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!

“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.

A Useful Social Networking Group

Joining http://community.eflclassroom.com/ seems useful to me because I will soon be certified in ESOL and there seems to be a lot of information in this site.  There are a lot of the teaching tools available on this site, one that we have already discussed in our previous Mod's.was voice thread. My favorite parts are the teach and learn tabs. I can find lessons, games, flashcards, etc. to help me teach!

Connect-ivism. What is it?

I learned about Connectivism from reading one article called "Connectivism: A Learning Theory for the Digital Age" and watching one video "The Network is the Learning."

A learner is like.. its own network field. In the fact that "the network is the learning". "That network enables me to stay current in my own field." One must continuously be keeping up with current information and be able to "cast light" on the rest of that network. It's like blogging. People find out new information and want to share it with the rest of their network, and that's also where the people are learning from too! By sharing and receiving new information you are learning new content all the time, without even realizing it some of the time. "We derive our competence from forming connections." 

"Our ability to learn what we need for tomorrow is more important than we know today." This fascinates me. Years ago, who would've known we would be learning this way. Connectivism IS the up and coming way of learning. Think about it. Students no longer need a teacher, they have the internet. Now I'm over exaggerating, but a lot of information kids want to know about they can find out on their own. This is why we, as teachers, need to become familiar with things such as networking. "The starting point of connectivism is the individual." Students need to be able to connect with their own knowledge.

Creating a DIIGO account V.S Scoop.it account

Scoop.it and DIIGO are both useful sites. They differ in a few ways, and the purpose of each site are similar in my eyes, yet different. On the Scoop.it site you can highlight text in saved articles and also use multiple tags. You will not appear in comments on this site by copying and pasting from the original article. You can follow other's using Scoop.it, and they can follow you, but you can not comment on their site. You are offered an overwhelming amount of suggestions for related articles as well. I like Scoop.it because it is a good way to keep track of articles you find useful. I also like the set up of the website and enjoy curating new topics of my own. I would continue to use this site for the education field.

On the DIIGO site you can also highlight text in saved articles and use multiple tags. I am unsure when you would appear in comments from an articles site. I do not think others can comment on my site. You can follow others, and others can follow you! You are not given any suggestions for related articles, but in a way this is nice because this site is more for bookmarking sites you find of interest, not others. I would possibly continue using this site instead of bookmarking. You can categorize things very easily, and I like tagging. Both sites a neat in different ways!

Good Educational Blogs

I have come across many useful educational blogs. A lot of bloggers blogged about types of learning and how important technology is becoming in the educational field and in the classroom. The first blog I liked was "Connected teaching" by Ann Michaelsen. She blogged about needing to partipate as an educator online, using skype, twitter, and blogging. All of the above can also be very beneficial in the classroom. There is Twitter with literacy, and blogging can improves students typing skills and ways of communications and finding common interests in the classroom. Another blog I found is Novemeber Learning. Which explains why every leader should be a Network Learner. A Network Learner is someone whos learns from connections of others. The final blog I really enjoyed reading was "Learning Virtually, Learning Together" by Susan Carter Morgan. The author explains how a virtual institute should be instilled into many school districts. And teaching about online learning as well.