DIGITAL ENGLISH NETWORK: 2011

Saturday 23 July 2011

USING BLOGS TO ENGAGE ENGLISH LANGUAGE LEARNERS

This year I had a 36-member, fourth/fifth-grade combination class. Twenty three students came from households where English was the second language, or wasn’t spoken at all. Most of their parents had a high school education or less, spoke little or no English, worked long hours, and were able to provide limited academic support.

In a classroom like this, we have many challenges. Using blogs as an in-class activity helped my students and me overcome many of these challenges by improving student engagement. It also gave them some valuable technical skills and lessons in digital citizenship ...

If you would like to continue reading please click on the following link
http://www.edutopia.org/blog/ell-digital-divide-jon-schwartz

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LETTER TO THE BLOGFESOR

Hello friends and colleagues of the blogosphere,

Thank you for visiting my blog and using the resources I have included here. When I decided to make this blog I had hard-working teachers in mind, educators rushing from one place to another with limited time to do research on the web and make intelligent choices about their teaching.

Bearing this in mind I tried to include information and links that might be useful and resourceful to you in your daily search for trying out new ideas with regard to the digital world.

Remember that although we have plenty of fantastic resources on line, these should always be just a starting point to develop and tailor lessons for our students.

We must depart from the premise that all students can learn (a) second language(s) and in this sense, we are in the best position to help them find their own ways because we know about their weaknessess, strengths, likes, dislikes, worries and learning difficulties.

Finally, I would like to say that We teachers are real heroes because we are touching lives, we are preparing younger generations to make our unique world a brighter and safer place to live in.

Best,

Prof. Gabriela Zazpe
gzazpe@gmail.com
Find me on Twitter and Google +

Suggestions and comments are welcome.

TECHNOLOGY IN THE CLASSROOM

ICT in the classroom

Information Technology is revolutionising schools, both in teaching and learning and as a time-saving tool for school administrative tasks. These include the storage of pupil records to facilitate information transfer when children move schools, saving data, creating letters or emails to pupils' parents efficiently, and much more besides.
More and more children have computers at home. Schools can set the standard for safe, informative IT use, as well as making the most of innovative and interactive resources to make learning more creative and effective. Let´s start sharing what we are doing to the world, remember that together we can!!!

LANGUAGES MATTER

“The first instrument of a people’s genius is its language,” said the French writer Stendhal. Literacy, learning, social integration….Everything transits through language, which embodies national, cultural and sometimes religious identity for each person. It constitutes one of the fundamental dimensions of a human being. Yet specialists estimate that within only a few generations, more than half of the 7,000 languages spoken in the world face extinction, because they are not represented in government, education and the media. For this reason, the United Nations had declared 2008 the International Year of Languages, to be launched by UNESCO on 21 February, International Mother Language Day.

QUOTES TO PONDER

Come to the edge. We might fall. Come to the edge.It's too high! COME TO THE EDGE! And they came and he pushed and they flew... Christopher Logue

I have come to believe that a great teacher is a great artist and that they are as few as there are any other great artists.

Teaching might even be the greatest of the arts since the medium is the human mind and spirit. John Steinbeck

We must view young people not as empty bottles to be filled, but as candles to be lit. Robert H. Shaffer

Be a wonderful role model because you will be the window through which many children will see their future. Thomas Mckinnon

Tell me and I will forget,Show me and I will learn,Involve me and I will understand. Teton Lakota (Indian saying)

When you cease to make a contribution you begin to die. Eleanor Roosevelt

The leaders who work most effectively, it seems to me, never say "I", they think" we" - they think " team" Peter Drucker