Saturday, May 5, 2012

Week 4

     Well this week, we learned about how to improve our students’ reading and writing through the use of technology, how to create a technology enhanced lesson plan, and we also discussed some issues we face in our classes.
     Speaking about reading and writing improvements, I found some really cool sites, like European Schoolnet , web address: http://www.eun.org.  This is a place where you can find key pals for your students. I really think my students would be extremely motivated to write to someone on the other side of the world. I can take advantage of this and teach them different letter formats, address certain issues, make them use the correct tense, focus on certain vocabulary seen previously in class, etc., etc., etc. Now the thing will be, to find them an appropriate group for them, which I am not sure how easy would that be. I think I will start this project next school year, but the planning will be done soon!
     Then came the task of creating a lesson plan enhanced by technology. It sounded easy, but it actually took me some time, as I wanted to use an Ipad application for this purpose. I found a really cool application:  “Spelling Notebook Free.” You can add as many vocabulary lists you are seeing in class, you can practice their  spelling as you see and hear the word and finally take a test in which you hear the word and you must spell it correctly. They give you feedback on how you did so you can practice the ones you had mistakes on, as well as send the result on email. This part of emailing results is great, as I’ll have an easy grade already checked for my grade book!  This lesson will actually be used this week. I bet my students will be so excited about using the new Ipads, and so will I! I’ll let you know how that goes!
     Finally…. the issues! Well, we were asked to focus on one or two. Hard to choose, but I guess the “keeping a 6th grade all boys class on task” is more than a challenge. So I’ll stick to that one, and if it can be solved, my life would be much easier! What I really need is something extra for them to do when they finished their job before others, or something that would keep them interested and motivated enough through the whole class so they won’t start getting distracted and distract the others. Don’t get me wrong, they are good boys, they just simply have to release their energy out too often! J  


2 comments:

  1. Jessica.
    I wonder it is hard to work with little boys as you do, I have not so young but almost the same type of students, (1st grade secondary school) and I found that the music is very useful at those last five minutes of the period when they just want to kill somebody (including me) they love to sing (included me) sometimes I get the videos from youtube with subtitles in English, and they love it, and please let me know when you figure how to deal with your problem, believe me is a general condition, by the way the ipads in your class must be a valuable and useful tool in the class, I hope you tell us more of the theme in posterior posts. Thanks a lot , have a nice day

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  2. Hi Jessica!
    A looong post you have here!
    Like you, i liked the idea of key pals. At least, it will motivate my students to write and, at the same time, not feel intimidated and stressed since (as I will explain to them) their penpals are on the same side and face the same difficulties. I guess that you have figured out how to use an iPad in teaching (I remember your question about we can use them!). For Greek schools it's really hard to be equipped with them but, at leat, we are starting being equipped with interactive whiteboards and that's a good start!

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