5 Free Tools to Collect Student Feedback There are several free web tools that teachers can use to gather feedback from their students both formally and informally. You can also use these tools to poll your students about a learning event, assess their level of comprehension, or simply to get to know their opinions about a certain topic. Educational Technology and Mobile Learning has already posted a list of such tools last year but today we are updating this list deleting the ones that no longer work and including new ones . Check out the list below and as usual share with us your suggestions or additions 1- Poll Everywhere This is my favorite. 2- Kwiqpoll This is another polling service that you can use to create polls for your classroom. 3- TodaysMeet This tool lets you maintain a back channel chat with your students. 4- SimpleMeet Me This is an awesome web service that enables users to chat with others without having to install any software or even registering. 5- Utrack
A List of 16 Websites Every Teacher should Know about 1- Teachers Network Teachers Network provides lesson plans, classroom specials, teacher designed activities for different subjects and many other resources. 2- Smithsonian Education Smithsonian Education offers a wide variety of free resources for teachers, students and parents. 3- Education World This is another great website for teachers. 4- Discovery Education Discovery Education offers a broad range of free classroom resources that complement and extend learning beyond the bell 5- The Gateway This is one of the oldest publicly accessible U.S repositories of education resources on the web. 6- EdHelper EdHelper provides teachers with free printables, graphic organizers, worksheets, lesson plans, games and many other activities. 7- Thinkfinity Thinkfinity is a free online professional learning community that provides access to over 50.000 educators and experts in curriculum enhancement, along with thousands of award-winning digital resources for k-12 8- PBS Teachers 9- Teachers.net 10- 42explore
The Teacher’s Survival Kit for Lesson Planning! Tips & 1000s of Free Lesson Plans Posted by Shelly Terrell on Saturday, August 18th 2012 Goal 16: Plan An Engaging Lesson of The 30 Goals Challenge for Educators I cannot teach anybody anything, I can only make them think. – Socrates Lesson planning is stressful and time-consuming, but is important in giving us an action plan for the entire school year. A Few Tips … When planning a lesson, I think we need to keep objectives in mind but there are other factors that make up a great lesson. G- group dynamic R- relevance to learners’ lives and needs E-emergent language and ideas focus A- attentiveness T- thoughtfulness To this list I would add flexibility. Templates Some of us will need a framework from which to build our lessons. Structured Templates: Another idea: Map our your lesson plan in a mindmap More Lesson Planning Tips: 1000s of Free Lesson Plans Here are a few places to find free lesson plans to teach English in any subject or to any age level! Lesson Plan Sites for Other Subject Areas Bookmarked Resources Important News
25 Free Resources for Learning a Language Online Jane Hart is the Founder of the Centre for Learning and Performance Technologies, one of the most visited learning sites on the Web. In her monthly column for eLearn she shares some "gems"—useful or valuable tools, resources, and products she has unearthed for learning and performance improvement/support. In this month's column she focuses on free resources for learning how to speak a foreign language. I learned German at school and actually went on to study it at university. In school I was taught the rules of German grammar and spent a lot of time building my German vocabulary mostly through memorization. Learning a language therefore involves a number of different aspects-learning the rules of grammar, acquiring vocabulary, practicing speaking the language, as well as simply being immersed in the language. 200words-a-day If you find learning new vocabulary a time-consuming grind, try boosting it with the 200 Words a Day!
Teaching ESL Students Reading & Phonemic Awareness- Reading Horizons By Robin Schwarz Spoken language is noise which the experienced listener sorts into meaningful chunks. A child spends many years perfecting this sorting. This was good news for me, as I was searching for a way to help at-risk students in the college-level intensive English program where I teach. When I first decided to find a way to help these students, I began searching the ESL literature for ideas. Because the foreign language learners who were having difficulties had poor phonemic awareness as well as poor phonological skills, my first priority was clear, direct teaching of the sound system of English. Another lesson learned from the foreign language research was that the sounds should be taught one at a time in a clear sequence. The process requires lots and lots of repetition. We continued on to long vowels, and the process became faster because the students had begun to discriminate sounds more accurately and knew what to expect in the activities and practices.
Report cites 40 diverse examples of blended learning | Featured on eSchool News Educators also give their ‘wish lists’ for blended learning technology, policy By Meris Stansbury, Associate Editor Read more by Meris Stansbury May 3rd, 2011 The sample of programs studied was large enough to indicate trends in blended-learning usage. The term “blended learning” encompasses a number of different instructional models in use across the country, but who has the time to compare and contrast these programs for an analysis of what blended learning means today? A new report does just that, and it also collects instructors’ opinions of this type of learning. The report, titled “The Rise of K-12 Blended Learning: Profiles of Emerging Models,” is part of a series on blended learning by Michael B. Horn is also co-author of the 2008 book Disrupting Class: How Disruptive Innovation Will Change the Way the World Learns, and the reports are intended to study K-12 blended learning and measure its potential to become a disruptive technology in education.
Why Formative Assessments Matter Summative assessments, or high stakes tests and projects, are what the eagle eye of our profession is fixated on right now, so teachers often find themselves in the tough position of racing, racing, racing through curriculum. But what about informal or formative assessments? Are we putting enough effort into these? What Are They? Informal, or formative assessments are about checking for understanding in an effective way in order to guide instruction. They are used during instruction rather than at the end of a unit or course of study. What this means is that if we are about getting to the end, we may lose our audience, the students. We are all guilty of this one -- the ultimate teacher copout: "Are there any questions, students?" Ever assign the big project, test, or report at the end of a unit and find yourself shocked with the results, and not in a good way? To Inform, Not Punish Believe me, I've been there: wanting to punish the lazy, the cocky, the nonchalant. When and How? Exit Slips
ELTons - Innovation Awards - British Council The ELTons 2014 shortlists have been announced! Below are the nominees, selected by a panel of expert judges using the Delphi technique, who are in the running to win a prestigious ELTon award. Here are the 2014 nominees in full: Excellence in Course Innovation Access EAP: Frameworks - Garnet EducationDyslexia for Teachers of English as a Foreign Language (Dystefl) - Dystefl ProjectESOL National 4 - K2L LtdOUR WORLD - National Geographic LearningPicaro - Kaplan International EnglishTEDDY EDDIE Skillful - Macmillan Education Innovation in Learner Resources BreakingNewsEnglish.com - Sean Banville Academic Skills Series - CollinsDiscover our Amazing World CLIL READERS - Express PublishingHow to speak English; The pronunciation App - Kaplan International English International Management English series: Leading People, Managing Projects, Managing Change, Working Virtually - Delta Publishing LtdListenUp - Reallyenglish Innovation in Teacher Resources Digital Innovation Local Innovation
Moving from Web 2.No to Web 2.Go I spent the week of February 7-11 attending the 2011 TCEA Convention and Exposition in Austin, Texas. The theme for this year's gathering was "No LimITs", and it was an appropriate theme for my biggest takeaways from the conference. For years I have been hearing and reading about the need to open up Web 2.0 tools for student and teacher use in schools as well as moving toward 1:1 computer/device access for students. This year, these two themes converged at TCEA, and for the first time I heard from several schools and districts that have taken steps in these directions. I left the conference encouraged and energized to help my own district start making moves in this direction. My conclusions: It is time to bring cloud computing into our schools. Some issues I know schools will need to address are: Bandwidth - Accessing the cloud, using Web 2.0 tools, and allowing students to connect personal devices to the network are going to take bandwidth - and lots of it.