Week 10

This week I learned about the great tool Simple English Wikipedia. It is the same website and has the same content as Wikipedia, however, the only difference is that it is written and explained in simple English. I can have my students use this and they will find it extremely helpful, as it is written in a level they would understand. 

Week 6

This week is all about writing and speaking.

Some new, interesting sites and software were in this week's list and I am going to tell you about the ones I have found to be the most helpful.

I'll start with Skype, most of us know it and use it from time to time, but I have never thought it could be used within the class or as part of the English teaching method. The main idea is to let the students talk to one another as they would normally do, but try and use as much English as possible. They can talk about any subject they like and even set regular times for conversations, even when they are not in class!

The second cool thing I've found is the use of the http://www.learner.org/interactives/spelling/index.html. This online tool could help students who find out they have trouble writing and spelling. It can detect spelling errors and correct them automatically. Have your kids write whatever they want and put it through the site. It will help them see were exactly did they do wrong and misspell the words.

Another important site for aiding students with their spelling is http://www.spellingcity.com/. It has so many fun games and activities to practice spelling with, that the kids wouldn't want to leave. We, as teacher, can create specially made vocabulary lists and share them with the students in class or as homework.

A special site, which I have already tried out myself is online interactive printing press. it gives us the option of creating interesting newspaper and other templates look-alike texts for our class. I have transformed the texts from last week's unit into funny looking newspaper, including pictures and headlines. It gives reading an added value and the students really liked it.

Finally, the last site on my list is http://www.classtools.net/SMS/, with it we can create funny fake SMS texts. The best thing about it is that the students are quite familiar with the SMS structure and can relate easily to it. Another great benefit is the opportunity to use short, easy to understand sentences such as: present simple, yes/no questions and WH questions. That way, we can practice, for instance, sentences structure and words order using a simple conversation between two friends.

Week 4

In week 4 we learned about combining pictures in our teaching expirience. Something I encourage and personally enjoy doing. I think it is a good learning experience and makes the process more fun and easy.

I learned about a great tool (Snaggit) that will definitely help me in the future, and examples of pictures and the use of pictures, such as the amazing website Photofunia.

We can use such activities with creating pictures with our students. We can have more creative lessons, ask them to take pictures of objects and translate them into English, have them take pictures of English words and make a sentence out of them and so on. The tools are there, we just need to use them.

 

Week 3

In week 3 I have learned more than I thought. I discovered new websites and new tools that will help be a better teacher.

I recenetly read one of the blogs that I am following. And I was surprised to find that the US government completely supports the schools in the technological side.

The blog mentioned, rightfuly so, that technology is no longer a luxury, but a true necessity. It is agreed that giving students the best chance at success can be done mainly by providing more access to technology.

However, obviously that schools are facing limited resources and cannot supply what is really needed in order to achieve such an achievement. Hopefully this kind of understanding will be in Israel as well.

My Secong Post

Hi everyone!

This is my second post!

I have chosen three interesting blogs:

"Free Technology for Teachers"

"MiddleWeb"

"Teach & Learning"

The blog "Free Technology for Teachers" provides teachers with free websites and resources that they can use in their classrooms, such as videos, guides, games, etc. This can make the learning expirience for the student much more fun and less boring.

The blog "MiddleWeb" is about interesting ways and helpful tools for teaching elementary school.

The blog "Teach & Learning" tells about new technological tools that would be helpful and more joyful in class, such as 3D printing, which was very new to me.

I believe I will be able to use in class everything that is online, the videos, the guides, etc. Regarding the 3D printer, that will be depending on the school resource obviously. But I would love to have the opportunity.

My First Blog - Language Skills through ICT

Hello!

My name is Dana. I am 25 years old, and a third year student at Levinsky.

The course Language Skills through ICT sounds interesting and I am lokoing forward to start studying. My expectations from this course is to gain more technologcly knowledge and gain tools that will be more interesting than the traditional teaching methods.