Easy as A B C: November 2010

Reflecting on Web 2.0...has me thinking about so many things...tools I have explored and learnt about....new ways of teaching my students...exciting new Web 2.0 tools I want to use with my students...and that ...

In my first year of teaching I had...

a black and white tv
shared a cassette player with the other infants classes
a piano
a blackboard and chalk
posters/flashcards handmade by me
'jelly pad' if you don't know...don't even ask!

In my 31st year of teaching I have...

an interactive whiteboard
a whiteboard
mp3 and mp4 players
a flip camera
digital camera
computers
cd player
internet access to an endless supply of educational sites
colour tv
dvd player
portable hard drive
etc....

The changes have been unbelievable!!

I found the video on iLearn model particularly exciting as it covered all the aspects of learning that I find most appealing.

ANYTHING

ANYWHERE

ANYTIME.

My school uses Blooms to differentiate teaching programs. As the ESL teacher I have used our school's Scope and Sequence for Thinking Skills to follow what each class focuses on and have built my program around this.

I believe in challenging my students as they are more than capable of higher order thinking...it's just the language they need to build on.

Bloom's Digital Taxonomy was a great insight in to how I could program as an ESL teacher with the emphasis on Language Aquisition...

REMEMBERING:

Googling, searching, highlighting and bookmarking relevant information when given assignments, research etc

UNDERSTANDING:

Blog journaling - it would be wonderful to have an ESL blog for my students to use for writing, reading etc

APPLYING:

Uploading, sharing, editing using Flickr and a blog

ANALYSING:

Comparing, organising, deconstructing, finding, structuring, linking, mind-mapping for any number of KLA's

EVALUATING:

Posting comments to the ESL blog and discussion boards.

CREATING:

Podcasting what a great tool for the students to be able to use so as to critique themselves and publishing via the blog.

I am sure there are many other ways in which I could include these but this was all my poor brain could think of at the moment.

Overall I have found the Web 2.0 course to be wonderful...it has challenged me....been exciting to learn new things...made my mind expand to try to find ways to use these great tools with my students...in fact it has been quite addictive and I know I will miss it...however my hope is to perfect and use what I have learnt.

Some of my colleagues blogs that I have commented on and enjoyed following are:

Easy as A B C

Tuesday, November 23, 2010

Reflection