Technology Tools for Teaching Grammar

 Hello everyone, 

I hope you had an enjoyable weekend and you are ready to start a fresh week. 

Teaching in general must be very hard. Especially for new teachers that are on their first steps of their careers must be a struggle with a lot of stress and not feeling good psychically in a kind of way. So you can imagine how it would be Teaching Grammar. Of course it can’t be easy, but it can’t be inaccessible as well. In order to Teach Grammar you need to have a lot of background knowledge and to be confident on using the correct terms and explaining these. You can’t just wake up one morning and be like” oh…I am going to teach grammar cause I know English”, trust me it’s not enough. 

Teaching Grammar is not simply for us as teachers to correct students when they express themselves wrongly, but it’s for students being able to express complex ideas, being able to select from the wide variety of tenses in their mind, differentiating between adverbs of manner and adverbs of place and not only. I can’t say that Teaching Grammar is fun for students, because sometimes they may not understand, others they may feel bored, so in order for them to make Teaching Grammar better and more attractive I have chosen 4 different technological tools that I would like to introduce in my future classroom.

 The first Technological Tool that I would like to introduce is:

QUILL

On Quill students will be able to have fun with free grammar and writing activities. Students can get instant feedback and explanations on sentence structure, fragment and run-on sentences so they can both correct and understand the grammatical rules they’re following. On the teacher-end of Quill, you’ll get a diagnostic summary detailing the areas in which each student should focus more of their learning.

Another one is:

 Grammar Wonderland

Grammar lessons don’t need to be boring and bland. Grammar Wonderland takes students through the wonderful world of verbs, nouns and adjectives as they travel through the different areas of this virtual world.

The third technological tool is:

 Mobilibs

Improvise with your creative storytelling, while getting valuable lessons in grammar with MobiLibs. With twenty great stories to draw from, students will be able to ad lib stories on the go with their mobile device and share with others.

And the last but not least important is:

 Comparative Adjectives

With more than 350 beautiful images held in its library, the Comparative Adjectives app lets students engage in learning in a fun and easy to understand way. The ability to compare and describe differences between objects is a key component in language, and this app gives students an opportunity to explore this area of language in a fun and interactive way.

Hope you enjoyed reading this post and i also hope that you find it interesting! Feel free to leave your comments down below on the comment section. :)))

My reflections and feelings in relation to our project.

 My reflections and feelings in relation to our project. 

Hello everyone, 

I hope you had a lovely weekend and that you are doing great. Full of energy to start a new and fresh week. My blog post for this week as you can see from the title will be about my reflections until now on my group project. Personally i believe that working on a group has its benefits. Because you know that both need to work hard to achieve a great result at the end. When you have an individual project you know how much you want to dedicate on that and you set your standards about how much you want to achieve, but when you work on a group projects you need to work hard not only for yourself but for the other members of the group as well...It's a team work. 

Until now i can say that my team member and i, are working hard. Doing a collaborative work, help you develop as an individual and learn from each other. When you bring together two different people in every kind of aspect, then you understand how important is working on a group together. Exchanging ideas is the key component in a group work. Also breaking complex tasks into parts and steps is very relieving for us because we know that we can work on them step by step. Whole is greater than the sum of it's parts. But what do i mean by that is: when somebody is working on a group they tend to get more work done than if, an individual took on a work by it's own. We have come to great results until now, team work is not only hard work and dedication, but it's also fun. Especially nowadays with this pandemic, we need to work with different programs in order to make our work as interesting as possible. This automatically includes video calls with our friends in order to work together as it is impossible for us to meet in person. Video calls include not only work but also jokes with each other during the whole process.

To sum up working on a group work online, doesn't mean that we know everything about these programs and how to proceed if something doesn't work as we plan to. We have had a lot of troubles using them but that is why we are on a group to help and support each other when something goes wrong. Henry Ford once said: "coming together is a beginning, keeping together is process, working together is success", and i totally agree with him. 

I hope you enjoyed reading this post, feel free to leave your comments!!! 

Technology tools in lesson planning. (Answering questions)

Hello everyone, 

I hope you are doing well and enjoying the beautiful weather nowadays!!!  

This week i am asked to answer some questions and specifically two. The first question is: "What technology tools are important for your students to know how to use?" 

I made a lot of research and i came up with different technology tools that students need to know how to use them. The first tool that i would like to mention is, Buncee. It understands how much more kids learn if they’re engaged, so their platform makes it easy to engage students from anywhere. Teachers have the flexibility to create activities that their class will enjoy with over 1000 templates, and students earn badges as they complete their work. Buncee also makes it easy for students to collaborate with sharing and discussion functionality. 

Another one that i would like to introduce to you is SeeSaw.Rather than limit students to one method for demonstrating their knowledge, SeeSaw allows students to show what they know with tools like draw+record, collage, video, and more. Educators report that SeeSaw is intuitive for students to use, so minimal support is required to use this tool!

The third technology tools is called "Learn Around The World". The goal of of this tool is to use technology to connect students and educators globally. They have events and collaborative projects where students can work with people in different countries, and virtual field trips for exploring foreign lands. LATW also has guest speakers and private events that teachers can take advantage of. Imagine speaking with someone who lives in Buenos Aires while learning about Argentina. Your students can ask questions and use their curiosity to spur discussion.

Flip Grids, do you wish classroom discussion could continue after the bell rings? Do you wish you could encourage quiet students to speak their minds without feeling intimidated? Then this is the right technology tool for you. teachers create discussion topics and students can respond with video recordings. Their peers can respond to keep the discussion going. This tool helps students formulate their ideas in a pre-recorded setting, which means no one gets talked over or ignored by louder voices.

These are some of the technology tools that not only students but also teachers must know how to use them! But let's pass to the next question that is: "What technology tools will best enhance your students project work and presentation of the results?" 

Here i would like to mention Padlet. Padlet is a great tool to encourage student communication and collaboration, and is used in my classroom at least on a weekly basis. Teachers can use a collaborative tool like Padlet as a bellringer activity, a backchannel for class discussions, a review or research activity, or to introduce themselves to students from around the world!

Google Classroom as well is a very good tool for students project works. Google really hit a home run when they unveiled Classroom in 2014. Since then, teachers have been able to share resources, send assignments, and provide feedback using one great site. Google also frequently updates Classroom based on user feedback, and actually asks and listens to teachers who use Classroom when they make updates! Teachers can use Google Classroom as a “landing page” for their class, where all course resources and information are housed.

Many students and teachers may see Quizlet only as a place to access vocabulary information and create flashcards for studying purposes. While Quizlet is a great tool for this activity, it offers a fantastic resource that teachers can use to encourage their students to collaborate with their peers while reviewing/pre-viewing/learning course concepts. What is this, you ask? Quizlet Live, of course! Quizlet Live is a great collaborative formative assessment tool that not only requires students to work together to achieve success, but also promotes mastery learning. While participating in a Quizlet Live game, students are randomly placed into teams and are given an animal mascot, sometimes a real animal, and other times a mythical creature.

Hope you enjoy reading this post. Feel free to leave your comments!!!

Multiple Intelligences!

 Hi everyone, 

First of all I hope you've had a wonderful and unforgettable Easter today. Probably you are questioning yourself why i am posting this late tonight. The reason why, is because i have read an incredible article about multiple intelligences, proposed by Howard Gardner in 1983. Many educators have had the experience of not being able to reach some students until presenting the information in a completely different way or providing new options for student expression. Perhaps it was a student who struggled with writing until the teacher provided the option to create a graphic story, which blossomed into a beautiful and complex narrative. Or maybe it was a student who just couldn't seem to grasp fractions, until he created them by separating oranges into slices. Because of these kinds of experiences, the theory of multiple intelligences resonates with many educators. It supports what we all know to be true: A one-size-fits-all approach to education will invariably leave some students behind. However, the theory is also often misunderstood, which can lead to it being used interchangeably with learning styles or applying it in ways that can limit student potential. While the theory of multiple intelligences is a powerful way to think about learning, it’s also important to understand the research that supports it. The theory of multiple intelligences challenges the idea of a single IQ, where human beings have one central "computer" where intelligence is housed. Howard Gardner, the Harvard professor who originally proposed the theory, says that there are multiple types of human intelligence, each representing different ways of processing information:

• Verbal-linguistic intelligence refers to an individual's ability to analyze information and produce work that involves oral and written language, such as speeches, books, and emails.

•  Logical-mathematical intelligence describes the ability to develop equations and proofs, make calculations, and solve abstract problems.

• Visual-spatial intelligence allows people to comprehend maps and other types of graphical information.

• Musical intelligence enables individuals to produce and make meaning of different types of sound.

• Naturalistic intelligence refers to the ability to identify and distinguish among different types of plants, animals, and weather formations found in the natural world.

• Bodily-kinesthetic intelligence entails using one's own body to create products or solve problems.

• Interpersonal intelligence reflects an ability to recognize and understand other people's moods, desires, motivations, and intentions.

• Intrapersonal intelligence refers to people's ability to recognize and assess those same characteristics within themselves.

But do you really know what's the difference between multiple intelligences and learning styles? 

One common misconception about multiple intelligences is that it means the same thing as learning styles. Instead, multiple intelligences represents different intellectual abilities. Learning styles, according to Howard Gardner, are the ways in which an individual approaches a range of tasks. They have been categorized in a number of different ways -- visual, auditory, and kinesthetic, impulsive and reflective, right brain and left brain, etc. Gardner argues that the idea of learning styles does not contain clear criteria for how one would define a learning style, where the style comes, and how it can be recognized and assessed. He phrases the idea of learning styles as "a hypothesis of how an individual approaches a range of materials." Everyone has all eight types of the intelligences listed above at varying levels of aptitude -- perhaps even more that are still undiscovered -- and all learning experiences do not have to relate to a person's strongest area of intelligence. For example, if someone is skilled at learning new languages, it doesn’t necessarily  mean that they prefer to learn through lectures. Someone with high visual-spatial intelligence, such as a skilled painter, may still benefit from using rhymes to remember information. Learning is fluid and complex, and it’s important to avoid labeling students as one type of learner. As Gardner states, "When one has a thorough understanding of a topic, one can typically think of it in several ways." 

Hope you enjoyed reading this post. Feel free to leave your comments!!!