Awesomeness in your presentations!

   It is true that Power Point is something like the father of presentations. As the time changes the presentation tools are changing and that is awesome! There are different resources and tools you can use to vary and turn more interesting your presentations.

   Now I am going to give you one more to take in consideration…

   Would you like to turn some slides into an awesome video? Just click the link

www.powtoon.com

   Here you can create your presentations starting with simple slides, adding prompts, music, animation and amazing transitions.

   Use it in classes with your students to motivate them to create and take advantage of the tools available for us now!

StoryJumper

   

  In another opportunity I mentioned a website to illustrate your stories and incentive the creativity. This time, I am going to tell you about a similar one.

www.storyjumper.com

   

Click the link!

   This website allows you create your story, apply the format you want and also upload your own images. Think about it! There are a lot of ideas you can implement with this tool.

Ask your students to create a memories book where they can share their experiences, their photos, vacations…

Telling what they did last vacations could be a good idea to help them with the past tense.

If the topic is related to food, ask them to create or show a recipe using images to explain the process, step by step.

As teachers we need to be innovative. Try this tool! They are going to love it!

Create your surveys!

 

There is a tool that you can use to create or design your surveys and it is not that complicated as you can think. For us, sometimes, it is frustrating just the idea of designing a survey, but more than create it… analyze it! Defining results and percentages could be hard. This is because maybe we are not math experts.

    Well, that is my case…

    If that is also your case… let’s check google drive. This is a new tool, easy to use and all what you need is your gmail account. This app collects the answers and analyses them to give you the results, the percentages and it itself shows you the graphics of those results.

Try it! You are going to like it!

Music in classes?

 -Yes, music!   

  Well, you can think that making students listen to music during classes could be distracting, but this tool can change your mind…

www.lyricstraining.com

   I present this tool because I am sure that it is going to help your students to practice vocabulary and sometimes it could be useful to practice pronunciation. It has different levels to monitor their improvement.

  Innovate the way you impart your lessons! They are going to notice and enjoy it!                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                              

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                   

Your own collaborative video!

www.voicethread.com

  This webpage is a good tool to create videos and presentations. It is an interesting way to share ideas and interact with people. As the page itself explains, voicethreading is becoming more popular. There you can create slides, upload your own images, recordings and videos to make it more interesting. And people who watch your presentation can leave their comments written or recorded.

  Teachers need ideas to make their students share ideas and it is a good way. It could be an interesting project to make a presentation and ask them to comment other’s to enrich them. This could be evaluated as a forum for your students.

Just take the risk and help them to enjoy their projects! 

Teach pronunciation with fun!

   Have you noticed how hard it is to learn the symbols and pronunciation in English? Sometimes it could be bored for kids or difficult for people in general. But it is always important to learn the correct sound and pronunciation to get a good communication in this language. You, as a teacher, have the great responsibility to make the class more interesting and engage your students to make them enjoy the process.

Here I have this webpage that surely is going to help you with the task

cambridgeenglishonline.com/Phonetics_Focus/

Click the link! You are going to find the ideas you need for your classroom and homework.

Omar Dengo Foundation

  Today’s world is about technology and it is especially important in educational area. And because its importance there is a foundation that has assumed the responsibility to expand its knowledge to those public schools that normally have no access to technology because of their needs or lacks. Public schools do not have enough resources to provide an education as advanced as private schools do. This foundation has provided much of the technological resources and training the public schools need. And they keep extending that help to rural areas… even indigenous areas; giving them the equipment and internet to access and connect to the globe.

  In a short visit we did to the foundation they told us about their work, the areas they have covered and experiences they have had. It is just awesome seeing their great work. They told us that they have covered more than a half of the public schools in the country and the number is increasing. They do not just provide computers… they also train the administrative personal, teachers and groups of students to make them able to develop their abilities through technology.

  And the most interesting part is that you can visit the foundation, receive some training or courses they have and learn how to use technology not only in the classroom but in life projects.   

Illustrate your stories

  Maybe you are not a writer, but this tool is going to inspire you to write your own story. Just go check storybird.com and go with the flow!
Storybird.com is an interesting website which helps us to design and illustrate stories that can be for children or people in general. It could be used for illustrate stories that you already wrote, but the site presents a set of images related to different possible topics you want to write about and you can select them according to the sequence of your story. That is why the same images can serve as inspiration to write for people that maybe do not enjoy writing. As teachers we NEED to find the way to catch our student’s attention and make them interested in what we are trying to teach them.
I am going to give you a couple of ideas to use this website in class and as homework.
In class
Create your own illustrated story and show it to the children. Then ask them to read it and comment the story but also the illustration it has. It will be different and at the same time interesting for them to read a book written by their teacher. It would be an incentive to start reading.
Homework
Show them how to use the tool and ask them to use their creativity and create their own stories at home and then, present it to the rest of the class.

Let's check zunal.com

WebQuest

  It is important for us, as teachers to have some tools that make our classes more interesting and funnier for learners. One can think that those “tools” could be difficult to implement in classroom, but the truth is that if you take advantage of what is out there for us in the technological world, we will certainly change the way we teach.
 
There is an interesting one that helps us to get ideas and design our lessons in an attractive way for students. It allows us to start creating a lesson and even setting the evaluation right there. It gives you all the steps you must follow to make an appealing lesson that you can use later on the classroom or assign it to your students to do as a project.
I have created one lesson as an example. And this is the link for you to check it

http://zunal.com/webquest.php?w=258388

This WebQuest is a lesson focused on pronunciation. This is a lesson to teach two sounds of the North American English for a beginner level and especially design for children. I hope you like it and you can use it wherever you want with your students.

New Trends in Language Education

1. What should be the new trends in education?

As the time changes, educational trends must change. Instead of traditional ways of teaching or outdated methods of learning, the system education should seek innovative ways to teach and reach the interest of learners. Education should take advantage of technology as much as possible. “No longer on grammar, memorization and learning from rote, but rather using language and cultural knowledge as a means to communicate and connect to others around the globe.”( Eaton, S.E., 2010)

2. What is out in language teaching? 

Vague, hollow promises that can't be proven.

Saying that learning languages is easy.

Authoritative teacher attitudes.

Complaining about cutbacks and lack of funding.

Language labs.

3. What are the benefits of using technology in the classroom?

Learners are part of the technological era. Using technology in the classroom is the way we can catch their attention and engage them in the learning process. They do not learn in the traditional way. They are connected to the world and enjoy sharing, so they need that to learn and educational system must adopt this “trend”.

4. Beyond the digital skills what other essential skills do 21st century learners need? 

 “A comprehensive essential skill set is needed for employment.” ( Eaton, S.E., 2010) It is important for learners to develop interpersonal skills such as:

thinking skills

the ability to work well with others

leadership