LISTEN UP!

Well, when my week that now is about to finish was starting and I take a glance to the week’s readings, I thought:  boy, make room for a  good reading session!  And so I did; it was not for the quantity but the quality!  now I can tell there was no waste of time read so much info about the CALL technologies, I must confess that I have no previous info about these research fields, that’s why I visit and revisit all the material, it was good for me to know (via your comments or post) that most of us use the music for our students. However I have to admit that my use of this resource (music) was kind of poor compared with some cool sites you recommend. This is for better; because of your links I could improve my listening-teaching methods. I have attended a lot of lectures and presentations of ESL teacher training, but I consider, that here into the real teachers is where I am learning more than ever, when I read something new I become an exited teacher that wants to check everything, and my mind begins to fly; How can I use this with my kiddos?, When?, How?  Only that now I know why to use it.

 At the moment I write this I’ve just finished to check all the sites you recommend, for the week and also the ones Jodi ET all the others recommend in the main course page.

Delicious came in the better moment to me, before this my links were quite a mess, now they’re a mess online! (But all together and accessible all the time online.)  

The project was good to give me a general idea of what is expected  from me  when I have to do mine, (hope so!)

Stuck.....in the middle?

After Reading useful info given to us i am stuck, stuck because it is very interesting how many research has been done in certain areas  that it is supposed that I as teacher must know, I think that’s why I am here. To learn. After reading the articles i'm going to keep an eye on this part of the education, for me reading this was like an eye opener that makes me see more details in the picture of the teaching practice.

As if I am stuck in the middle of my teacher education, it makes me to read more, to reflex on what I am doing,  to be more in touch with the research in certain areas that I ignore.

It was quite a shock to read that  -before born the baby finely tune to perceiving prosodic aspects of speech- (Lieberman1986, Gerken and Aslin  2005)- I know certain things about that but not this one. Indeed  this is what we are here for,  at least for me it will be useful to improve my knowledge of the teaching.

On the other hand the new tool Delicious, honors the name it is very handy, we are using more and more gadgets connected to the web and it becomes a problem (can share or access  to uor links in other computers or gadgets) this is over with this facebook of links.  I’ll write more about it in the days to come, for the moment my impression is……. The site totally rocks !!

poncho.

Times they are a-changin’

WEEK 2: Times they are a-changin’

This week is like a cool revelation, and a mind shaker.  Re-read the bloom taxonomy. And to know the revisited one was very good for me. In the other hand; the ABCD method made me change the way I when I plan my lessons, plus the info about to plan a lesson correctly was the perfect component to improve my teaching level, the meta searchers and all the links, info and recommendations, are by this moment in stand by for me, I am just like in the evaluating process of how many of them could be useful in my class context, but the equation goes to.. . Most of them!

I am very into the new technology implementation, because our kids are going to receive this world from us full of technology and the less we can do Is prepare them to use it as much and as well that  we can teach them. So I get from this a lot of tools to use and evaluate with my students and as I mentioned in a ninecet post made our web-classes more diverse.

Nevertheless after reading the:  "the Future of Search” made me to think and analyze, how lazy we’re making our mind with the computer implementation, in the past we (most of us) used to remember a large amount of phone numbers, now if some people could remind four is a miracle, we are more and more dependent on the machines(better if it is with internet connection) , but is it evolution, or involution?

I mean;  are we evolving to more complex society?  Or, to an isolated and ignorant one

Are we creating more reflective students that use the computers as a help to learn?

….Or the opposite:  I wonder the first one is correct, but… I doubt when  listen to my friends saying: “what for I need to know all those things”, “when we can google it”? 

:::: As the present now
will later be past
the order is
rapidly fadin'
and the first one now
will later be last
for the times they are a-changin'.

 From: 

Bob Dylan’s song: 

“the times they are a-changin' “

WEEK 2 HUMAN AFTER ALL.

After check, compare and try some of the searching tools reviewed and recommended, I wonder:

Is all of this so necessary?  I mean when I learned English (several years ago) I learned using traditional methods,  a classic teacher and some kiddos struggling and trashing our notebooks and books  to learn some ,  I am not against of course but, that’s how I learned on that times the most technological aid for the teacher was a TV. Set and a VCR  player!! And now we’re so plenty of information, like the one we get from this course, I was reading in some one’s post that on her school they’re trying  to let behind the traditionalism to follow the tech method to teach.

I just want to make a point here, again I am not against all this ,(welcome all the possible help to motivate our students) and I know that we’re preparing this generations to deal all of his life with the technology, but precisely that’s why I never forget how I learn, what was the context, how I did and how my teachers made to  praise us to follow, to never give up. But really, how many times you carry your lap, tablet, BB or whatever gadget you want and spend a whole evening just updating, checking, answering, and forwarding messages, e-mails, or just “updating your profile?
And how many of those were really productive? This just made me think about how to process all the info we have access via web, in the pre-electronic era we use to measure the info in pages, (a book commonly, a journal etc.)  now, the measure is a giga a mega and follow as you want,  and sometimes we got the info as soon as it is created (good thing) but sometimes is really annoying to surf  into all that to get the real good stuff, because the easy way to create and share  is now making that the web goes full of …. Bad info. So yes this kind of info and this sites are pretty cool to make our searches easier and more accurate, machines are here to make our life easier, but we are human after all.

WEEK 2 more than googles...

  yeah I know it's google but sounds cool as a song writen like that.
Week two is really a bomb, to know a meta-searcher (like noodle tools) and all the info you can access it's amazing, but it opens new ways to obtain good sourced info to use in my class improvement, I liked very much the blog entry called:
"the future of search" very detailed and futuristic and real. By this moment I had tried some of the web searchers recommended on the Noodletools all this things are very interactive and I am really excited about all the new tools I'm obtaining here! Thanks a lot to all of my teacher friends about the links you share with me.

Week one, oh baby it's a nice world!

wow I'm still amazed with this experience (and it's just the first week) the map was for me shocking, to read all the work my partners have as background and some of the conditions of their practice makes me feel integrated to a comunity of cool colaboration and learning, nice week-end to all of you my recently added friends! greetings from Guadalajara, my place. and yours of course "mi casa es tu casa" we say, it means:
"My house is your house" so, you're always welcome here!!

week 1

Well I like to write a lot (and sometimes here), this could be a cool way to share our experiences on the road of the teaching, so many people of all over the world with one common objective: share the experience of teaching,... awesome! (even when that sounds like in a contest, it's extremely exiting to have teacher-friends over the world!) from now the begging, the simple act of know all of you, is for me the first good thing that I earn from this course. by the way I work with kiddos that are between 12-15 years old, and in small groups of 40 little pupils! (sorry for the sarcasm) so you'll notice that we; the Mexican public school teachers, need a lot of patience and love to teach, to share.