How to educate with a Podcast

I listened to  an English as a Second Language Podcast episode 990-- Being Socially Popular. This episode really caught my attention and I had no idea what this Podcast would actually be like, but it was just like the title says, explaining being socially popular to a second language learner. Obviously this Podcast would be for High School ELL's, and it seems a little strange to be teaching students about popularity, but the conversation between two students is extremely authentic and truthful. The conversation is about a girl waiting for an invitation to the biggest  birthday party of the year. She wants to be invited because this girl is the most popular girl in school. Her friend Grant explains how silly it is that people need to be friends with someone that bad. He also states someone needs to put this Miss. Popular in her place. So, besides teaching ELL's about what being popular is, it also as a good storyline in the end. I would use this Podcast to explain popularity in an authentic way to my students and could even have them act out the scenario because it is posted on the site as well. Students would become familiar with the term of "popular" and hopefully realize how silly this is. Being popular is unimportant. What is so nice about the Podcast is that the speaker, Dr. Jeff McQuilin explains every single sentence used in this scenario between 2 friends. So, the students are learning numerous vocabulary words/phrases, which is essential when learning English and good for the students when understanding social skills. We would be able to discuss each phrase in the scenario and students could ask questions for clarification, or even listen to the Podcast for homework and we could discuss this scenario the next day. This Podcast was very interesting and useful for High School ESL learners.

Get Connected!

If you are a teacher  and searching for a great place for your students to globally get connected I've found just the place! It is called ePals. EPals can open your students eyes to a whole new world. Experience new cultures without leaving the classroom, students can create project with students around the world, and collaborate. As a teacher you can set up an ePal group for your class by simply signing up for an account. After you've signed up there are a million options to choose from. It is important to choose the language your students will be speaking or writing, what grade or ages they are,  what kind of project you are looking for, and choose a region you are interested in connecting with. For example, if you are an EFL teacher you may look for somewhere in France or Spain because students there will speak French or Spanish. Some projects you can choose from include: penpals, skype/video chat, or project workspace. EPals also has a feature where you can pick the subject area or choose from the Common Core standards which includes: Art/Music, Language-learning, Science, Reading, Writing, Social Studies, Math, Culture,Literature, Informational Text, Writing, Math, Speaking and Listening, and Language. The learning choices are ENDLESS. A class project  I came across that caught my attention was a Discussion Circle Project with writing. Students can choose to work alone or collaborating with partners in the classroom and around the world. Students have the option to work and learn new things from their ePals from another region, who could possibly have new learning strategies or ideas the students could learn from. Another simple, but great idea is to connect to another region and become penpals with these students to learn more about their culture, community, region, what games they like to play, what music they listen to, etc. This is a good way for students to focus on writing, learning more about someone else's culture, and work on their communication skills. When students are a part of an online collaborative learning community, powerful learning takes place. Having the correct digital tools, like wikis, blogs, forums, email and media galleries, all in one place make for a rich learning environment ready for collaborative and interactive project work...

As a future ESL teacher I would be willing to try out many of the tools offered on ePals. It is important when choosing a project for your students to keep in mind their learning level. You don't want to pick an activity that would be intimidating for your students. Therefore, I would hypothetically say I have "newcomer" students. Therefore, a project I would be willing to try out with my students would probably first be penpals. I would like my students to practice with the English language and find penpals that are also practicing English as a second language. Then, the students are on the same level. While writing their penpals I wouldn't give the students too many guidelines. They could write as they wish, with my assistance, and get to know their "pal."After the students got good with penpaling we could move to video chatting or skyping because it would feel more real for the students and they can socialize a little while practicing English. Both penpaling and skyping are very authentic ways for learning.  I also like the project workshops. It seems amazing for students around the world to collaborate on the same assignment, but this kind of activity would seem more appropriate after connecting with your ePals first. I highly suggest teachers find more ways to make their content AUTHENTIC and ePals is one of them!

Try and Use Comics in Your Classroom

Today I experimented with a free comic strip website called http://stripgenerator.com/. Although I found the characters to pick from quite odd, which comic strip characters usually are, it was a simple set up. Creating the thinking/speaking clouds were easy, inserting whichever character you'd like, and coming up with some kind of silly story, as I did. Check out Miss.B's ESL class created using stripgenerator.

Using stripgenerator or any other comic tool online can be a very fun way to engage your learners. You, as the teacher, have the freedom to have the student create any kind of comic strip. This could include using science, math, social studies, or English content areas. Student's also have the freedom of creativity, with the exception of a few guidelines from the teacher. Using comic strip tools can be one way to help teachers incorporate technology in their students lives. The easiest way to use comic strips for content purposes would be to first pick a content area. We'll say science. Use a topic you have covered recently in class, and have students create a comic strip using new vocabulary words, but adding their own twist to a storyline. For example, the weather. Students could make a comic strip involving a weather man, being a student waiting for the bus, etc. Throughout their comic strips students should have at least one vocabulary word per section.The options could be endless. The main thing to focus on is making sure an objective is being reached by incorporating this fun activity.

Animoto- A Tool Used For Digital Storytelling

I tried a free trial of Animoto, which is a digital storytelling tool, and I found it  extremely easy to use. These kind of simplistic tools catch my interest for the sake of my learners as well as myself. Technology can easily get frustrating and time consuming if you don't know what your doing.

I created a story about my lovable cat, whom I had to put down almost a year ago, and my sisters dog. I created this story to test the waters with Animoto and see if it could be of interest to use in my future classes. It turns out, it is! Animoto has easy upload features, songs and backgrounds you can choose from. Here's my sample I created using Animoto. Check it out!-->My Unconditional Love

Digital storytelling can be a very useful tool to use with you students. Students could create a story about ANYTHING they wish! Unless of course, you decide to limit the topics or choose a specific content area. A specific content area that digital storytelling would work very well with would be English. You could have students create a storyline first, or sentences, and then have them find pictures to upload that go along with their sentences, or story. This way your placing the emphasis on the writing, instead of just pictures. Another way to use digital storytelling in the classroom could be to incorporate social studies using digital storytelling. You could possibly focus on the history of one specific time/event of history, or even on specific person. Students would then be more motivated to learn about a specific topic in history by having to put together their own story about it. Since my focus as an educator is ESL, I would most likely give students the freedom to make their own story once, to get a sense of who they are or learn a little bit about each of my students. Then, I would do a second story that is more language and content specific. Students could possibly create their own narrative to work on their writing and language skills. By leaving the students a choice in what to create, they usually are more willing to put in a better effort, it they are interested in the topic.

“It's like everyone tells a story about themselves inside their own head. Always. All the time. That story makes you what you are. We build ourselves out of that story.” ― Patrick Rothfuss, The Name of the Wind

I read "Educational uses of Digital StoryTelling." “Today the use of digital storytelling is being practiced in neighborhood community centers, schools, libraries and businesses, by novice technology users to those with advanced skills. In the field of education, teachers and their students, from early childhood classrooms through graduate school, are using digital storytelling in many different content areas and across a wide range of grade levels." Digital storytelling makes it possible for anyone to become a creative storyteller. First, you must come up with a topic, conduct research depending on the topic chosen, write a script, and finally develop an interesting story. Your story can be combined with different types of multimedia including images, audio, computer-generated text, video clips, and music. I also read an article called "7 things you should know about Digital Storytelling."
“Digital stories can be instructional, persuasive, historical, or reflective .Some learning theorists believe that as a pedagogical technique, storytelling can be effectively applied to nearly any subject.” This is quite interesting and also seems true. If you think about the content areas, it would exciting to have student try a cross-curricular story incorporating two of their favorite subject areas.

Emphasing on “writing a script” shifts the students away from trying to find images to illustrate their story. Students are usually allowed to choose their own topic which is extremely important and can  increase students interest and motivation in created such a story. Digital storytelling is nice because it can work with any grade level, so teachers can give as much support or as little support as needed. Using digital storytelling in an ESOL class can help give students confidence in their writing, as well as share their work with others. I would use digital storytelling with my students to help encourage them to be creative with writing and enjoy writing. Writing can be fun for almost anyone as long as you enjoy the topic. “Even with personal stories, we encourage students to try to integrate instructional elements tied to content so that the final version of the story has at least some connection to education.” This is obviously integral in using digital storytelling in your classroom. There always needs to be some educational tie to the students work. A good educational tie with digital storytelling, if your students are new to the language, would be having students develop their language through their writing and other students writing. "After the initial versions of the scripts are written, students should participate in small group “story circles” in which they share their ideas for their stories, read draft versions of their scripts and provide  constructive criticism and suggestions that can be used to improve the scripts and the overall plan for the final stories.” It is also essential that students understand the “writing process” at any age which includes: Pre-writing, drafting, revising, editing, and publishing.