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I have just learned about Glogster thanks to a tweet by @jenverschoor (thanks a lot Jen!). With this application you can create an online poster. You can mix graphics, photos, videos, music and text into slick Glogs.

The great thing is that now there is an edu-glosgter page. You are allowed to create up to 200 students accounts for free. If you are wondering why bothering to use Glogster, in their webpage they provide you with some reasons:

1. A fun, imaginative, and powerful learning experience which fosters independent creative self expression, positive learner-teacher relationships, and teamwork on collaborative class projects.
2. A vibrant, multi-sensory learning experience which integrates learner’s knowledge and skills into traditionally text-oriented subjects and motivates learner’s desire to explore topics in which they may previously have been less interested.

I think it is worth giving it a try. If you do, please share with us your experience. Maybe, we can also share ideas on how we can use it in our classes. Looking forward to your comments.

In his post Dogme and Identity, Luke Meddings, one of the writers of the co-authored Delta Development Blog, points to the present excess of standardized course materials, content and technology we are exposed to in ELT. The 2007 article The Autumn of the Multitaskers in the Atlantic, while not specifically dealing with English teaching, also illustrates well the cognitive overload and haste we have to deal with presently and warns us against their dumbing down effects.

In both situations there is little room for slow conversations and the emergent language which arises from the learners’ own interests and shapes their evolving identity in the foreign language.

At Dekita, we have brought up the need for peer-centered learning and questioned the forced standardized content from the strict curriculum and the cookie-cutter model of the standard pre-packaged coursebook topics.

How can we guide our students to acquire what they need so they can express their thoughts, share them with others, and negotiate meaning in self-directed ways? How do we move from dependence towards greater independence and inter-dependence? How do we adopt a more process-oriented approach and interact in a more open and decentralized fashion which allows for self-directed participation, informal communication, inter-cultural and inter-linguistic development?

Is it possible to make time within your class to slow the pace and allow for different meaningful processing experiences, during which understanding and language are negotiated and appropriated individually or are our courses becoming devoid of meaning and as as queer as a clockwork orange?

This second half of the year we will start working with Collaborative Projects. Take a look at IEARN a non-profit organization that fosters the use of new technologies in the classroom.

What is a Learning Circle?
It is team of 6-8 teachers and their classes joined in the virtual space of an electronic classroom. The groups remains together over a 3-4 month period working on projects drawn from the curriculum of each of the classrooms organized around a selected theme. At the end of the term the group collects and publishes its work. Then, just as any class of students does, the Learning Circle comes to an end. Each session begins with new groupings of classes into Learning.

My class has been assigned to  Places and Perspectives Learning Circle. We will be working with students from:

Komi Republic, Russia
Constanta, Romania
Mississaga, Ontario, Canada
Brooklyn, New York, United States
Xalapa, Veracruz, Mexico
Novosibirsk, Russia
Ljubljana, Slovenia

We will start this collaborative project in September and will finish it in December. You can take a look at the Glogster created by my students to share our community with the rest of the schools.

Don´t miss Blog Action Day on October 15.

Blog Action Day is an annual event that unites the world’s bloggers in posting about the same issue on the same day on their own blogs with the aim of sparking discussion around an issue of global importance. Blog Action Day 2009 will be the largest-ever social change event on the web. One day. One issue. Thousands of voices. For more information take a look at http://www.blogactionday.org/

Tagged: blog action day

About a month ago, I submitted my answers to the questions posed by Tedx São Paulo in order to watch the first event,  which  expects to gather more than 600 people.  We have been asked to answer a number of questions in order to be selected to participate.  I have just received confirmation and here are my answers in Portuguese. I suppose I was inspired over my first cup of coffee in the morning. The underlying theme will be “what Brazil has to offer to the world”, following the lead of the 2010 TED “what the world needs to know”.

Na sua opinião, o que o Brasil tem a oferecer ao mundo agora? *

O Brasil tem que mostrar sua cara, sua natureza e sua raça “que não tem medo de fumaça, e não se entrega não”. Tem a oferecer ao mundo um mundo de negócios, ciência e tecnologia, arte e literatura, beleza, talentos suculentos, tonalidades, musicalidades e paixão. Tem a oferecer o exemplo de um povo sofrido que da realidade fria na periferia, da alegria e do drama de todo o dia, dos progressos e regressos do samba da vida produz um carnaval; e no vendaval, no caminho longo e árduo da lida valida na esperança, a confiança de um futuro melhor.

E você, o que tem a oferecer ao mundo agora? *

Minhas real-idades: multi-culturalidade, criatividade, sinceridade e humildade

O que você espera ganhar ao participar do TEDx SP? *

Perspectivas de diversos contextos, realidades e texturas, encontros para compartilhar uma visão e possível ação para um mundo melhor.

O que você tem a contribuir com a comunidade TEDx SP? *

Com o que ela precisar e eu puder oferecer

Se outra pessoa fosse descrever suas maiores conquistas em até 3 sentenças, o que ela falaria? *

Ao longo desses anos, uma família sólida apesar das diferenças e uma rede heterogênea e querida de amigos, um trabalho perseverante e criativo e a alegria de simplesmente viver.

O que nós precisamos saber sobre você, que nós não perguntamos? *

Me convidem e descubram.

TED  started by bringing together leaders from  the Technology, Entertainment and Design but now invites people from all walks of life to contribute. TEDx is an initiative to stimulate encounters and conversations locally, following the motto: Ideas Worth Spreading.

La conferenza internazionale avrà luogo lunedì 9 novembre presso il Museo Nazionale della Scienza e della Tecnologia “Leonardo da Vinci” a Milano.

Le tematiche principali di Women&Technologies® 2009 saranno legate al tema della trasversalità delle discipline, le nuove competenze e professionalità necessarie a sostenere la “generazione 2015”, la trasformazione dei modelli educativi, organizzatici, economici.  

L’evento mira a valorizzare le eccellenze al femminile nella ricerca, nello sviluppo tecnologico e nell’innovazione sottolineando la necessità di:

“[…]  integrare il contributo di una pluralità di discipline, secondo quello che si definisce un approccio olistico: non solo logica e matematica, anche psicologia, scienze sociali e cognitive, pedagogia, antropologia, letteratura. La vera innovazione nasce da qui, dalla capacità di includere punti di vista diversi per far emergere nuove domande e nuove soluzioni”.

Nell’ambito della conferenza sarà assegnato il premio “Le Tecnovisionarie®” 2009, il riconoscimento dedicato a donne capaci di “inventare il futuro” creando tecnologie, a donne che con il proprio lavoro hanno testimoniato di saper coniugare creatività, innovazione e qualità della vita.

La partecipazione alla conferenza è gratuita; la registrazione online è obbligatoria.

Per ulteriori informazioni: www.womentech.info

I have been talking with @emapey about the differences between these two social networks and he has suggested me writing a post about this.  I am not very sure wether this is going to be useful for somebody or not, as they are just some ideas about how I use facebook and Twitter. I’m not going to give any recipes. This is just my humble opinion, but since he is usually right on his pieces of  advice and since it’s been a long time since I last wrote in my blog, I have decided to give it a try. I’m sure you are all familiar with facebook but if you don’t know what twitter is about you may want to have a look at this post: The English Language Teacher’s Guide To Twitter. I take the opportunity to strongly recommend you Karen’s blog. It’s great and full of thorough information.

Well, let’s go to the point:  differences between Facebook and Twitter…mmm

1) In Twitter I have professional contacts, people who I have known through the net in general. In Facebook I have my friends. The ones I know face to face. The people with whom I interact socially.

2) For that reason, in facebook I share my pics and things related to my personal life. I post funny links, pages and videos related to art, literature and things in connection with my personal likes. On the other hand, in Twitter I post things related to my profession and to the net itself.

3) In facebook I tend to write long messages and directed to a person in particular ( i.e. I leave messages in people’s walls). In Twitter I write short, impersonal and public messages.

Well, that’s all for today falks. Hope somebody finds this useful. What about you? What do you think about these two social networks? How do you use them?

The annual EXPOLINGUA Berlin, 22nd International Fair for Languages and Cultures will take place November 20 – 22, 2009 at Russisches Haus der Wissenschaft und Kultur,  Friedrichstrasse 176 – 179,10117 Berlin, Germany.

Parallel to the exhibition, EXPOLINGUA offers visitors a rich and varied series of lectures, workshops and mini-language courses. Visitors can choose from 100 presentations covering topics such as: Mini-language courses, Studying and learning languages abroad, Work experience abroad, Language tests, CALL – Computer Assisted Language Learning, Translation and Interpreting.

Over the three days of the exhibition, approximately 100 presentations in the field of languages and cultures will be given by national and international experts. The speakers focus on new aspects of language learning and demonstrate innovations as well as the latest technologies.

EXPOLINGUA Berlin is organised by ICWE GmbH.

Last week I enrolled in  the following course Connectivism & Connective Knowledge.

The course can be very overwhelming as there are so many different tools you have to be acquainted with. First you have to understand that this course is whatever you want it to be. My first glance at the syllabus make me remember the EVO session we gave with Vance Stevens last summer on Multiliteracies.

Participants can use: Diigo, Delicious, Twitter, blogs, wikis, Ning,RSS, moodle and different aggregators plus all the different  weekly readings. I love technology therefore none of these tools are unfamiliar but I truly understand the feeling of a teacher that just starts to integrate technology…it can be really disappointing and discouraging. But I have good news for all of you. If I was able to implement technology and learn about all these tools you can also do it!!! This is why connections are so important and sharing is the main ingredient for your Personal Learning Environment. Once you start connecting you don´t feel alone anymore. How do you start these connections? Just by contributing to each others work and in this course we will using our blogs as our main platform.

I was wondering that there are many teachers who don´t have the possibility to follow this course because they don´t know English. Therefore I started a wiki to share with other native Spanish speakers. Thank you Eduardo for your great contribution!!

We welcome you to join us

Please take a look at the following video to understand what is a Networked “Connected teacher”.

Do you feel identified with this video? Would you like to become this kind of teacher?

On behalf of Carolina Rossini,  I’d like to invite you all to the Open Education and Open Educational Resources: Challenges and Perspectives Conference to take place on October 29th/30th  at the Law school (Direito GV) in São Paulo.

Carolina, who is sponsored by the Open Society Institute, has written a Green Paper as part of the Brazilian Project on Open Educational Resources, which she will present at the opening of the conference. Once it is published,  I will link  it here. I hope there is a wifi connection and that the conference will be streamed / tweeted for those who will not be able to attend f2f and want to make comments or questions. You can always use the comment area below for pre-conference questions you want to field.

Invitation OER

Last month I was hired by a school to start creating a new online communication  channel between the parents and the school.

Together with the kindergarten Head and one of the owners we started brainstorming how could Parents communication be improved by using technology.

We reached the conclusion that having individual blogs for kindergarten would generate a space where parents and their children can learn and have fun at the same time.

This new communication channel will start this week in our St.Matthew´s College  blog and a Youcube with all the videos.

Personally I have many questions.

-Do parents need clear instructions on how to use a blog?

-Will they be able to navigate by themselves?

-Will this type of learning interfere with the traditional classroom?

Last week I was teaching English to my digital native daughter. It took me 1 hour to teach her the animals. She had obviously seen it in class but she had to reinforce some concepts. It was a nightmare…I was tired after a long working day…

The following day homeword was a real pleasure because I thought of motivating her to learn animals in a different way. I uploaded content in her blog and she kept asking for more activities at 1o:30 pm.

What is happening in the traditional classroom? We are not engaging students with new tools and many times this is due to lack of resources and knowledge.

Is it good to show her a different way of learning and how will this impact in her traditional classroom approach?

Sometimes as a mother I think that I should follow the school pedagogical approach….other times I know there is something much better for my children.

Dear friends,

We are delighted to inform you that from November 5-8, 2009, we will be running the Social Networking 2009 Conference. This open-knowledge event will be completely online and free and it is aimed at elluminating ELT practitioners to grow in the use of social networks as learning development tools.

This event is being jointly organized by AVEALMEC and ARCALL, two Latin-American associations, one based in Venezuela and the other in Argentina, interested in promoting the use of ICT in the language classroom.

For this event, we invited conference speakers from different parts of the world:

George Siemens -Canada

Etienne Wenger -US

Vance Stevens -UAE

Nik Peachey -UK

Charalambos Vrasidas and Maria Solomou -Cyprus

Nicky Hockly -Spain

Erika Cruvinel and Ronaldo Lima –Brazil

Rita Zeinstejer and Paula Ledesma -Argentina

Nellie Müller Deustch –Israel

Carla Arena –Brazil

Graham Stanley –Spain

Jennifer Verschoor, Evelyn Izquierdo and Erika Cruvinel –Argentina, Venezuela, Brazil

During four days, our guest speakers will be sharing their experiences and expertise with participants and will help us grasp a better picture of how social networks can be used in the language teaching and learning field. We will be discussing about the concepts and theories around social networks, communities of practice and the Web 2.0, as well as about the use, advantages and drawbacks of social networking tools.

Join us and participate in this amazing learning experience!

http://avealmec.org.ve/

Spread the word! Let´s get socially connected!

E-greetings from,

The Social Networking 2009 Team

En Argentina mañana 11 de Septiembre se celebra el día del maestro y no quería dejar pasar esta oportunidad para saludar a todos los grandes docentes que me he encontrado en la vida cotidiana y en este maravilloso mundo que es la web 2.0. No puedo hacerles un regalo muy suntuoso, ya que como sabrán soy docente en esta Argentina siglo xxi… para que entrar en detalles… Bueno, asi que simplemente voy a retransmitir un pensamiento que me regaló hoy la directora del cole y aqui va…

Ser maestro es como ser un artesano cultivador de cactus:

Él trabaja con plantas que parecen fuertes, duras. Soporta los pinchazos de sus espinas a pesar de que se acerca con hacendosas manos para ayudarlos a crecer. Les arrima todo el sol del que es capaz y les ayuda a soportar las peores sequías… Todo eso, porque sabe que su interior es tierno, lleno de vivificante agua. Y porque sabe que un día, casi inesperadamente, les regalarán su inmensamente bella flor.

Les recuerdo y me repito a mi también… No nos olvidemos cuando nos desesperamos, cuando nos preguntamos ¿por qué no estoy enfrente de una computadora trabajando de 8 a 17?, cuando sentimos que no sirve lo que estamos haciendo, cuando queremos tirar todo por la borda porque la clase no salio como planeabamos, cuando no llegamos a fin de mes, etc y mil etcs que tarde o temprano nuestros cactus desplegarán su flor y nadie me puede negar que ese momento es totalmente mágico, inigualable, inexplicable y nos hace sentir que vale la pena seguir estando al frente de un aula. Es en esos momentos donde pensamos que ésta es una de las profesiones que mas gratificaciones le debe traer al ser humano y volvemos a elegir el ser docentes.

Learning as deliverables by Janet Clarey on August 26, 2009

Interesting ideas that get you thinking

…

Are you a teacher of Italian as a second/foreign language?

Are you interested in sharing your materials with peers?

Now you have the opportunity to join a social network designed and administered by University for Foreigners of Perugia (Italy) in which you can register and upload didactical resources tagged basing on linguistic level, subject, and grammatical/communicative function.

Do you need to register to access your peers materials? No, but registering you can actively take part to the community and enrich the repository of the network in the spirit of a shared knowledge and collaboration.

Take a look and leave your comment here if you feel like, ciao!

Il corso Teaching and Learning with MUVEs è la seconda edizione del corso organizzato nell’anno accademico 2008-2009 presso l’Università degli Studi di Macerata nell’ambito del progetto europeo “Muvenation”.
Il corso, che si svolgerà interamente in lingua italiana, mira ad esplorare le opportunità didattiche offerte da Second Life, il Multi-User Virtual Environment che attualmente conta il maggior numero di residenti e una grande varietà di iniziative in ambito educativo nel panorama internazionale.
Il corso è rivolto ad educatori, insegnanti e ricercatori e a tutti coloro che desiderano intraprendere l’attività di insegnamento esplorando nuovi strumenti e strategie didattiche.
Il percorso di apprendimento si svolgerà utilizzando diversi ambienti tra cui Second Life e alcuni strumenti del web 2.0.

Presentazione

Bando

Locandina

Each year America celebrates Constitution Day on September 17. Since 2006, federal legislation mandates that all educational institutions receiving federal funds must hold an educational program on the Constitution commemorating the day.

Remix America (http://remixamerica.org) has partnered with Constitutional Rights Foundation (http://crf-usa.org) to bring you the Constitution Day Challenge--a creative way for elementary, middle and high school students to learn about and celebrate our Constit…

 Well my Twitter followings and followers and I ( @vale24) have shared and bookmarked lots of really interesting links recently so here’s a recap in case the speed of one-four-o chit chat has whizzed by you too fast. Catch up on our shared knowledge:

 EFL Pro-active Twitterers have blogged great tips and suggestions

http://twitter.com/burcuakyol

Burcu Akyol Top ELT Pepople to Follow on Twitter tks @burcuakyol for the mentions

 

http://twitter.com/kalinagoenglish

Karenne Sylvester English Language Teacher’s Guide tks @kalinagoenglish for tech tip #11

We’ve explored new  Twitter tools

• Want to share some audio file you recorded? Try http://tweetmic.com/  
• Want to add Pics? Tired of http://twitpic.com/ see how http://twitgoo.com/ compares
• Need to explain something. How about creating a screencasts for Twitter http://screenr.com/
• Interested in statistics http://twittruth.com/  (found out “I’m an engager” because more than half of their tweets sent are a response or mention another user)
• Hashtag searches http://hashtags.org/  or #hastag submissions and definitions http://tagal.us/
• Twittionary http://www.twittonary.com/
• Need a question answered https://tweetbrain.com/questions/all
• Looking for someone, use the yellow pages http://www.twellow.com/

We have discussed Twitter types and annoying habits

• 15 most annoying types of twitter users by JD Rucker
• Which Twitter Type are You (thanks @maishawalker )

We’ve read up on suggested behaviour

• Twe-etiquette and guidelines

We’ve discovered old and new theories

• The Hierarchy of Tweets
• How might Gladwell / Tipping Point theories apply to Twitter users?

We’ve Analysed the demographics of Twitterers reported in leading papers

• NY Times article: Who’s Driving Twitter’s Popularity? Not Teens
• Guardian article: The net’s closing in: Ofcom report reveals boom-bust cycle of new media

We’ve browsed top this and top that lists

• 100 Amazingly Insightful People
• 100 Serious Twitter Tips for Academics

 We’ve seen the benefits and dangers of letting businesses invade our every second

• Tweet Deals Restaurants

 …so there really is very  little left more me to add!!  

 

http://twitter.com/

 Well OK then, what  more can I say really except  this is certainly NOT “a communal senior moment” (see http://twitter.com/thornburyscott/status/3551432598 “Is Twitter just a communal senior moment? Chit-chat in the old folks’ home?? )

I suppose, one thing that intrigues me is our range of personal reactions to the 140-characters we receive, so apart from the obvious “must hit reply” or “must RT” reactions, here are my 9 personal reactions for a week in @vale24 tweets

Sample 1 from Sue Lyon-Jones @esolcourses

The opposite of Twitter: new site requires 1,400-character minimum http://su.pr/1UmGnu

gave rise to the “WOW! Who would have thought of that?” reaction

 

Sample 2 from Steven W. Anderson @web20classroom

Educational Blogs, organized by discipline… http://is.gd/2ycZs (maintained by @mcleod)

led to the “Click Fav” reaction (no time to read now but must see)

 

Sample 3 from Shelly S Terrell  @ShellTerrell

Homework as outsourcing via @kirstenwinkler http://bit.ly/AeQMS

produced the “create a column for that #edchat hashtag” reaction

 

Sample 5 from Jeremy Harmer @Harmerj

What are the odds for bumping into Paul Seligson and family by chance at trafalgar square. 2day’s evidence? 100%

provoked the “100%”  reaction

 

Sample 6 from Gavin Dudeney @dudeneyge

Blue Mars – first ten minutes… can´t turn around and walk back to where I came from. Click to walk? Really? You think that’s good???

sparked the “Are we living on the same planet?” reaction (obviously not!)

 

Sample 7 from Ojane Grant  @intro_tj reply to BBC Click survey

@BBCClick #techsaving my tech dont save me money. but it sure save me frm going insain lol Yeh right?ght about thisets

confirmed the “Tell me about it!” reaction

 

Sample 8 from BBC News @the_magazine

Is it ever advisable to grow a Hitler-style moustache?  http://ping.fm/Xdhk3

brought on the “Next question, please?” reaction

 

Sample 9  from Neil Ballantyne @farang_utang

Interesting talk by @mikewalsh Gravestones in Jpn contain scannable image which plays to a life movie of the deceased on the visitors mobile”

 

Neil Ballantyne @farang_utang

gave birth to the “Well I never! Whatever Next?” reaction

 

Sample 10 from Karenne Sylvester @kalinagoenglish

hmmm… I should favourite tweets of my own that I want to find again.  Note to self.

released that “Note to self” reaction

 So you thought sample 4 was missing hey??!  Nope! Sample 4, 11 and 34 ARE missing ?? What are your REACTIONS? How do you react to the 140-characters? Reply here or @vale24 to share your most common or one of those extra-ordinary reactions. Add to this “off-the-of-my head” list,  if you feel like it!

Or perhaps @zappos summed it all up already – tweets make you happy? Do they make you grateful, more open, even less frustrated by life’s experiences? Would you agree they make you so much more observant about little things?  Or perhaps with Tweetdeck on, you’ve turned your head away from the little things that surround you? Which piece of lego are you looking at?  Sure, tweets can be daft and mindless but most weeks thanks to great followers, like the ones I have, the tweets and inter-actions I’m treated to are thoughtful and very inspiring.

Thank you Twitter & Twitterers for all the great emotions!