Digital Storytelling
Everyone of us has a story to tell and we all like to read or listen to stories. Stories are expressive, magical, creative, touchy and powerful sometimes. Storytelling has been with us since we started to communicate with each other and it has been part of our every day life since then and it didn't take us long to discover the importance of storytelling in education. The traditional storytelling has a new face with the growing technology today: Digital Storytelling. This is one of the new twists of the technology.
30 creative ways to use Padlet for teachers and students
I’m always excited when I’m using Padlet. Is it the interface, the way everything is designed, its purpose or the fact that I’m organizing things smoothly? I don’t know. It just makes me happy. And today I’ll try to make you happy as well.
Mindfulness for Teachers - A Guide for Educators
Teaching is a juggling act. Days are filled with never-ending to-do lists of lessons, assessments, meetings, and more, not to mention the care and attention we give to dozens of children every day. With all of the demands of the job, it’s easy to see how teachers become exhausted and unbalanced. One way to stay healthy is to intentionally build in short, focused breaks throughout the day to practice mindfulness.
Why Forest Bathing Is Good for Your Health
“Nature deficit disorder” is a modern affliction. With more people living in cities, working in high-rise office buildings, and becoming addicted to their innumerable electronic devices, many of us are indeed experiencing a nature deficit. This is true for children and adults alike. In his new book, Forest Bathing: How Trees Can Help You Find Health and Happiness, Japanese medical doctor and researcher Qing Li presents some sobering statistics: By 2050, according to the United Nations Population Division, three quarters of the world’s people will live in cities. Even now, the average American spends 93 percent of the time indoors, and some ten hours a day on social media—more than they spend asleep.
Fun ways to teach English collocations
Do your students have difficulty deciding which words go together in English? Tim Warre, who won our most recent Teaching English blog award for his Mr Bean video lesson plan, lists his most effective tips for making learning collocations fun. Students frequently have problems with collocations for a number of reasons; the most common being direct translations from their native tongue. An example I come across regularly while teaching in Spain is problems with do/make collocations due to the fact that, in Spanish, the verb ‘hacer’ is used for both. However, if you were to ask anyone teaching English as a foreign language, the most common mistake they hear while teaching Spanish speakers, I’d bet my house it’d be this one: ‘I have sixteen years old.’ Even though use of the verb ‘to be’ when referring to age is standard English stuff, you’ll find students up to proficiency level still have the odd lapse with this particular collocation.
Wanna Know If Students Are Learning? Ask Them These 4 Questions
It can be a struggle to best help students understand what they are learning or for students to articulate their learning in meaningful ways. This was especially difficult for me starting out in on my teaching journey. Based on how I had been taught to be an educator the best ways to know if students are learning was to give them a test. If they failed, it was their fault and they needed to do better next time. It took me a long time to learn that in the process of learning the teacher and the student need to be partners.
The Swedish recycling revolution
Changing behaviours At the forefront of this movement is a startup that sprang out of Stockholm’s buzzing design scene. Beteendelabbet, Swedish for ‘behaviour lab’, tries to find innovative solutions to sustainable living. Building on Sweden’s industrial design heritage and recruiting from Stockholm’s renowned design schools, the company has its sights set on transforming how Swedes live. Ida Lemoine is the founder of Beteendelabbet: ‘We think people need services that make it easy to do the right thing’, she says.
21 Simple Ideas To Improve Student Motivation
21 Simple Ideas To Improve Student Motivation by TeachThought Staff The best lessons, books, and materials in the world won’t get students excited about learning and willing to work hard if they’re not motivated. Motivation, both intrinsic and extrinsic, is a key factor in the success of students at all stages of their education, and teachers can play a pivotal role in providing and encouraging that motivation in their students. Of course that’s much easier said than done, as all students are motivated differently and it takes time and a lot of effort to learn to get a classroom full of kids enthusiastic about learning, working hard, and pushing themselves to excel. Even the most well-intentioned and educated teachers sometimes lack the skills to keep kids on track, so whether you’re a new teacher or an experienced one, try using these methods to motivate your students and to encourage them to live up to their true potential.
13 incredible tools for creating infographics
Infographic makers will enable you to transform mountains of data into easy-to-read visuals. Information is much more accessible when presented in a well-designed infographic rather than dense reams of data, so people are likely to be much more engaged with the subject. However, it can be time-consuming to put them together. To help you out with that, we've handpicked a range of top infographic maker tools and apps – including paid-for and free options.
Reinforce Verb Conjugations With This Childhood Favorite
For this guest post, check out how Diana Plotts from La Profe Plotts uses one of her favorite games to engaged and reinforce verb conjugations with students! After reading about how she uses the game there is no doubt you'll be ready to dive and use Cucharas with your students. Did you ever play Spoons as a kid? The sound of metal spoons flying was pretty much the music of my childhood.
