6 Online Collaborative Tools to Engage Students in Teamwork Nothing is more frustrating to a teacher than lack of attention from students. You have spent several weeks or even months working on some project that you thought would be a breakthrough, but nothing happens. Situations like this are very common in modern learning because a lack of interest to engage in teamwork is widespread. When I talk about online collaborative tools, I refer to web-based tools that enable teachers and students to perform a wide range of tasks, such as interactive discussions, online collaboration activities, sharing and accessing electronic learning resources, and many more others. Here is the collection of great online collaborative tools that I have gathered for you, enjoy! 1. The first tool on my list is a great one for sharing digital content and improving the engagement of the students. 2. This is a toolbox for teachers that takes classroom management to another level. 3. Virtualizing student content has never been easier! 4. 5. 6.
Grammar Auction: Turn grammar review into a game – tekhnologic This is not a new activity and you can find several descriptions of a grammar auction online. You may find these descriptions Grammar Auctions useful: Clare Lavery describes a Grammar Auction for teachingenglish.org.uk. Bjorn Norstrom describes a Grammar Auction for Dave’s ESL café’s idea cookbook. The other day, I was trying to find some inspiration because I was having a difficult time thinking of something to create for the website. Watch this video for an introduction to the template and instructions on how to edit it. After you have watched the video, continue reading to download the template and for a more detailed description about using it in the classroom. Watch the tutorial video to see how to edit and use the Grammar Auction template.Video run-time is 3 minutes and 26 seconds. Click on the image or the link below to download the template. Download the Grammar Auction template. The template consists of a title slide and one auction slide. Click on a ‘hammer’ button. Using Realia
Library Lovers' Day The theme for Library Lovers' Day 2020 is ‘Uncover something new’. Library Lovers' Day is an opportunity for library and information professionals to show off their libraries and for people across Australia to show their love for libraries. Ideas for your communication channels Encourage your patrons to spread the #LibraryLoversDay by having a competition for the best social media post using #LibraryLoversDay. Change your library’s Facebook or Twitter avatar and/or banner to the avatars and banners available in the resources section below. Ideas for your library Check out all the free resources that you can use to celebrate Library Lovers’ Day further down on this page. Check out the, 2019 Library Lovers' Day page, 2018 Library Lovers' Day page, the 2017 Library Lovers' Day news release or the 2016 Library Lovers' Day wrap up. Promo banner.
ESL Warm Up Activities with Free PowerPoint Download | English Teaching 101 I use games and fun activities to warm up my class before the lesson begins, to break the ice or even as a time filler. Warmers bring energy to class and definitely fills the time with more learning when the lesson runs shorter than expected. Below are some of the games that I have been using in my ESL class. I decided to make them available for free again so I hope you would find them useful in your class. Disappearing Words In this simple activity, students are shown a word, phrase or sentence that disappears in 2 seconds! Game Type: Individual, Team Give Me 5! The teacher calls out a student to give 5 things on a given category in 30 seconds! Game Type: Individual Word Snake Each team makes a line near the board, then one student per team comes up to the white board and writes a word. Game Type: Team YOU MIGHT ALSO LIKE: No-prep ESL Vocabulary Games for Young Learners Hidden Pictures Hot Seat Game Type: Pair, Team Categories Guessing Game Game Type: Pair, Group Pelmanism Sleeping Pandas
Three strategies to help students navigate dodgy online content A recent Stanford University Report revealed that students’ abilities to distinguish between questionable and valid online content needed work. In one example cited in the report, researchers set high school and university students a task to evaluate the credibility of information found on the MinimumWage.com site. Only 9% of high school students and 6% of university students could identify the site was actually a front for a right-wing think-tank. The lack of critical judgement displayed by high school and university students in this example is, as the report’s authors identified, a challenge that’s bigger than fake news. It doesn’t just affect young people, either. Here are three strategies based on the findings of the Stanford Report to help navigate the online information minefield. 1. A traditional approach to educating about these challenges has been conducting “website evaluations” using a checklist. 2. 3. Adjectives describe how something feels, looks, sounds and acts.
Black Box Thinking for Teachers - Teaching and Learning Guru Black Box Thinking is a philosophy which allows learning to emerge from mistakes. The phrase was coined by Matthew Syed in his excellent book of the same title, where he examines performance and critical self-evaluation in sport, aviation, politics and many other fields. He took the term from the “black box” flight recorders fitted to aircraft, which contain vast amounts of data, to be used to inform future improvements, especially following the poor performance of human beings, the failure of systems and procedures, unexpected events and even complete disasters. How does black box thinking apply in education? In education, just as in aviation, we continually train ourselves and others, to help ensure consistently high performance. When teaching doesn’t work… A few years ago, Steve, a friend of mine working in another school called me on A Level Results Day. When the “data” doesn’t add up… Steve recalled some of the papers from the exam board to see what had gone wrong. Assess regularly.
What is information literacy? - CILIP: the library and information association What is information literacy? CILIP's Information Literacy Group has released CILIP Definition of Information Literacy 2018 at the LILAC Conference and reinforces the relevance of information literacy in the current age: “Information literacy is the ability to think critically and make balanced judgements about any information we find and use. It empowers us as citizens to develop informed views and to engage fully with society.” A lot has changed since 2004 when the first CILIP definition of information literacy was devised. There is a greater recognition of the value of information professionals as teachers in either formal or informal settings and across the sectors. • Everyday – when people find information online • Citizenship – helping people to understand the world around us • Education – developing critical thinking skills at all stages of education, from school to higher education • The workplace - Contributing to employability
All Things Grammar - Home A List of More Than 30 Useful Digital Citizenship Resources Chances are you’ve heard a lot about digital citizenship by now. Many reputable and respectable organizations have devoted their life’s work to developing digital citizenship resources to promote its values in educators and learners worldwide. We at the Global Digital Citizen Foundation are proud to be among them. We all know the world is different now. You are in the perfect position to be the best source of digital citizenship development any student could hope for. This post features some useful digital citizenship resources that cover these important categories: Digital Footprints/People SearchingCiting SourcesCyberbullyingDetecting PlagiarismPersonal ResponsibilityGlobal and Cultural Awareness Go forth in confidence, using these digital citizenship resources that every educator can use in their classrooms. Digital Footprints/People Searching A lot of what we do stays online, and continues to define us long after we’ve forgotten it. Citing Sources Cyberbullying Detecting Plagiarism
Too many lessons, too little time – TeachingGamesEFL.com – by Mike Astbury This is a guest post written by Šárka Cox and Peter Nobbs. Here are a number of quick speaking activities that can be used to practice a range of grammatical structures using a single resource, a set of verb phrase cards. These activities are adaptable for any language structure and can help you have an interesting and creative lesson without much preparation time. You can download the cards by clicking here. Step one: Matching This stage introduces the verb and picture cards before you practise the grammar. Step two: Grammar Practice For each of the activity the setup is the same; Example language structures: 1. 2. 3. 4. Students take one card from each pile, as before and choose a gerund/infinitive or reporting verb and make a sentence using the three words. 5. When the teacher claps their hands, the students, using the prompts retell the story in reverse. Don’t forget to download the cards for these activities by clicking here. Thanks for reading! Like this: Like Loading...
10 Ways To Search Google For Information THAT 96% Of People DON’T Know About | Curious Mind Magazine It’s been a while since Google became our best friend, helping us find whatever knowledge we crave for – from easy pancake recipes to the deepest philosophies and scientific theories about life. It seems that Google indeed has the answer for everything nowadays. But how many times have you managed to find that one page you were looking for in an instant? Sometimes finding what you are looking for means hours of searching and sifting through the result pages. This is why we have explored some of the search utilities Google has in store for us. Was it this or that? When every information is in your reach, sometimes you may get confused or be unsure whether you’ve correctly remembered the information or name you want to start your search with. Solution: Simply write the potential variants of what you are looking for and separate them with “OR”. This way you will get results of all documents containing either the first or the second word. e.g. Search with the power of synonyms 3. e.g. e.g.
Copy and paste for teachers – After Octopus Photo taken from ELTpics by @mk_elt, (CC BY-NC 2.0) Last week I finally got started on grading and feedback in the latest iteration of my writing skills online course, and thought I’d do a brief post on my comment bank. Note to self: see if you can come up with a catchier title than “My comment bank”. Last summer I was listening to an episode of the Professional Adjunct podcast, in which the hosts, Beth and Jim, discuss an article called “Ten Tips for More Efficient and Effective Grading”, originally published on Faculty Focus. When they got to point 2 – comment banks – I remember it only then dawned on me that I had in fact been creating a comment bank for a few semesters without having expressly set out to do so, or even realizing that was what I’d been doing. I find this type of resource especially useful for asynchronous online contexts or whenever you need to give feedback on work submitted electronically. So that’s it, really. Do you use a comment bank? Like this: Like Loading...
Only a Third of Students Enter College with Research Skills Research is an integral part of the college experience. Regardless of major, students are required to discover information and then interpret and synthesize their findings either orally or in writing. However, a recent Library Journal survey reveals that only 30% of first-year students enter college prepared with college-level research skills. The survey of librarians in 543 colleges and universities (399 four-year and 144 two-year schools) reveals the following: Only 30% of first-year students at four-year schools are prepared to conduct college-level research.Only 23% of first-year students at community colleges are prepared to conduct college-level research. The surveyed librarians believe these are the top challenges facing freshmen students: The inability to evaluate sources for reliability.The inability to establish a research topic and design objectives.The inability to properly cite sources.Overconfidence/apathy/short attention span.An overreliance on Google.
Can you Guess the Word? Part One We’re six weeks into our new ‘Guess the Word’ campaign here at Oxford Dictionaries, and it’s time to take a look back at the videos that have kept you guessing! Each of the video definitions below illustrate the meaning of one useful, commonplace word. Simply watch a video and see if you can guess which word the scenario describes. Think you’ve got it all figured out? Let’s begin with an easy one… Got it? Did you spot both meanings? This one was more tricky! Think you’ve quacked it? Made your guess, yes? Last but by no means least, the humble ‘smoking nun’? The ‘Guess the Word’ campaign is designed with English learners in mind, and aims to make those familiar words with unfamiliar definitions more easily understood by all.