is that when these students enter their career fields they will have to collaborate with others from various cultures and backgrounds. When this communication takes place our students will carry those assumptions and misconceptions into the conversation either verbally or non-verbally and create barriers to effective problem-solving of global issues.

I have worked on over 20 different global teams for over 20 various international projects within the last two years. A majority of these experiences were frustrating and argument often ensued or projects suffered due to the lack of skills members had in working on global teams. These are a few problems I saw:

• Unwillingness to be flexible
• Cultural insensitivity
• Cultural misunderstanding
• Lack of communication of deadlines, project details, roles, duties, etc.
• Time zone differences
• Unwillingness to compromise
• Mutual misunderstanding of cultural customs in negotiation and communication (nonverbal and verbal)
• Mishandling of conflict
• Inexperience in communicating with English language learners- remember that most English speakers in the world are not from the United states, but from China and India. Therefore, English speakers will have accents or may have learned British English. Students need experience in communicating with non-native English speakers.

Experience

Many people have told me I am great at organizing global projects. My extensive experience and research in this field is what has helped me plan projects quickly and effectively. When the process is done effectively then the outcomes are magnificent. I believe collaboration is key to all successful projects. Yes, I may have a fantastic idea, but unless I get help from you then the project may not reach its potential greatness.

In the same respect, students need to learn various skills so when the time comes they will be able to collaborate effectively! The easiest way for students to learn this is through involvement in global projects offered by the classroom.

How to Prepare Kids for Global Collaboration

1. Integrate cultural projects- Have students research poetry from around the world or investigate their own roots.
2. Create Culturally Responsive Curriculums- This type of curriculum celebrates and responds to various cultural issues through student-centered instruction.
   • For example, have English language learners give presentations about their culture
   • Have students collaborate on solving global issues such as poverty, unequal access to education, war, and racism
   • The teacher acts as a facilitator
3. Use literature from various authors and genders- For my high school ESL class, we used the Brief Bedford Reader which featured stories from various authors, such as Maya Angelou, Sherman Alexie, Amy Tan, and Gore Vidal. How diverse are your students’ reading lists?
4. Host cultural festivals- I created an International Society with another teacher in the school with over 70 students involved. We had over 100 members of the community attend our International Thanksgiving supper which featured over 30 ethnic dishes.
   • Have students research their backgrounds or other cultures and make food and give presentations. You can even receive donations from local grocery stores.
5. Connect with a school in another country- Go the extra step and have students problem-solve issues! Some useful collaboration tools and links to help you with this process:
   • Skype- Sue Waters lists several schools to connect with through Skype in this post!
   • Wetoku- See Ana Maria Menezes’ interview with Ozge about her children’s global projects.
   • Glogster- Have your students join this global Glogster project by Arjana Blazic
   • VoiceThread- Read my post on my connection with my kindergarten class to kindergarten classes in Turkey and New Zealand using VoiceThread.
   • We Are Teachers- Read this article on how I connected with Candace Townsley using We Are Teachers and Skype.
   • The Harris Burdick Online Collaborative Writing Project- Watch this video to see how schools connected using Skype and Google Docs!
   • Blogging- Read Rawya Shatila’s class blog in Lebanon, which shows how they connect with several classes around the world!
   • Chickensaltash writes about a fantastic collaborative project in which students from various countries write about the heroes in that country! Read the post here which details the planning process.
6. Go on virtual field trips- Create your own virtual tours on Google Earth. Use already established tours on Google Earth, Webquests, TeenGrid and so forth to learn about places around the world.
7. Get your students connected through social media such as Twitter!

Challenge:

Use one of these ideas to teach your students to collaborate on global teams!

You may want to subscribe to receive regular updates, leave a quick comment of how one of these tools helped you, tweet this, or share this series with your Personal Learning Network (PLN) through your RSS reader or Delicious account.

What do I do when my lesson is out of tune? The Beatles said it best, “I get by with a little help from friends.” Several of this week’s cool websites came from my Personal Learning Network (PLN)‘s blogs that I subscribe to in my RSS reader! I love my PLN who continually shows me new tools to breathe some energy into some of my lesson plans! What I love about finding tools in a blog post is that educators have the tendency to show the reader how to integrate the tool into the curriculum. I love reading the ideas and seeing the examples! I hope you will find some new blogs to follow with this post. If you missed the previous weeks of this series, just click here.

Scrapblog

Janet Bianchini revealed this wonderful tool for students to create visual scrapbooks or digital stories. Students will have all sorts of fun through embedding videos, integrating music, and choosing various transitions! Check out the Scrapblog example below, Imagine by Little_M. The example shows a type of lesson for English language learners!

LiveBinders

Pilar (aka Dreamer) revealed this website which allows students or teachers to create 3D binders. The binders are similar to 3-ring binders with tabs. Under each tab the teacher or student includes several links and resources. Check out this Web 2.0 tools binder by Lesley with an extensive list of resources!

DomoNation

Kelly Tenkely has one of the best educational technology blogs! She has even created her own song. I love her blog, because she shares various tools and explains how to integrate each effectively into the curriculum. This week she shares the DomoNation website. Domo is a funny character from Japan who my niece adores. In this website, students create their own stories with animations. They choose the backdrops, characters, props, music, special effects, movements, and create the dialogue! Read Kelly Tenkely‘s blog for more information.

Ziipa Links

I found some great links via Ziipa that I had to share.

Two great vocabulary sites that would help students improve their vocabulary are Weboword and WordAhead. Students remember the definition of difficult words by looking at cartoons that illustrate the meaning of the word through Weboword.  Students can watch videos at WordAhead to discover the meaning of a word. Some of the cartoons and videos can help English language learners, but several of the words are very difficult.

With FunFacer, students can create animations, videos, photos, and games! They just upload a picture and have fun. Unfortunately, not every scene is student friendly so you may want to use this tool with precaution.

Clipgenerator has the potential of being one of my favorite video tools. This service is similar to Animoto where you can create a fantastic video for free. First, choose from a variety of popular music. Then upload images and video. Add some text and complete! The set-up is easy, but the uploading of the video took some time then failed. This tool is still in beta so there are several bugs. I noticed that I could not upload pictures and instead typed in the image url from my Flickr account. Also, some songs would not allow me to upload any images. Right now this tool would not be stable enough to be used with students but when the bugs are fixed, students will love it!

Challenge:

Subscribe to the blogs mentioned in this post to receive fantastic tips on how to integrate various educational technologies into your curriculum!

You may want to subscribe to receive regular updates, leave a quick comment of how one of these tools helped you, tweet this, or share this series with your Personal Learning Network (PLN) through your RSS reader or Delicious account.

Educational System in Argentina

1. Initial education: from 45 days to 5 years old, being this last year compulsory
2. Primary education: from 6 years old to 12 years old (obligatory)
3. Secondary education: up to 18 years old. It is obligatory and includes two cycles:
   • Basic cycle
   • Knowledge-oriented cycle: different areas of knowledge
4. Superior education

The problem is complex and it is necessary to develop strategies that:

Edtech

My PLN list one

My PLN list two

Making a Difference

Thanks to Twitter and to the valuable members of my PLN, I have become acquainted with several tools that have proved useful for learning and teaching English. This year I have created wiki spaces for my classes where I upload tasks to develop the strategies my students need: listening, speaking, reading and writing in a way that is encouraging and highly motivating. In these wiki spaces, my students have folders where they can upload the tasks they do for me to check and they can write messages to me when they have doubts. They were vital during the month we had to interrupt classes in Winter as a consequence of the spread of H1N1 virus (swine flu). During that month, I was able to send tasks for my students and not have to stop the learning process.

Parents have expressed their gratitude to me for having created these sites and are very enthusiastic about their children’s possibilities to go on doing extra practice at home through a means that is more motivating for them. The language school administration has supported me at all times on this development and has congratulated me at all times for this contribution.
I also work as a one-to-one tutor at home and I have also built a wiki space I share with my private students for them to continue practicing at home. This is my website. If you want to visit it, please ask me and I’ll gladly include you among the users.

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Marisa Pavan holds degrees in translation, interpretation and teaching from Instituto Superior Nº 28 “Olga Cossettini”, Rosario and has two decades of experience in teaching English as a Second Language. She has over 6 years experience working as a freelance English-Spanish/ Spanish-English translator. She is  skilled in languages, translation, interpretation, training students to develop listening, speaking, writing and reading strategies, CAT tools and communication. You can also find Marisa on Twitter, @mtranslator.