Digital Posters in the ESL classroom

Using digital posters when teaching esl has many benefits:

-Give confidence: as students create them they feel motivated and proud of their productions. They feel confident enough to talk about them.

-Encourage communication: posters are a way of showing what they learnt. They want to communicate what they wrote.

-Foster students´ autonomy and creativity: they are free to make their own decisions about the information they´re going to include. They have a leading role and aren´t restricted to their teacher´s choices.


-Adapt to different learning styles: they are involved in their own learning. They interact with their classmates and benefit from cooperative and collaborative work. The enviornment estimulates them because it isn´t  just a written text.

-Minimize grammar mistakes: language is specific. Complex structures aren´t used.

Amazing presentations using Powtoon

Always create opportunities to show students all they learn. We as teachers should allow them to be their own authors and develop their confidence and creativity. There are many applications to create videos, digital posters, ebooks and much more. Today, I`m going to show you an example using the online application PowToon .

Tutorial:

Students creating;

Presentation:

Classroom rules around Technology

Technology enhances learning and motivate students. However, teachers should set certain rules to avoid its bad use. As Michael Bujela says there should be orientation on interpersonal intelligence to educate students about classroom rules regarding technology use and misuse. They need to know and reflect about their use from the beginning so as to avoid unfortunate situations. Its use should be productive. Rules are crucial to focus on the objectives. They should be discussed and written. Then they should be placed in a visible place as a warning. ICT is used to support and help them to achieve specific objectives not just to have fun and do what we can do at home. 

These are the basic rules teachers should set:

-Do not turn on computers when teachers are giving instructions
-Do not touch other students´ computers.
-Do not modify computers.
-Do not use mobiles except if you are asked for an activity. 
-Do not enter online games or social networks. 
-Respect all equipment. 
-Use the programs and applications you are asked.
-No open food or drink are permitted
-Make silence.

Where to search for free common images, video, text or music

If you are looking for free resources to use in your classes you should go to  https://creativecommons.org/ . You will see a section that says Find CC material where enter what you are searching for and will be redirected to Creative Commons search. You can specify the use and there are many searching engines according to categories:
Media:Europeana, SpinXpress and Wikimedia Commons. Images:Flickr,Google Images, Open Clip Art Library,Pixabay.
Music: Jamendo, ccMixer.

Buncee webinar

Buncee for schools

What is Buncee?

My Buncee presentation

This is presentation created with Buncee for the Earth Day.

Word Clouds with Tagul

Using word clouds is very useful in education. You can use them for brainstorming or brainstorming so as to activate prior knowledge in a motivating way or identity key concepts or words. As the website saysTagul is an online word cloud generator that enables you to create amazing and unique word cloud art with ease. Professional quality results can be achieved in no time at all, even for users with no prior knowledge of graphic design. When I tried this word cloud generator I was surprised because of the unlimitied possibilities. What I consider more attractive is that you can give shapes to clouds and use them to convey message. This is a tutorial of Tagul by Cindy Kendall:
             
                    

Deliver unforgettable lessons

The key to succeed in teaching is to innovate, make students feel to free to create and surprise themselves with results. As I always say what it is predictable is boring and consequently short term learning. Every lesson should be special. Teachers are magic fairies who have the power to motivate students. They can make their lessons memorable. Time may pass by but students won´t forget them. Today, I´m going to write about one of my magic lessons whose aim was to reinforce vocabulary using word clouds.

Level:Starter.

Year:5

Context: It is a public school in Capitan Bermudez. Students are ten years old. They are just starting to learn ESL. Most of them don´t have any extrinsic motivation and find hard to concentrate.

Aim: Reinforce vocabulary  related to days, months and numbers (1-20)

   

Resources: Cards, netbooks.

Lesson:

Warm up: 

I show students cards with vocabulary: days of the week, months of the year and numbers (1-20). Then, I asked them about their favourite ones.

Writing:

1.Students are grouped in teams.

2.The teacher gives a netbook to each team. Then she gives the instructions:

A.Turn it on.

B.Enter Wordle.

C.Click on create.

D.Write the vocabulary. Use your notes.

E.Radomize. Change fonts, layouts and colours.

F:Save.

Conclusion: Students were really surprised when saw the word clouds they created. They wanted to learn more vocabulary to create and discover new possibilities.

Some clouds made by students

Tutorial for Wordle

Tutorial de Wordle from Maria Josè Giavedoni