background preloader

6 Storytelling Apps That Get English Language Learners Talking

6 Storytelling Apps That Get English Language Learners Talking
For English language learners (ELLs) in the classroom, speaking English in front of others — particularly native speakers — can cause tremendous anxiety. In fact, the dread of speaking can actually interfere with students’ ability to learn. Even with the most well-planned, immersive, real-world learning opportunities, the brains of students with high anxiety won’t be receptive to learning, according to Stephen Krashen’s “Affective Filter Hypothesis” (and the brain research that supports it). So how can we design speaking activities that don’t make our students’ hearts race and palms sweat? Digital storytelling can be an effective way for ELLs to practice speaking English without the stress of being “on stage.” Here are a few digital storytelling tools to help get your ELLs talking. Kid in Story Book Maker(Elementary)Kids use green screen-like technology to put photos of themselves (or others) into a story template, then add text and voice recording. Related:  Education Technologies

Create your own Google logo for Earth Day | CS First Hey everyone, I'm Olga. I’m a proud Latina Googler, and I work in our computer science education department. In this activity (dun dun dun daa!), you're going to make your own Google logo. Happy Earth Day! Happy Earth Day to you! Google often creates special logos, called “Google Doodles,” to celebrate important things like people, places, holidays, and events...like Earth Day! People all over the world observe Earth Day on April 22. Earth Day is a time to celebrate the natural world and focus on ways to protect it. Organizations like World Wildlife Fund protect the planet's animals and natural environment. Plus, they use computer science and technology to do it! Individuals like you can take steps to protect animals, reduce waste, and make others aware of ways to preserve the natural world. The skills you will use in this activity are similar to what environmental organizations, like World Wildlife Fund, use in their efforts. Today, you will code a logo about celebrating Yay! It's all up to you!

EnglishWithSophia.com EnglishWithSophia.com Articles 1. 1. 2. 3. 4. 1. 2. 1. 2. 1. 2. 3. 1. 2. 3. 1. 2. 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 8 Great Web Tools for Creating Video Lessons YouTube Video Editor embeds all the hacks you need to create stunning video lessons. You can use it to trim videos, add hyperlinks, add illustrative text, add audio tracks and several other multimedia materials. To be able to use YouTube Video Editor, you need to be logged in to your channel via your current Google account. Check out this guide to learn more about what you can do with YouTube Video Editor. ‘Snagit gives you a simple way to create and edit screenshots or record videos to show a complex process, give detailed feedback, or share important information with the people who need it most…Capture an image or video of what you see on your computer screen. This is another great tool to use to record a video of your screen. For those of you using Chromebook in their instruction, Explain Everything is an excellent tool to use to create video lessons. Playpoist (former Educannon) is another wonderful tool to use to create video lessons. 6- EDpuzzle

Organizing Committee | Learning Analytics & Knowledge 2017 We are pleased to announce the Organizing Committee for LAK’17. General Conference Chairs Program Chairs – Research Track Program Chairs – Practitioner Track Proceedings Chair Workshop and Tutorial Chairs Demonstrations and Poster Chairs Doctoral Consortium Chairs Publicity and Social Media Chairs Program Committee – Research Track Stephen Aguilar, University of Southern California, Rossier School of Education Giora Alexandron, Massachusetts Institute of Technology Laura Allen, Arizona State University Ricardo Araujo, UFPel Kimberly Arnold, University of Wisconsin Madison Roger Azevedo, North Carolina State University Ebrahim Bagheri, Ryerson University Ryan Baker, Teachers College, Columbia University Aneesha Bakharia, University of Queensland Mahdi Bashari, Faculty of Computer Science, University of New Brunswick John Behrens, Pearson Marie Bienkowski, SRI International Paulo Blikstein, Stanford University Mary Jean Blink, TutorGen, Inc. Program Committee – Practitioner Track

The Seven Best Film and Video Resource Sites - Kieran Donaghy As part of the launch of the website I’m organising a prize draw for my new book Film in Action. Everybody who subscribes to the website in February and March will be entered into the draw. This is the first in a series of posts in which I will look at what I think are some of the best websites, resources, books, short films, and videos for English language teachers and their students. All of the posts will be titled ‘The Seven Best …‘ There is now a wealth of online video and film resources for both language teachers and their students. Here I’m going to recommend the seven sites that I have found most useful and engaging. Sites for students Learn English Teens Film UK A British Council website which gives learners the opportunity to watch amazing films made by young people, and do a variety of activities designed around the films. Simple English Videos Speechyard Sites for teachers Viral ELT – All at C Lessonstream Film English

Google Spaces is A Very Good Collaborative Platform to Use with Students in Class January 4, 2017Spaces is an excellent collaborative platform from Google. As a teacher, you can use Spaces to create a Space for your class and invite students to join it using a generated link. Spaces allows you to share a wide variety of materials including web links, photos, posts and many more. Members of a Space can interact with each other by commenting on posts and sharing feedback. Some of the main features of Spaces are:'Create a space for any topic in one tapInvite friends or family any way you like with a quick linkUse Google Search and YouTube right in the appComment on any post as a member of a spaceQuickly find anything in your spaces by searching keywords.' 1- Head over to Spaces and click on ‘Create a Space’ 3- Provide a title to your space 4- Add content to your space. 5- Invite members to your space by emailing them a generated link.

What To Do When Online Discussion Dies - eLearning Industry Most eLearning facilitators have, at some point, asked themselves how they can get students to engage more in live chat or discussion forums. One of my team recently found herself in that precise situation. She sent me a message saying “I'm currently in one course and facilitating another – and neither group is really interacting or responding to each other. 5 Ways Participants Can Encourage Greater Engagement Some participants might believe that it is solely the facilitators responsibility to persuade students to engage more in discussion forums and social chat, but this is not the case. If you are a participant in an online course, increasing student engagement in forums and live chat is not impossible. Lead by example and post frequently – i.e. your own posts and posts in response to others.Ask open ended questions and write a polite follow-up post, re-stating the question, if you don’t get an answer.Disagree with someone’s view and explain why. Final Word

The Seven Best Short Films for ELT Students - Kieran Donaghy I’ve been writing lesson plans designed around short films for my website Film English for six years. Teachers often ask me how I find the short films I use in my lesson plans. The answer is quite simple: I’ve watched literally thousands of short films and developed an instinct for the type of engaging and simple short films which will work in the ELT classroom. The Mirror The Mirror is a short film by Ramon and Pedro which tells the story of a boy’s journey from childhood to old age. The Notebook The notebook is a moving short film by Greg Gray and is wonderful for introducing the theme of empathy. The Present The Present is a gripping short film with a wonderful twist by Jacob Frey which deals with the themes of empathy, teenagers and disability. Soar Soar is a delightful short film by Alyce Tzue which can be used to get students to predict and write a narrative. I Forgot My Phone i-Diots Fear of Flying I hope you like the short films and find the lesson plans useful.

How To Teach Digital Citizenship Through Blogging There are many benefits to having a blogging program in your classroom. One advantage is that blogging can be the perfect avenue to teach digital citizenship. What is digital citizenship? Digital citizenship is used as more of an umbrella term for our goals to help our students to be safe, happy, productive, and ethical online. Common Sense Media’s curriculum identifies eight topics under the umbrella of digital citizenship including: internet safety, cyberbullying, copyright and more. empowering your students with skills to think critically, behave safely, and participate responsibly online, allowing them to connect and collaborate in meaningful ways. All teachers know how important digital citizenship is. Students don’t always have the life experience or brain development to navigate technology safely and effectively. We also know what a big role technology plays in our students’ lives. But how do we teach digital citizenship? 1) Netiquette 2) Digital Footprints 4) Methods Of Communication

10 Ways To Search Google For Information THAT 96% Of People DON'T Know About 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.

10 Sites and Apps for Vocabulary and Spelling Practice - Best of 2016 As I usually do during this week, I'm taking some time off to relax, ski, and work on some long-term projects for the next year. This week I will be re-publishing the most popular posts of 2016. Last night I watched the conclusion of the Scripps National Spelling Bee. Stumpy’s Alphabet Dinner is a fun app in which students feed letters and shapes to cartoon characters. Building Language for Literacy offers three nice little language activities from Scholastic. Spell Up is a fun Google Chrome experiment. Knoword is a fun and challenging game that tests your ability to match definitions to words. Your students can test their spelling skills against those of past winners of the Scripp's National Spelling Bee on Vox's Spell It Out challenge. WordWriter is a neat writing tool from BoomWriter. World’s Worst Pet is a free iPad app that contains a series of fun vocabulary games. PrepFactory is a free service for high school students can use to prepare for the SAT and or ACT.

How to Make an Infographic in 5 Steps If you want to make an infographic that engages, summarizes and informs, you’ve come to the right place. If you’re not a designer, creating an infographic that’s both beautiful and effective can seem like an impossible task… but that’s far from the truth. Follow our beginner-friendly infographic design guide below to learn how to create infographics packed with infographic templates. How to make an infographic: You will also learn different tips to design your infographic throughout this article (more in the final two sections), plus examples on how to apply them. If you prefer to watch rather than read instructions, here is a video summary of the steps in this guide where the presenter walks through her actual process of creating an infographic: Let’s dive into each step in more detail. 1. Before defining your goals, let’s make sure you know what an infographic is and the different scenarios you can use it for. An infographic is a visual communication aid that you can use to: 2. The U.S. 3.

Developer Resources | UChicago Mobile Center | The University of Chicago Students, faculty, and staff are encouraged to develop and distribute useful mobile apps to the UChicago community. Browse the resources below for more information about mobile best practices and UChicago identity. Join our mobile discussion today by subscribing to mobile_forum@lists.uchicago.edu. Partnering with the University If you're considering developing a native application for the University, please contact mobile@uchicago.edu. Privacy Usability When creating apps for the University, please apply basic usability guidelines. Accessibility All apps should be accessible. Design To learn more about basic design and development principles for all mobile devices and platforms, see: Coding To learn more about mobile coding practices, visit: Emulators and Simulators Download simulators to your desktop: Courses & Books Additional online courses and books include: Frequently Asked Questions What technologies went into the UChicago Mobile app?

Supporting English Language Learners (Tools, Strategies and Resources) This site is intended for use by teachers, administrators and consultants working with English language learners. This site allows users to: Search the Alberta K-12 ESL Proficiency Benchmarks. Access student writing samples with benchmark analysis. View videos of students engaging in content learning with teacher commentary on proficiency levels and benchmark analysis. Access programming information on Organizing for Instruction.

Related: