Bullying, Self Image, and Crap in the Classroom: Part 2 Bullying

Bullying and Pork Chops.  This is a continuation of a series of discussions ignited in one of my pre-service teacher courses.  We have some extremely capable young educators ready to step up to the plate and tackle some large issues!  Bullying is one of these issues. (See part 1: Crap for another issue.)

Shane Koyczan is simply amazing. Be aware.  He will shape the way you think!  Bullies called him Pork Chop.Shane Koyczan: To This Day

http://youtu.be/ltun92DfnPY

Search Common Sense Media for other resources on bullying: http://www.commonsensemedia.org/

Crap, Bullying and Self Image.  How are they related?  How can we approach these topics in ways that will instigate positive change?

Happy thinking!

Crap, Bullying, and Self Image in the Classroom: Part 1 Crap

What do crap, bullying, and self-image have to do with each other?  Probably a lot more than this post will explore!  As one of my pre-service teacher courses began to explore topics of social justice and ways of integrating them into their K-12 curriculum, three major themes emerged: crap, bullying, and self image.  This is part 1 of this series.

I admittedly brought the topic of crap into the mix as an example.  When I travel to some of my favorite places in the world, I get particularly frustrated with inequities in access to something as seemingly simple as a toilet and clean water.  (Yes, I am sure I could do a blog on this topic alone. You have been forewarned if you get me started.)   

Let’s Talk Crap by Rose George

http://www.ted.com/talks/rose_george_let_s_talk_crap_seriously.html

This funny short You Tube video fit too perfectly into the toilet theme and my love of technology to pass up.

http://youtu.be/UR4mlLiyjYo

If  you have any great lessons geared toward sanitation and access to clean water, pass them forward.  This is an important topic that is all too often flushed down the toilet so to speak.

Exploring Social Justice with Thinglink

This term, I assigned a short mini assignment for my students to play with some technologies that can be easily used in Digital Storytelling, working with English Language Learners, and in exploring topics of Social Justice.  We have also been talking about the power of visuals and video.  They had several choices, but most of them chose Thinglink, Storybird, or Tagxedo.  This is the first in two posts that will highlight these sites, showcase student creations, and look at potential uses.  (Access post two about Storybird here.)

Here is a past post I wrote about Thinglink that discusses what it is.  Be sure to move your mouse over the picture and click on the dots to discover the links.  Explore some of my students' creations and read their reflections.

Women’s Suffrage

Children Living in Poverty

 

“Once we saw the example in class, I had a ton of ideas in my head of what I wanted to do. I chose to do child poverty because it is an issue that cannot be brought up enough. I focused a lot on the United States because most people don't realize how bad this issue really is.  Children deserve better than what we are doing, and it needs to be brought to the attention of others. I chose to do five different links on the picture of a child who is clearly struggling. One link that I chose to use was the NCCP website, which has state information, data tools, and news about child poverty. The second I used was a link to a Youtube video that gives some basic information and then had a very sad piece of children talking about what it is like to be hungry. The third link is the No Kid Hungry site. It discusses the problem, solution, and how to take action. The forth is a made of 35 countries and shows the poverty rate in each country. The fifth is a link to the Voices site which has articles and facts about child poverty. This was a really fun assignment and I thought it was a great way to learn about some new technologies! Some of these sites could be used to talk to older grades about this issue and what we can do to help make a change. This site could be very fun for students to make their own with many different topics. I plan on using this again in the future!” KW

Positive Body Image

“I decided to create a story about positive body image because I really enjoy talking about body image and find it very interesting to learn about. I think that it is important for students to know what positive body image is and that every individual is beautiful no matter who they are. Talking about this topic can be applied to any grade level and can open up the door to talking about how the media's representation of beauty is distorted because of the use of Photoshop. Teachers can also talk about how society creates this notion of beauty that is unrealistic as well as talking about stereotypes that are associated with body image. The goal is to give students the resources to have a positive body image of themselves and teach them not to base judgment on how another person looks.“ LW 

Civil Rights

 

“Using this tool would be easy for any subject. I think that students would find this useful for research projects. I think that I may use this as a resource in student teaching, as well as my remaining college courses!!” MF

Lyndon Johnson

 

“I used Thinglink because it is a very interesting concept and has so much potential for all grades. I love history, especially the Kennedys, and so I decided to use a picture taken after JFK was assassinated and LBJ was being sworn in. I can see how this would be interesting for students because they can easily find out additional information just by following the links on the picture.”   KC

Thanks to my students for their creativeness and willingness to share!

Scavenger Hunt: Social Justice

When Tech  I recently sent my pre-service teachers in my Approaches for P-12 ELLs on a scavenger hunt.  They then shared their results in small group blogs.  I told them I would aggregate some of their responses and share.  (This is another way I see my role as an instructor shifting as I use Social Media.) Here are their social justice lesson plans, sites, and video results.  I am not endorsing these sites (although some of them are my favorites), but posting them in one place for my students to further analyze.   Access the list here.

Met Ed  I encourage my students to take a critical look at the sites in a way that goes beyond the directions of this small assignment.  What are some questions a teacher at your grade level should ask when looking for educational sites related to social justice?  How could the sites be used in a way that fosters learning?  For the teacher as a springboard? For the students?  What questions should be asked as one evaluates sites related to social justice for educational uses? If you taught one of the lessons from one of these sites, how could you integrate it into a content area?  What language would need to be addressed to help your language learners be successful?

Happy evaluating!
A special thanks to my students for their willingness to share.

(Photo by  robynejay) 

Social Media in P-12 Education Discussion

I love this part of my job!  Students in my Tech for Educators course had an interesting discussion on the topic of Social Media in P-12 Education.  Uses of Twitter, Facebook, and Blogs were discussed.  Concepts of “friending” students and parents, where to draw the line between personal and professional life, and digital citizenship all entered the conversation.

It was interesting for me to hear them discuss various ways schools are using social media.  I was also intrigued by the conversation of how students sometimes set up their own Facebook pages to extend learning beyond the classroom—student lead.  I have my own evolving views of this topic that I won’t mention here.  I will say we as educators need to have these types of conversations and look at all sides.  As we do, I agree with one of my students who ended the conversation by saying there are more questions than answers!

This past week, I’ve done my own extension of learning on this topic.  Here are some of the resources I’ve explored and highly recommend.

This one’s especially for the amazing math teacher in my course:  Bringing Twitter to Life with Alan November and Jessica Caviness.

This interview with Alan November and David Weinberger entitled, The World Has Become “To Big for Us to Know”  is a must listen to for all of us!  Alan and David "discuss what knowledge means and what type of learning must take place in a connected world of overabundant information.  Alan and David share a series of ideas and stories that will have you thinking more about the structure of assignments in your classroom." 

My students inspired me to give a simple taste of  how Twitter can be used without student accounts.  I pulled out a few of their favorite assessment sites shared in our wiki last week and posted them using this hashtag #TCE596Winter.  It should be accessible on any mobile device by following this link.

Happy discussions!  (Face-to-face or virtual ;)

The Up-Goer Five in Education

Guest Blog Post:

Hello all! I am a Biology teacher currently masquerading as an English teacher in South Korea. Since I don’t have much in the way of experience teaching English—much less English as a Foreign Language (EFL)—I am taking some online courses to improve my teaching skills.

When Tech: I discovered The Up-Goer Five on Nik’s LearningTechnology Blog.

Users are challenged to explain a complex idea using only the ten hundred most used English words. The program identifies any words that you use which are not simple enough.

Here's an example.  Can you guess where it is?  " I live in a big place with one people group that is not my own. The big place I live in is broken in two parts because the two parts were fighting. I live in the lower part. People here are nice. "

Met Ed: TheUp-Goer Five could be used either to help English Language Learners (ELLs) explain an idea using words that they are familiar with or with non-ELL students to show how difficult it is to express complex ideas when you don't have the proper words. Sites such as these can expose educators to new ideas and give them tools to implement the use of these ideas.

Go ahead and try it! Leave your definition in the comments so mine won’t be lonely. 

SLA Theories Come to Everyday Life in Prezi, Online Comic Strips, and Fakebooks

It’s an exciting time to be in education!  Teaching in the online and hybrid environment is fun on so many levels.  One of my favorite aspects is taking a good assignment and seeing how the available technology can push us to the next level.   It’s an ongoing progress that involves some play.

Here’s one assignment for my TCE 572 online and hybrid courses that I’m in the process of playing with.  In short, students work with Second Language Acquisition theories that many of them are encountering for the first time.  It’s a lot to take in at once, so in looking for alternative methods for them to work with the theories and express themselves, they choose from a variety of levels of technologies: Prezi (challenging), online comic strips, or Fakebook. Since technology is also an objective of the course, they get exposure to it and discuss how they may be able to use it with their language learners in the K-12 environment.  Putting this into perspective, it’s a small assignment, so I encourage them not to spend more than an hour, but I know many of them spent more than that.  (Note to students: Thanks for your dedication to your learning:-)

This was my second time of giving this assignment a whirl.  There were a few glitches, but they worked through them.  The Fakebook site seemed to work about 85% of the time and seemed to load best on Internet Explorer for me.  Although I imagine it caused some frustration, many of those who had trouble with the site did problem solving and took screenshots.  In future courses, I will suggest they screencast them.

A big thanks to all the students who may have stepped out of their comfort zones to work with this technology and content!   Here are the debuts of those who chose the option to post them here!

Prezis on SLA: (For information on Prezi Educator’s account, look here.)

Chomsky   a. http://bit.ly/K6S7yO  b. http://bit.ly/J1Mmr9  

Krashen  a. http://bit.ly/JE4yEZ, b. http://bit.ly/IMYEh3 , c. http://bit.ly/KP6cjT

Schumann   http://bit.ly/JE4QM2

Vygotsky   http://bit.ly/J4f2ci  

Derewianka http://bit.ly/JFWdhJ

COMICS on SLA:  Humor is displayed in several of these comic strips made with Make Beliefs Comix. 

Approaches to Grammar Instruction  http://bit.ly/KdYOTD

Krashen  a. http://bit.ly/KUhMtF, b. http://bit.ly/KK2ldw  c. http://bit.ly/JtShBB

Schumann  a. http://bit.ly/J1NoTR, b. http://bit.ly/JndIV0 and c.  http://bit.ly/IGFwT7

FAKEBOOKS on SLA THEORIES:  This is a spin-off of the Facebook/social media idea in popular culture.  ClassTools.Net is the site used.   Several debates between theorists play out in some of these.  Some are in a question/answer format.   One student has a conversation with one of the theorists.        

Chomsky http://bit.ly/KP94xe

Krashen  a. http://bit.ly/JjCjd6,    b. http://bit.ly/LuoEjY,  c. http://bit.ly/J4h8sO

Vygotsky a.  http://bit.ly/KP9t2I   b. http://bit.ly/JAhEjA

Assignment Reflections:  We had an interesting discussion in my hybrid course about how this type of technology allows students to bring in their everyday language. They talked about how they could use it to compare/contrast academic language.  These assignments could be done in different languages as well. We also discussed following through with oral presentations to give language learners an opportunity to speak, explain, and ask questions.

It also made me reflect on the assignment when one student first made her own Prezi for her kindergarten class using content that she was familiar with in order to become comfortable with Prezi.  She did this prior to moving onto working with the new theory content.  Her Prezi with bright pictures shows how this could be a useful tool for teaching at this level. http://bit.ly/KrlE8w 

Extension for my students to consider:

• Fakebook was working about 85 % of the time.  If this happened with any technology in your class, but you really liked the assignment, what would you do?
• How would you grade this type of assignment in your own class?  
• Here is a related site: ifaketext (See Tammy Worcester's suggested ways of using it.)

Thanks again to my students for their creations and interesting discussions.  Here’s a link to the first time I attempted this assignment.  Happy creating!

Change Begins with Questions and Discussions, Doesn't It?

Why are kids in school? How do kids learn? Why do kids learn?  What model(s) of education best fit the needs of our children?  Where is the future of education headed?  These are some of the questions that this stop-motion, claymation video called Technology and Education addresses.  It brings in ideas from Sir Ken Robinson and others.  

This video resonated with me due to discussions I watched unfold in my online course this past week.  This term, my class is composed of a great mix of preservice and practicing teachers ranging from those doing student teaching to those who have been in the field for many years.  I only bring this in because it is exciting to see this range of experience asking the same questions and supporting each other in their quest to make personal meaning. One of the topics of the week is what it means to be a “principled teacher” (Freeman and Freeman, 2011).  Part of the discussion took an interesting turn and surrounded the topic of teacher autonomy.  How much power does the teacher have in the class? How can we support and empower each other?  Where does the teacher fit into the mix of answering the questions posed in the video?  (Note another correlation of the week: scaffolding in lieu of direct instruction in this post ;-)

I really love my job thanks to the discussions of my students!

Part 1: Bringing Science and Language Alive with Dance and Art

This term, my College of Ed. class is looking at the importance of using hand on activities, realia, manipulatives, visuals, etc. to make abstract concepts and new vocabulary more tangible.  They are discussing the importance of connecting learning to real life experiences and things that their K-12 students can relate to.   Recent topics have spun around making concepts in math and science accessible to English language learners in ways that build upon language development and differentiate by level.

Below are some related videos for bringing science alive in ways that have the potential of connecting to language and the student's lives.  (Stay tuned for an upcoming post highlighting some in math.)  Watch them with your own learning process and classes in mind if you are a teacher.

Watch John Bohannon: Dance vs. Powerpoint a Modest Proposal (11  min).  This has become one of my favorite TED Talks, which is not an easy feat since I am a big fan.

Here’s one for the young learners and those of us who just like to watch colors combine.  Watch Sesame Street: OK Go-- Three Primary Colors.

Minute Physics has RSA like “Cool physics and other sweet science- all in a minute!”   Weigh a Million Dollars With Your Mind caught my attention with this question:  A million dollars is a ton of money-- but how much does it weigh?

Met Ed (Application Questions):  How can you use some of the concepts in one of these videos to bring science alive, make it accessible to a variety of learners, and build on language development?  What approaches do you take to accomplish these in your classes?

Happy lesson planning TCE students!

Six Fun Educational Sites: Wonderopolis to Balloons of Bhutan

If you want to integrate technology in a fun, low stress way, here are a few of our “recent” finds we suggest exploring.   They fit into a variety of content areas and age groups.

• Wonderopolis Have you ever wondered any of the following questions:  Do sea cows moo?  Does every state have a national park?  If you or your students have such questions, look no further than Wonderopolis for answers, discussion and springboards for investigation.

• Shel Silverstein has long been one of my favorite authors.  This is a find that could be shared with multiple age groups.  In my experience if presented in the right context, even adult ELLs appreciate his poetry and books.  Watch as Shel Silverstein reads the Giving Tree in this animation.  Go to the Shel Silverstein website for more resources and online activities.

• One World Many Stories Use this site in geography, social studies or language arts. Google Lit Trips, which I blogged about here, is included on this site. Students may also share their own Google Earth stories on the site.

• Geo Greeting  Use this as an introduction to geography or to discuss architecture.  With some creativity, it could be used in ESOL/bilingual classes at the sentence level.  Check out the one I made for you. Make your own for free in a matter of seconds.

• Draw A Stickman  Use this with beginning ELLs.  It could be an entry to storytelling and a way to work with vocabulary.  Try it on an ipad. It’s fun.

• Balloons of Bhutan This is a “happy” project.  It could lead to interesting discussion on the topic of happiness, success, etc.  Perhaps some math could be included in the statistics section.  It would be fun to do a spin-off of this project small scale with a class.  The Happiness Project would be an excellent follow up activity.

Explore more educational sites we suggest.   Do you have any success stories using any of these in your teaching?  

Happy exploring!

Teaching With TED Talks

I love using TED Talks as springboards into discussions or projects with my adult English language learners.  Some of my personal favorites are ones that have visuals, art, or music.  Besides being intrinsically engaging, they make differentiating easier due to the universality of the topics. 

This Ted Talks, Stories Cut from Paper by Betrice Coron, could be fun to use in class.  Watch it, read suggestions for using it, and explore some related Ted Talks links.

TED Talks lend themselves to dogme language teaching opportunities and authentic uses of language.  Another way I might use this in an adult ESOL classroom would go something like this:

1. Watch the video together with subtitles on.  (Possibly have a list of vocabulary pre-selected that teacher pronounces before watching and class discusses what they already know about the words.)
2. Divide the class into small groups or partners and have them separately interpret an assigned section of the video.  There could be some guidelines outlined in a checklist such as: teach us new vocabulary from your section or related to your section, interpret the art in your section, relate the art to something else you have seen, read, or experienced, etc.
3. Small groups present, teach their sections, and facilitate discussion.  Discussion could be extended in writing on a class blog.
4. Watch the complete talk together again as a class.
5. Extended learning with an activity that promotes students telling their own stories in creative ways. (See Rives Tells a Story of Emoticons.) Again, I would use guidelines in a rubric or checklist and have this part of a project.  It could be possible to incorporate all modes of language—reading, writing, listening, and speaking in the process.

Below are some of my other favorite TED Talks on the arts (often integrated with science) that lend themselves to dogme language teaching or projects that allow students to bring in their voice, experiences, and make connections.   Many of them are challenging for intermediate to advanced ELLs, but in my experience if scaffolded, some interesting sometimes unexpected conversation arises.  Others lend themselves perfectly to discussion based upon the visuals or music alone.

• Augmented Reality, Techno Magic Marco Tempest July 2011 (5:45 min)
  
• Art Made of Storms Nathalie Miebach July 2011 (4: 19 min.) 
• How I Became 100 Artists Shea Hembrey  March 2011 (16:48 min.) 
• A Virtual Choir 2000 Voices Strong Eric Whitacre April 2011 (14:35 min.) 
• Ze Frank’s Web Playroom  Oct. 2010 (18 min) 
• Rives Tells a Story of Emoticons Oct 2008 (3:15 min)

Don't miss Huff Post the Best of TED 2011 countdown.  Feel free to explore my past posts on TED Talks.  What are some of your favorite TED Talks for classroom use?  What are some ways you use them in the class?

Robot Heart Stories and Other Global Collaborative Projects

Over the past few weeks, I have browsed global collaborative projects out of curiosity.  What ways can classrooms use technology to gain a wider global perspective, to share, to connect, to learn together?  How are these types of programs shaping education? Are there ways of allowing kids and adults who speak different languages to work together?  If there are, are they only for the privileged?  How will these types of programs shape the way those who participate in them view the world and its possibilities?

With these questions and ideas in mind, I stumbled upon a project called Robot Heart Stories.  It is an experiential learning program and is an example of how transmedia storytelling is connecting geographically separated and linguistically different classes in education.  Watch this video clip. 

Robot Heart Stories from WorkBook Project on Vimeo.

Read the Robot stories here.  View the robot’s journal here from Montreal to LA.  Wow, even a quick scan of these materials showcases collaborative, creative learning across the content areas in French and English!

How interesting!  I’m not sure what this means, but I think it indicates the times are a changing. <3

Here are some links to other collaborative projects on our Ed Sites tab.

• Digiteen and Digiparent 
• ePals Global Community 
• Flat Classroom Projects 
• iearn 
• Kidlink  
• Skype in the Classroom  
• Youth Voices
• The Happiness Project

Happy global collaboration!

See, Feel, Hear, Touch, and Capture Vocabulary

Like so many of you, I’m always on the look-out for interesting ways of teaching vocabulary.  From math, to science, to English, etc.—each content area has vocabulary words that we introduce.    In the ESOL/Bilingual Ed courses I teach, we look at ways of integrating both the everyday language, which helps give our students a voice, as well as the academic language embedded in meaningful contexts that they need in academia.  How can we help our students see, hear, feel, touch, and maybe even smell or taste new words?  How can they record and share their learning?

Check out Shelly Terrell’s slide share.

Visualizing Vocabulary with Your Students

Shelly’s slide share is packed full of ideas, so I’m using it as a springboard for this post. 

• Some of these are tried and true no tech suggestions with examples like word walls (slide 7), which can also be done with online stickies like Linoit, Primary Wall, etc. 
• I’m off to look at the voicethread (slide 10) because I have used voicethread with vocabulary and beyond with success in the classroom and am really excited about the new voicethread app.
• Several of her suggestions such the word cloud Tagul (slide 12), Word Stash (slide 19-20), and Wordia (slides 21-24), I have blogged about and/or are found on our student’s tab.  There are also a lot of additional vocabulary games and sites on our student’s tab to explore. 
• Triptico (slide26) is a new one that I recently downloaded and am in the process of experimenting with.   It contains several useful tools like word magnets, what’s the question, and more assessable via your desktop.  It’s a fun way to involve the whole class in learning vocabulary.  Parts of it remind me of Classtools.net which I also use for vocabulary plus.
• Type in a sentence or story, and Flickr Poet  (slide 27)  produces it in picture form.

Scroll down through some related posts, videos, and examples I have made on vocabulary.  They include developing vocabulary with word clouds, online dictionaries and my vocabulary class Glogster.  In passing, I will mention that it amazes me how the sites I use continue to improve and many new vocabulary related sites continue to pop up.  For example, shortly after posting about Lexipedia, I discovered Visuwords.  Personally, I find all these sites worth exploring because they can be used for various purposes or with different age groups. 

Met Ed (Applications):  The sites within this post can be used alone within a lesson. They often work well with class discussion.  Many of them can also be used independently by students or as resources.  In addition, they can be used as a springboard for creating your own versions with the technology available to you or sometimes even with no tech.  For example, I love the videos on Wordia, but not all of the words my students need to search are found there.  I’d love to have my students take words from a unit of study and create their own picture gallery, videos or other type of media that we can then share with upcoming classes. 

Share your ideas (low tech or high tech), favorite sites, and experiences of teaching vocabulary either by commenting or emailing us.   How do you make vocabulary come alive?

*A thanks to Shelly Terrell for her slideshare and many amazing things she shares.  More to come in a future post about the many contributions Shelly makes to ed tech and my personal learning.