Word Clouds

Word it out is an online tool where you can make graphical representations of word frequency.

You can choose the colours and fonts, and creatively design a word cloud. They can help students when studying certain topic and revise important vocabulary.

I designed a word cloud with all the significant personal traits for teachers such as careful, wise and patient.

I could implement the use of word clouds in my classes as warm-up activities. For instance, with one of my institute groups,  I am working with animals under the sea, so after playing with the puzzle, we can make a word cloud all together for vocabulary revision and enjoyment.

Collage & Banner

For making collages and banners, I have used Canva. It is an exciting website that makes design simple for everyone. You can create designs for webs, blogs, banners, collages, posters or invitations. It is easy to use and also, it is incredible as users can create what they want in a fast way.

When I first explored the site I was amazed with such a thing. I wanted to design something that calls the attention, but at the same time, that makes readers feel happy about it.

With creativity, I design like a welcome collage to a city called “Happiness” and in it, I show pictures of its inhabitants giving some pieces of advice when visiting the town.

I can use it for students as a warm up for then, let them describe the town as they wish, using descriptive vocabulary, feelings and their opinion.

Welcome to happiness! de Mari Montenegro

Flipped Classroom

When using Flipped Classroom, we implement a new way of teaching and learning through watching some videos online, usually at home.
On the one hand, it facilitates our students’ learning, and at the same time, it motivates them to work.
On the other hand, when giving students videos to work at home, we need to take into account that not all students have internet connection, so saving videos on a CD will be an option.

For using this incredible method, I will work with the video called "Momentos" and I will present it to a group of teenagers, who are learning English as a Second Language. By using the video, we can work on questions and make students think about the story deeply.

1) Why is the video called Momentos?

2) Why is the man homeless? What is he doing there?

3) Why does he smile when watching a little girl on the tv?

4) How did he feel when meeting his daughter?

This activity would help students to learn new concepts such as "homeless", and to participate more in class and interact with their classmates

Creativity in the English Language classroom

This is an interesting book from the British Council, edited by Alan Maley and Nick Peachey. It helps teachers to develop creativity in the language classroom, which is not an easy task to accomplish.

I have chosen one chapter from the book to analyse and then, I created a prezi presentation: https://prezi.com/djv_1worjli7/edit/#1_95982358.

Chapter 5: "Personal and creative storytelling: telling our stories", was written by David Heathfield. He states that story telling is a deeply creative part of being human and that, we learn about ourselves from the stories we are told and the stories we tell. What is important to mention is that he tells readers that the classroom is seen as a good environment for storytelling, where students learn to communicate creatively in English.

In my opinion, this chapter is great because we, as teachers, can find many small group activities for students to speak, thus promoting creativity in our classrooms and engaging our students on learning. As David says, "we need to encourage students not only to pay attention but also to build on each other's responses and develop as a community of learners".

Webquest

A Webquest is an inquiry-oriented online tool for learning, that has to do with research and involve group work. The information required comes from sites already selected by the teacher.

During the Seminar, I prepared a webquest with one of my classmates about "exploring cultures", in which students will have to do a research about culture and then, analyse three different ones.

Definitely, working with webquests sounds interesting as students can be motivated by having all the instructions there, and then working on the internet. So, researches will be done in an accurate and creative way.

"Exploring Cultures" from Beluky

Slideshare

Slideshare is a useful site for uploading documents, pdf and videos, and then sharing them with other users around the World. When I first used it in Practice II, I thought that it was a difficult site to work with, but now, I really like it and I use it with my blog. In my opinion, this site is so nice for uploading books or texts when being teaching at secondary school since students are constantly using the website, and even they prefer reading bibliography online.

When attending the Seminar on ICT, I have uploaded the questions on the video about ubiquitous learning. You can also find on my slideshare a lesson plan based on a short story, in which students listened to the story "Giraffes can't dance" and then, solving some activities.
Moreover, we can use it for sharing some presentations or steps to do a given task

This wonderful tool helped teachers organise themselves and also for providing students important documents to read or guides and activities to do.




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Ubiquitous learning. from Marilina Montenegro

Short Story telling, Giraffes can't dance from Marilina Montenegro

Exploration of visual presentation tools: Slides

By exploring and using this incredible tool, I created an eye-catching presentation for students to let their imagination flies and create their own story. 

I used amazing and sweet pictures and I wrote some hints to fill the gaps such as title. 

In this way, students can write different productions according to their ideas. 

As teachers, we can use slides for different contents, and with just a click design our own material for an interactive teaching. Students will end up enjoying the topic and learning as well.