Learn English Course Free

Thursday, February 6, 2014

Teaching tomorrow's leaders, today!

A great flyer by Billy, one of my Master's Degree students at URJC, just after two sessions.
I'm really proud. Congratulations Billy, awesome job! I'm sure you are already up to the challenge!

And do not miss his English backpack, a very sweet blog.

Un PLE para el aula de idiomas

Normalmente escribo en inglés en este blog, que utilizo regularmente en colaboración con mis alumnos, pero hoy es diferente, ya que el artículo de hoy está enfocado a la realización de la actividad final de la Unidad 4 del MOOC de INTEF "Entornos Personales de Aprendizaje (PLE) para el Desarrollo Profesional Docente".

Como me defino en mi cuenta de Twitter, soy "Profe de inglés a la que le gustan mucho las TIC", así que los motivos para la elección del tema de trabajo y la relación con mi profesión son claros, no necesitan mucha más explicación, especialmente porque soy profe por vocación y creo que convertirme en fan de las TIC también ha sido algo vocacional, ya que el descubrimiento del valor añadido de su uso en mis aulas me ha llevado a colaborar en red con entusiasmo, a invitar a mis alumnos a descubrir las TIC y las redes para convertirse en aprendices de inglés conectados, a trabajar en entornos virtuales colaborativos porque: ¿alguien puede negar el abanico de posibilidades que la red y las redes le abren a una persona que desee aprender y practicar inglés hoy en día, o la oportunidad de contar con escenarios digitales de aprendizaje prácticamente a nivel auténtico que pone la red a disposición de todas las personas en general?

Aunque ya pertenecía a varias comunidades de Google+ antes de comenzar este MOOC, para afrontar el reto que se nos plantea me he unido a la comunidad PLE para la clase de idiomas donde varios docentes de idiomas hemos empezado a compartir ideas, recursos, materiales y herramientas que encajan con las necesidades de mejora de la enseñanza de idiomas en las EEOOII, partiendo de un escenario ilustrado meidante un mapa conceptual diseñado con Mindomo, que identifica esas necesidades.

La comunidad la ha abierto Paola Iasci, profesora de italiano en EEOOII, y en torno a la misma estamos construyendo un tablero colaborativo en Pinterest, un grupo en Diigo, y una lista en Twitter. Compartimos todo en Twitter bajo el hashtag #pleparaidiomas y claro está, también con el hashtag del MOOC #eduPLEmooc.

Todos los docentes que se han unido a la comunidad PLE para la clase de idiomas son sin duda referentes en su campo, ya que se trata de docentes que intentan innovar en sus aulas, sacarle el mayor provecho a su PLE con sus alumnos y utilizar las TIC de forma creativa y efectiva en la clase, y por tanto, no es necesario ir a buscar estupendos teóricos sobre idiomas; los tenemos en las clases, en las redes, profesorado a pie de aula que se reinventa todos los días.

Desde aquí, agradezco a Paola Iasci que me haya invitado a unirme a esta comunidad, y animo a todos los que os dediquéis a la enseñanza de lenguas a uniros también para seguir ampliando nuestro #pleparaidiomas.

Wednesday, February 5, 2014

Are you up to the challenge?

On Monday February 3, I started a new adventure at URJC. I met an incredible group of future Primary Bilingual Teachers that joined the module I will be teaching over the next two months for the use of ICT and Digital Resources in Primary Bilingual Education, as part of the Master's Degree in English about CLIL for that educational level at the aforesaid University.

Are you up to the challenge? from M. Jesus Garcia

The champion challenge was 'Let's flood the school with Music and Art', chosen by three four member teams. 'Stories to warm hearts' turned the runner-up, and three people in three different teams will be tackling it from now until the end of April 2014. 'Audiovisual Science', 'Setting up a mobile library' and 'Turn Journalists into Brave Reporters' are the other best liked challenges.

As you may have realized by now, the choices are varied and may be overcome with a wide range of interactive activities which we will be accomplishing over these two months we have ahead of you.

Stay tuned for news about our e-projects, which we will be regularly tweeting under #ictclil_urjc

Guiding these future teachers successfully to rising to the challenges of their choice and accomplishing their aims will also be part of my mission for The 30 Goals Challenge for Educators in 2014 at supporting e-teachers.

Let's keep our fingers crossed! Good luck to all!

Tuesday, February 4, 2014

e-Encouraging to e-Read

e-Reading is Fun!!!!

Welcome! ¡Hola, Bienvenidos!

This year the 30 Goals Challenge for Educators is on a world tour and I am happy to be your Inspire Leader for this part of the journey.

So where in the world is the 30 goals? We are visiting Spain.

I invite you to accomplish the following goal: ‘e-Encouraging to e-Read’.

Accomplish This Goal

Make a video/audio recording giving a self-portrait of yourself as an e-reader or interview other e-readers and ask them to shape themselves when talking about e-reading.

Brief definition of the e-reading features of the student
Places and times where they read
Devices they use for their e-reading
Types of e-books they read
The e-book of their lifetime

Students can accomplish this goal by planning their recordings together sharing a Google draft doc. Then, they can record their self-portraits or interviews using a mobile phone or tablet and uploading them to a podcasting service, or stream record them straight away (that will depend on the students’ skills).

If you go for video clips instead, then they can use their mobile devices any way and upload their outcomes to a video channel.

My Reflection

Reflecting about oneself’s e-reading habits and being able to paint a self-portrait may encourage both us as teachers and our students to enjoy e-reading better.

Gaining more knowledge about our students’ e-reading preferences will make it easier for teachers to single out the most adequate ebooks to keep on promoting reading among our students.

Finding out about what their peers read, when and where they do so, undoubtedly will encourage students to go e-reading. Exchanging book recommendations is always a natural way to arise interest for new books to read, and by doing so through mobile devices and ICT gadgets we are improving digital skills, too.

Here you are the final outcomes of some C1 ESL students’ video self-portraits recorded with the iMovie app for IOS and then uploaded to our classroom Youtube channel: Self- portraits. We did this to celebrate World Book Day in April 2013, and in order to share it with the rest of the community, we also created an Augmented Reality Poster that announced the coming self-portraits. We used Aurasma to do so. If you’d like to find out what the poster hides, just follow the instructions in this blog post: Celebrating World Book Day.

Resources

About my country

I am happy to introduce you to my country, Spain.

I come from Avilés, a town in Asturias, Northern Spain, but at the moment I’m living and working in Madrid.

You are all invited to come and have a taste of Spain when you drop by. I will be happy to treat you to Sidra, Fabada and Casadielles, the specialties in my area that you can’t miss!