KidPix activity

Here is a quick little science activity I did in kidpix. The students must move each picture into the boxes according to whether or not they are a plant or an animal

What light in yonder window breaks?

Here are some pictures I took on a trip to Verona Italy that I thought I would share. Verona was the setting for Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet. On the tour we went to where the locals claim part of the story took place.

Above is the balcony from which "yonder light broke" as Romeo called up to the fair Juliet according to the locals.

Above is a statue of Juliet in the courtyard where Romeo stood as he called up to Juliet. Local custom has it that if you rub the right breast of Juliet you will have good luck. I chose not to participate in the tradition but as you can see from the photo many a visitor has, as indicated by the high polish of Juliet's breast.

Although Romeo and Juliet was fictional. It is embraced by the good citizens of Verona as perhaps a true story. If you get the chance to go to Verona I recommend a visit to this courtyard. There are really good museums and there is history everywhere, including a really well preserved Roman coliseum.

Kidspiration Podcast storyboard

Here's our kidspiration story board. It is still nascent, but the general idea will be to develop a podcast that covers a day at school and exposes students to basic vocabulary such as clothing, food, telling time in English, as well as what a student might expect in various classes and the English usage they might encounter in their classes. It's still in the development stages but essentially it will take a student through a day in school. This ties in particularly well to Rosario's planned webquest about how a school day in Mexico compares to a school day here in the United States.

Quickshare

I chose BrainPop for my quickshare. http://www.brainpop.com/ It has numerous activities for in a variety of content areas such as science, English, social studies, and history. Brainpop does require a subscription for full access, so it is something you may have to talk to your school about for acquiring. Brainpop does have a lot of free stuff teachers can access so it gives you a real good idea about what it contains before you make the decision to buy the program.
I trolled around in the English portion of brainpop and I really liked the variety of activities it provides for English Language Learners, including the good ole five paragraph essay. It provides an animated video that explains the fundamentals of the 5-paragraph essay. I thought this was good because it gives the student a tutorial on how English arranges an essay. this allows the student to become familiar with the discourse style of writing essays in English that may different from their first language discourse organization. As those of us who grew up in American schools the 5-paragraph essay is a fundamental skill that is required throughout the course of an academic career. Anyway, I thought this was pretty cool and I recommend any teacher give it a look to see if it has a place in your computer assisted language learning classroom.

Reading Prompt #8

What is the difference between traditional standardized testing and authentic assessment? Describe how computers can be used for both. Which do you feel is a better use of computers? Describe examples from the readings or from your own experiences how computers can be used effectively for assessment, and/or how to effectively assess the work students do via the computer.

Traditional standardized testing tends to narrow curriculum for low income school districts because so much time is spent teaching to the test. Standardized tests tend to be culturally biased for English language learners and the methods used to hide these kids' test scores tend to marginalize these kids and force them out of the system which is counter to the expressed goal of NCLB. Authentic assessment on the other hand actually measures how much a student has learned and tends to factor out uninstructed factors such as poverty. Additionally, students become involved in the assessment process and take ownership of their learning. Students are realistically engage in authentic learning processes that cannot be measured by a standardized test.
Computers can be used for standardized testing or authentic assessment. Simply put a student can do everything on a computer that a paper and pencil test requires. Unfortunately, using a computer for standardized testing is a massive waste of the power of the computer in the classroom. The computer is much more effeciently used for projects such as the International Students project in Cummins chapter 3 regarding immigrants rights. Corresponding with elected officials and parents in both English and their native tongues is far more authentic than any canned standardized test. The text rich environment of cyberspace and the ability of students to do so much research is a better use of computer time. The ability to save multiple drafts of writing samples for example really allows teachers to provide feedback and allow assessors, teachers, parents and the students monitor their academic growth over time. Realistic projects focusing on real issues contributes so much more to academic language proficiency and it is measurable over time quite easily with technology. Multiple assessment forms allow teachers to teach and students to learn without pigeon holing students into narrow curriculum's required by standardized testing.

Reading Prompt #7

What are some important techniques for designing content instruction that supports both language and content learning? Egbert gives several examples of ways content and language objectives can be combined with technology objectives. Share some of your own experiences or ideas for combining these. In other words, give a specific example of how you could teach a content-area lesson with integrates technology and supports language learning for ELLs.

Content instruction really hasn't been my focus, but I did do a lesson in an adult ESL class about the American custom of Thanksgiving. I asked the students, who were from Mexico, if they had a similar custom in Mexico and what other holidays they had that were similar or different from American holidays. I instantly got a chorus of English from the students about their holidays. All I had to do from there was ask a few questions and make sure everybody had a chance to talk, the students did the rest and I think I learned as much as they did.

I was thinking that this lesson might be even better if I had the students work in pairs on a computer and research the history of Mexican and American holidays on computers and then write a paper comparing and contrasting the holidays and essentially do the same lesson as above incorporating computers into the lesson. In addition to being exposed to rich texts in Spanish and English I think it would be an excellent opportunity to help the students learn some basic computer skills they may find helpful in their everyday lives.

Reading Prompt #6

Describe an inquiry or problem solving activity appropriate for ELLs that you have used, participated in, read about, or just now thought of. Describe which critical thinking skills it requires students to use and develop. Then, describe how this activity supports language and content learning for ELLs. Finally, comment on how podcasting could be used within the inquiry and problem solving process in a manner which supports language and content learning for ELLs.

An inquiry that jumped out at me was the oral history exercises in Cummins Chapter 7. I guess it really appealed to me because I am a history buff and I thought the activity was really cool. Of course, I am presenting that chapter on Tuesday so I won't go into great detail here. I don't want to give it all away. Essentially, the students did interviews of family to discover their own history. The students discovered that internet tools were not one size fits all and they had to be creative in coming up with alternatives to what the net provided them. Additionally, the students had to learn to synthesize multiple sources of information and organize that information. They had to learn how to reframe questions to seek additional information and use language in meaningful and authentic ways. Most important I think is the students learned to make connections and look at what they were learning with a critical eye and consider how history affects them. They did their presentations with iMovies but I think conducting their interviews and publishing them as podcasts would have added another interesting dimension to the project for them.