Week 7

One computer classroom was the main topic this week. Well, my day to day activity! :) 

Since next week we'll be on final exams, I decided to make a contest-final review with a Jeopardy Power Point game. I divided my group in teams. To motivate them even further, the winning team would get extra credit for their final exam.

This activity worked really well for my girl's classroom, but normally my girls work really well anyway. But with the boys´ classroom is where it really made a difference. They are soooooo competitive! So they were all into it, motivated and willing not only to win the extra credit, but to win over the other teams! We all had fun with this activity, and most importantly, they reviewed the topics for their final exam in an assertive way.

I have been thinking what else I would do for next year, when apparently we'll finally have internet in our classrooms. And it came to my mind, how could would it be to have Skype sessions with "invited guests" from across the world, according to the topic of the lesson. This came to me when reading other teachers' posts about Skype sessions with other classrooms across the world. But my first thought about it was, would they be able to hear each other well? Would it be too noisy? Would the microphone be good enough for so many kids? Etc, etc, etc.... So, then I thought, maybe having one guest would be a good start!  My students have always loved the British accent. Since I have British friends, I could arrange an interview for my students. I would ask my students to write a question for this person, so we have a certain order and I could review and monitor what kind of question there would be. Then, many ideas came to me, for example, different accents like Canadians, Australians, and even non English speakers's English accents! But also for my History classes, interviewing a Jew when seeing the Holocaust, or a USA army for the war topics, etc, so they review about the topic but they also do aural & oral skills.

This is all so exciting for me, I must write it all before I forget the ideas for next year! :)

Oh, and another important aspect, was the fact we'll now be working with a partner. Svetlana, it would be brilliant to be working with you! I looked in our wiki map for your country. I was amazed of how big Kasakhstan! I would love to learn a lot from you and your country as well!

Good luck to everyone on your project drafts!! :)