Tools to Motivate Your Students Motivational Tools Motivating students to listen and learn and remain on task is not an easy thing to do. All teachers, of course, hope to present lessons so engaging and exciting that students intrinsically want to behave and learn, but in the real classroom, you’ll often find that you also need a little something extrinsic to motivate reluctant or restless learners. At those times, you might consider the use of a reward system. Implementing reward systems can be tricky, however, and they require careful thought. The first step in developing a successful reward system is to determine your goals. The concept of rewards involves using an extrinsic incentive (the reward) to encourage certain actions and behaviors from students. The three programs below are designed to address individual student behavior. Red Tickets: This system encourages class participation and offers everyone an opportunity to get a little something special. Path to Incentives: This path can take any shape you’d like.
Tech Tools for Teachers By Nik Peachey Tech expert Nik Peachey presents an invaluable series on using technology in the classroom. If you’re already tech-savvy, this series will give you a whole host of new ideas and suggestions; if you’re not yet comfortable with using new technology in your teaching, Nik’s help and advice will get you started in no time. There’s an ancient Chinese proverb which is sometimes also referred to as a curse, but it’s one that I like because it is very relevant to us as teachers today: “May you live in interesting times.” As educationalists, we do live in very interesting times and that can be either a curse or a blessing depending on how you feel about the role of technology in education and the degree to which you are willing to engage with it. Personally, I feel that it’s a blessing and that we are very lucky to be living in times that offer us the opportunity to radically change and improve the way we educate our students. Each instalment will give you: Getting Started Nik Peachey
Try this: Why it's a dog's life in China | Education | Guardian Weekly Dogs can unite or divide a classroom. Some people love them while others can definitely live without them, which is why this article from the Guardian website about keeping dogs as pets in China caught my eye. It is a great article to build a lesson around as it's a topic which students can easily relate to and because it explores a number of controversial issues about which students are likely to have an opinion. Better still, there is also an audio version of this article available so you can combine reading and listening practice. Find more audio content on the Guardian's new Audio Edition. Before reading Image: The photograph accompanying the article (above) is quite strong. Headline: Part of the headline "Sold for £1m – or stolen and sold as meat" could also be used to get students predicting what they think the article may be about. Prompts: Lead into the topic by asking students what strange things they have eaten or if there is any animal they would never eat. Comprehension skills
r.cfm?B=19149&U=389818&M=5222&affTrack=1agsjokg21h3q&urllink=www.visualthesaurus David Crystal is one of the most well-respected writers on language and communication, having published an impressive array of books from The Cambridge Encyclopedia of the English Language to The Fight for English. His latest, Txtng: The Gr8 Db8, tackles the facts and fictions of text messaging. In the first of our three-part interview, he explains how persistent myths about the dangers of texting, particularly in his native Great Britain, compelled him to write a book laying out the empirical realities of this novel form of communication. VT: Let's talk about your motivation for writing the book. DC: It was a dawning realization about how universal the myth was about texting. VT: Why do you think the reactions have been so intense about texting? DC: I'm as amazed about this as anybody else. VT: Was the entire story a hoax, or did something actually happen that was embellished? DC: Some kid could have written something like that as a joke — as a game, really. DC: Exactly.
Digital literacy Digital literacy is the ability to effectively and critically navigate, evaluate and create information using a range of digital technologies. It requires one "to recognize and use that power, to manipulate and transform digital media, to distribute pervasively, and to easily adapt them to new forms".[1] Digital literacy does not replace traditional forms of literacy. It builds upon the foundation of traditional forms of literacy.[1] Digital literacy is the marrying of the two terms digital and literacy; however, it is much more than a combination of the two terms. Digital information is a symbolic representation of data, and literacy refers to the ability to read for knowledge, write coherently, and think critically about the written word. Digital literacy researchers explore a wide variety of topics, including how people find, use, summarize, evaluate, create, and communicate information while using digital technologies. Academic and Pedagogical Concepts[edit] Use in education[edit]
Social Media and Digital Immigrants | Creative ideas for Literacy and Numeracy teaching February 6, 2011 by stitchesoftime In my travels round the internet I have come across an updated version of the impact of social media shown in class a couple of weeks ago. The video is made by Erik Qualman who writes about what he calls ‘socialnomics’. I was trying to embed the video into the post and came across the same problems I had last week with the Frank Sinatra video, which puzzled me as I had done it successfully with other video. Then I remembered that on the blog where I found the updated video it had the following message – ‘this video contains content from Sony Media, its playback is restricted on certain sites, watch it on You Tube‘ with a link which then took me to You Tube where I successfully watched it. Seems that if video contains copyright music content ( this one has a backing track by Fat Boy Slim) you can’t embed but just link to it. Reminds me of conversations with my son.....! A couple of interesting videos on the subject. Like this: Like Loading...
digitanatives natives digitalimmigrants digital-divide