Language Skills and Technology

I will be using Whatsapp voicechat to help students with their practice for the Oral bagrut. They can record short answers and we can build a conversation on the chat. They can take turns being the interviewer and the responder. I would also like to use the VoiceThread program that we saw. I am working with students who are taking the Oral Bagrut iTest format, which replaces a person interviewing them, with a computer. In order for them to take the test, they have to respond to questions by recording their spoken responses. I mentioned last time using Whatsapp to help them practice and review, but the VoiceThread program is perhaps even better.  The one drawback compared with Whatsapp is that Whatsapp is already in their hand, and Voicethread requires them to go to a different website. Another program that I liked was the iDebate . This is a great way for our students to engage with other students all over the world in debates around issues in which they are interested. I lo...

This week in the various blogs, I did not find much that was current.  One post that I did see was worth perhaps the three that I should have had. This post covers the importance of varied types of learning, wisely pointing out that once they are adults, students will have to be a bit flexible when it comes to learning from different inputs.  One area that was included in the article, which I would love to try, is the Flipped Classroom.  This idea takes the content and gives it to the student through media, then follows up in class with additional materials and content.  The bulk of the formerly-frontal learning comes from a video presentation.  Several years ago my daughter's class was run this way periodically. I will let you know if I try this, and of course, how it goes.

This week I liked the post here (again from TeachThought) about the Elements of a Digital Classroom. What does it look like?  What is the 'product?' What is the evaluation/feedback?  Quite thought provoking. Lisa Nielsen is prompting us to consider Civil discourse in online spaces (no, really). This is a question that I have thought about previously, especially with the anonymity of the web... you can comment as anyone, or no one at all, and often people use this this anonymity as a mask to write things they would never say face to face, to represent others maliciously, to generally spread hate and vitriol. I often think that the answer is to disengage, but perhaps there is an alternative. Surely youth can be better at this than the purported 'adults' are... Finally, another post from TeachThought (I really like this blog) about the reasons to use digital portfolios. Portfolios were mentioned in today's class with Eran, and this post shows us not so much how (...