Hi everybody,
Welcome to our last forum. It's been a great ride and I want to thank you for your commitment and desire of sharing. This time around I'd like you to take a look at the last track of the DVD that comes with the book: It is called Documentary 2: What teachers use in the classroom. Once you have watched it, post your answer to the following two questions:
1. What activity or technique from the ones discussed in the video would you "steal"for one of your classes and why?
2. What's your personal position about the use of technology vs other "traditional" material in class?
See you soon.
Hi everybody!
ReplyDelete1. What activity or technique from the ones discussed in the video would you "steal “for one of your classes and why?
As teachers, we must look for activities or techniques that help the students to understand and learn in an easier and better way, something general or specific worked in a class. To get this, it´s obvious that technology is one of the most important tools, because you can practice the four skills through diverse elements seen on internet. However, I´m going to steal one activity from the video: the one where the teacher uses scissors, piece of paper and glue for explaining or giving a class. Why? Because we don´t know if some day, we have to teach in a context where there are not computers, there´s not internet; so, in that situation, as teachers, it´s necessary to develop ideas in order to get an interesting and dynamic class, but especially a class, where the students produce something. Besides, in a learning process, we should create a dimensioned perspective. This means, that as a main goal, we want that the students be fluent in all the skills for producing something, but we must involve other things, like movement (cut a piece of paper, stand up to organize words, among other things) to stimulated something prevailing in the students: creativity. This idea doesn´t mean that the students can´t be creative with technology (that would be absurd); it´s just that you can improve the creativity through different ways.
2. What's your personal position about the use of technology vs. other "traditional" material in class?
Well, I think that the word “vs.”, it shouldn´t exist. Why am I saying this? Because if you are a teacher who is committed with the students´ process, if you are a teacher who reads all the time looking for new techniques (all of them don´t have to be virtual) or approaches, but especially if you are a teacher who prepares a class (mixing as much English skills as you can), you know that the use of technology or the use of “traditional” material in a class, it won´t be a problem for you. Of course, all depends of the context that we are teaching (like I said before) and like Jeremy Harper says: “All depends of what we want to achieve and how we think we can best achieve it”. Also, we have to see the students´ reaction with the kind of material you use (if they show a positive reaction or not); in that case, you have to ask yourself something that Jeremy Harper said: What would help us to achieve our objectives more efficiently?
You are right Freyder, we can't assure that one option is more effective than the other. They can complement each other and we as teachers should take advantage of it.
Deletei think you've said something really important Freyder, we can´t know if technology it´s better than the traditional way , it depends on the context we are working on and if we´re good teachers, it should not be a problem either of them.
DeleteTeachers shouldn't focus on one way or one material because we should at least try to cover all our students' needs. Both options are good and can be effective depending on how you use them. If you know what you're teaching and have clear objectives, you won't have a problem if you can't use technology, you will be capable of adapting yourself and your students to the situation.
DeleteThat’s right guys! We must develop our abilities using technology or “traditional” material, in order to adapt them, with the likes and needs of a class.
DeleteWhatever works best for the student. I do believe that some students don't know what kind of technology is available to them outside the classroom and that can cause complications with the learning experience.
DeleteYour idea of using emojis is a great idea, though, for the record. I have not used them personally but a lot of the kids nowadays do. Very interesting idea. Thanks.
DeleteGreg. It was Maira´s idea, not mine. Take care man.
DeleteI think as Freyder says its important to develop our abilities to use both traditional and non tradicional ways in that case if by any chance we dont have access to internet, or audiobooks, or any other tool, we could still hace our class without any problems.
DeleteFreyder, I really like the word you used, "commited", that is really important, we have to always look for new ways to teach students, for that you need commitment, and for what I have seen so far, you have plenty, good luck
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DeleteThanks man.
DeleteHello guys! I would like to "steal" from the video the activity with the masks to teach about feelings. But instead of using those kind of faces I would like to use emojis because they are very popular among kids and adults. I think this activity was cool and how the teacher connected different exercises to help the students to memorize the words and use them in a sentence was very creative.
ReplyDeleteOn the other hand, I agree with Harmer when he says that the use of technology or "traditional" material depends a lot on the kind of objectives we have stablished for our class. We need to decide which option would be more meaningful and comprehensible for the learners. Considering that each student has a different learning process we should use a combination of both options. This will add more variety to our classes making them more enjoyable. Also, as someone in the video mentioned, it is good to give learners the opportunity to interact with elements that they don't use as much at home; some of them might be "online" all the time and some might not have too much access to technology.
i really agree with you Maira when you say that we as teachers should choose which one it's better for the class depending on our objectives, because, as you've said, not all the learners has the same process of learning.
DeleteI agree with you Maira, it really depends on how you organize your class and what are your objectives for the class, you can teach the same class without using technology. I don't think technology should be forced in a classroom if it is not needed.
DeleteI think Maira has done something very important and it’s to adapt an aspect (emojis) to a context. With this example, we realize that as teachers, it’s urgent to analyze what is the class’ tendency and for getting this tendency, is convenient not only to teach; sometimes, we must talk with the students, ask them how do they feel personally (not to personal due to you have to keep a distance) and in the class, because believe it or not, with the time we become in something more than teachers (friends, fathers, mothers, psychologists).
DeleteI loved how Maira adapted the masks to what we use nowadays, it is a wonderful idea and I am sure it would work.
DeleteOh Maira, you just happened to have the best ideas, that adaptations of the masks to a modern Element as the EMOJI, was just wonderful!!
DeleteIt show a lot of creativity. I also agree with you about having our students doing new things for them, which as i said in my comment, in a world full of technology the traditional aids or visuals become an Ally in order to innovate.
We also need to keep in mind what kind of technology is available to the students. That way one way of teaching is not overshadowed by the other. That way the student doesn't become too dependent on one or the other but can use both.
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ReplyDeleteI'd like to steal the excercise with glue and paper, because it reminds us that whe should always keep in mind that technology it´s not everything, yes it's a huge tool and it's almost everywhere, but can't forget that in some places we are not going to have acces to technology and because of that we should not stop giving the class, and for me technology it´s not better than the old traditions, yes technology has advantages because maybe for some students it's more attractive than the old traditions and sometimes it´s more comfortable and easy to use, but not all the learnes learn in the same way or even maybe as teachers we could get into a situation when there are no electricity or computers we should give a good class, even if we do not have technology on our side.
ReplyDeleteWe are usually asked to not use our phones during our classes because the truth is that it can be a distraction. Now, imagine a class using only technology where the students are using tablets instead of notebooks and pens and everything is made on this device, how can you measure that your students is actually working on the activity you gave them or doing something else? To do that, you have to really manage to give them devices that only work for educational purposes which is completely possible but what is the need of forcing technology in a classroom so much?
DeleteThat point you mentioned about having a power outage may happen and our beautifuly tech-fullfilled lesson will fall apart in a matter of seconds. Though usually the solution when there's a power outage is to not do the class, what if we Do have to do it, what would our B plan be. That's why you have to do a lesson plan, and take into consideration small things like this.
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ReplyDeleteHi guys!
ReplyDeleteI hope you have a nice weekend.
1. What activity or technique from the ones discussed in the video, would you "steal" for one of your classes and why?
The activity that caught my attention and I would "steal" is the one where the students are given pieces of paper and each piece of paper has a verb written on it from the story the teacher chose for them, what they have to do is to put the verbs in order to reach out the story. I liked the activity because I think it gives the students the opportunity to analyze what they've read and learnt, to produce something out of it more than just memorizing the verbs, they have to know the meaning of those to be able to organize them in order to understand the story.
2. What's your personal position about the use of technology vs other "traditional" material in class?
I consider there should be a balance between each material you use. Using only technology in a classroom can be tricky, technology can be distracting and it might be hard for a teacher to control if the students are actually doing what they're supposed to. I think students can learn more when they have to work with their hands, when they do more than typing; they’re interacting with different elements when they have to work on something manually to achieve their goals. Depending on your objectives, there are easier ways to make them happen using one way or the other. There are things you simply can’t do using a device in a 2-hour class for example.
I have a question, are teachers using only technology in a classroom because the students are more used to it or is it because it somehow makes their work easier? In a world where we are exposed to technology all the time, the classroom should be a space free from technology?
We were asked to create a lesson plan based on a website, we used technology to get the websites, we made the website work for our purposes but yet most of us in our lesson plans asked the students to do something out of the website whatever it was a presentation, creating an ad or writing something. With our own work we can see that it is possible to use both in a classroom and prepare a better class combining those tools.
Sometimes it happens, technology is used as the only resource, or in other cases it is just a provider of videos and articles related to the topic. But as we learned in this module, there are thousands of resources we can use from Internet and combining them with the traditional materials we have even more possibilities to design classes that meeet our students needs.
DeleteLet’s put an example. You tell to your students to look for a word in the dictionary; when they go to the internet, it takes them (mostly all of them) to find the meaning of the word in 1 or 2 minutes. Now, with some students from these days, you put the same activity but with a dictionary book, and for many of them, it takes like 4 or 5 minutes to find the word; even some of them (for the laziness) tell you that the word is not in the dictionary. So, it’s clear that the technology in this case, makes them easier the process of searching (like you said before). According to your questions, we can see with this example, that the problem is not if the students are using an online dictionary or a dictionary book; the thing would be, how often is the teacher mixing the 2 ways to look for a word (in order to improve technological and manual abilities). But the most important question is, if the teacher is giving to his/her students tools or methods to do that kind of research (using the technology or a book). In this point, is where you can see a real committed teacher.
DeleteThat's exactly what I meant, I don't think technology should be forced in the classroom, why would you need to use technology all the time in a class? By technology, I mean internet. Some teachers don't like using the white board and they rather make PowerPoint presentations which is completely fine, it also helps to save time because you would use the time you waste writing on the white board doing something else. Teachers should promote self learning but you don't pay classes for example, to go use internet all the time? You know what I mean?
DeleteHello Guys!!! I tried that cd or dvd on my home pc and my work and its not working!!! So I ve been reading all the comments likes Camila's comment on question No. 2. What's your personal position about the use of technology vs other "traditional" material in class? I totally agree with her it should be a balance when we are creating our lesson plan in the conventional things we could use and the technology, but mainly as Willy says if you have students you have a class, we need to be able to create a class even if we have or not books, audiobooks, internet, websites or any tool avalaible, in case something happens we should always be prepared to have or class with teaching aids or withouth them.
DeleteYes Cami, I know what you mean.
DeleteThat' right Cami, rather than the idea of considering technology as "the tool" it should be considered as a useful one, the example you pointed out that our lesson plan just used technology as a mean to prepare it by using the website, yet the main objective was to teach something different from that website.
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ReplyDelete1. What activity or technique from the ones discussed in the video would you "steal"for one of your classes and why?
ReplyDeleteIn my case, where i work i have 50 minute sessions, where the main objective is to talk, therefore i would "steal" the idea of grammar cards, or color cards. Because though students are different there are some common mistakes and speak patterns that we can have posted on the walls of the sets, to illustrate the students and to remind them how things are normally said.
2. What's your personal position about the use of technology vs other "traditional" material in class?
I think my position was mentioned in the video, Balance is the key, in a world where the daily contact with technology is so frequent, using "traditional" materials in class become innovative and may catch our students' attention in a better way, but that is where the balance comes into action, because if we ONLY use paper cutouts, or flash cards or the board, it is very likely that our students will get bored or even mechanical. Thus making combination of activities, using technology and "traditional" aids will be the best option to First enhance our and the students' creativity, and students will also won't consider us predictable, instead they will be eager to know our next activity.
That's the right expression Yuhad, "balance is the key" using traditional methods will enhance creativity and technology the access to whole larger range of information.
DeleteBalance is the key. That is the magic question. How do you strike a balance to where it isn't too difficult for students inside and outside of the classroom? That is a loaded question and I guess you have to achieve that balance by experience.
DeleteYes experience its a plus...its makes you more confidence!!! But its good to be learning all these cool things about teaching...
DeleteA class where you interact with different materials, games, activities etc, would be way more fun than a class when all you have to do is using an iPad to look for information.
DeleteHi everyone, to answer the first question, I'd choose those activities using magazines, cutting out pictures, words and glueing them to a sheet of paper or even a larger chart or making card games; the idea and use of colored paper, glue, scissors and similar materials makes the learning process more memorable, it stores and stays easier in your mind and the idea of making something with your hands or something concrete, gives a different kind of achievement to the student.
ReplyDeleteAs for the second question, definitevly it's a balance of both, technology and tradional methods, you just can't choose only one. We all know how wonderful tool is technology, it makes everything easier, it's fast and gives us reliable information, but traditional methods gives the sense of confidence that will be a memorable experience that the students will achieve; besides technology isn't available to everyone or is everywhere so teachers should be creative and opened up to traditional methods anyways.
Happy weekend to all! 😀
Exactly Connie, I think it is great to show our students that they can have fun and learn a lot by doing activities with really simple materials like paper, scissors, colors...
DeleteAs I said in my comment, I think the classroom shouldn't be a space where technology is the main source, especially with children as we saw in the DVD, they need extra movement, activities that encourages them to interact and use their hands and mind to be creative.
DeleteConnie, I really love your comments and your work, you keep and say everything to the point, I hope to get there one day, you are amazing for someone with no experience, keep up the good work ;)
DeleteThanks Diego for your compliment, it's really flattering coming from an experienced teacher like you! I'm doing my best! 😀
DeleteLOL, thanks Connie, I don't consider myself a teacher, I'm in the process of becoming one, well, I'm gonna try, is the least I can do.
DeleteCouldn't get the disc to play but after playing with it for a few days, I finally got it to work. Anyway, the activity that I would steal is using the whiteboard to stick pictures for visual effect. I never thought about sticking pictures on the wall or whiteboard. Probably because I never have tape available to stick things up.lolol On the second part of the question, I think that you can integrate the two to enhance the learning experience of the student. You can alleviate boredom in the classroom by using traditional ways like cutting and pasting pictures by using paper and scissors and crayons while enhancing their learning outside of the classroom by using websites, blogs, ipads, and computers.
ReplyDeleteThis is especially good when you are teaching younger students.
DeleteI agree with you Gregory, we should encourage students to self learn and be curious and look for the answers themselves but in the classroom, technology in my opinion should be used only when necessary.
DeleteWhat activity or technique from the ones discussed in the video would you "steal"for one of your classes and why?
ReplyDeleteTo me, all the activities and techniques shown in the video are important for teaching, it all would depend on age and level of the students and what we want to accomplish. The one I would steal is the old fashioned way of doing things through drawing, cutting and gluing things together, it is the best way to get students at any age to participate,the list of activities you can do with this is endless, the resources used are all easy to get and not expensive, compare to others such as laptops, computers and other electronic devices, for kids specially, it's a good idea to stimulate imagination and motor skills.
What's your personal position about the use of technology vs other "traditional" material in class?
There is a time and place for everything we do, we've learned that in the last few weeks, they both work and are important for teaching, but speaking for myself, I need to keep in mind the level and age of students when using the different techniques, if I ever end up teaching little kids, my main sources would be paper, colors glue and the whiteboard, if I teach young adults and adults it would be a combination of all techniques. Keep in mind, technology isn't everywhere, books can be old and outdated, so, imagination and creativity are our best tools.
Everything mentioned in the video works, we always have to keep in mind age and level of students, we as teachers have to get to know them and be able to tell their flaws and strong points, the learning will also depend on how we give the class, our personality and how we make the students feel, we,as people, can be boring at times, so we need to work on ourselves every day.
ReplyDelete