Category: English
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Still on the Mantras for Tired Teachers
In my last post, I talked about the three mantras for tired teachers, and mentioned that my learning goal of the month was to not only learn, but also test the pedagogical possibilites of QRcodes. I’m delighted to say that I followed the two first mantras (learn and try) and am here to share (as…
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Three Powerful Mantras for Tired Teachers
We can easily picture educators who suffer from an ongoing, cronic burnout. No motivation, no strength, happiness in the eye, passion. Many become the complainers, resistant, tired souls that simply let life pass by, waiting for the day they can retire. I’m an optimist at heart and truly believe that if one decided to become an…
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Twisting Homework Work – A tool, A thousand Ways to Engage students
She was meant to be a star. Her photos were all over, Vogue magazine, among all renowned international magazines you can think of. One day, though, … How about a bit of homework revolution for a change? Add this sentence to the board, send the photo to your students and tell them to access http://photofunia.com,…
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Abundance x Scarcity – Digital Literacy in the Equation
In my presentation about how educators have been collaborating in our school, sharing resources, ideas, connecting, interacting, my first slide is about abundant and scarce resources in our workplace. First answer from the audience about scarcity in an educational setting? TIME.For me? INITIATIVE! Some people are willing to follow, but not to start a movement,…
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Talking about Pets
My class tomorrow is about pets. This is a topic that arouses lots of interest and interaction as there are many people attached to their pets. A while ago, I recorded this simple video with a friend. As voicethread is a dynamic tool to create learning objects, now I can use it with my students…
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RSCON 3 – Professional Development in Pajamas
Last week, we had the wonderful Online conference – the “Reform Symposium“. I was delighted to have presented there, as there were so many talented educators presenting. Truly an honor. http://reformsymposium.com As much as I wanted to be there 24/7 for the three inspiring days of the free online professional development opportunity, I couldn’t because…
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Reformsymposium – Your Professional Development Excuses are Over
There’s no way you can keep finding excuses for not learning with other educators around the globe. This is your chance, so grab it and enjoy the ride starting tomorrow, July 29th. http://reformsymposium.com Info about my presentation available at http://brazilbridges.pbworks.com/RSCON3
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Icebreakers, not Sleeping Pills
I remember when I had English classes, most of them started the same. The teacher would tell the rules of our class and write on the board the test dates for us to copy. Then, there would be some kind of warmer that sometimes was colder than being in the Antarctic with inappropriate clothes for the…
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No Excuses for Educators to Go Beyond – Professional Development
I truly believe that institutions are not able to provide all the professional development opportunities an educator needs. In the past, workshops, training sessions, lectures with invited speakers were the only way to go for professional development, and we thought that this would suffice. Certainly not true anymore. One-size-fits-all kind of training seems to me…
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Posterous – Blogging with Style
http://narede.posterous.com I’ve been using Posterous for a while, and if you are considering blogging as an option to keep your thoughts, ideas, resources, comments, audio and video files in one place, Posterous might be what you’re looking for. Its main advantage is its user-friendliness. It is so simple to start using it that the whole…
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Cool Writing Tool of the Week – OhLife
http://ohlife.com Do you want a simple tool to invite your students to write more and keep a journal? It can be a journal about their learning experience, or their daily lives. OhLife! sends them a reminder everyday and they simply have to reply to the message by mail to have their thoughts neatly posted. If…
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Professional Development – Do-It-Yourself Approach
Ann Foreman has shared her wonderful presentation about professional development. What she says is exactly what I’ve been advocating for some years now. Educators need to be in charge of their own learning. They need to understand that PD is not institutionally-bound. We need to get hold of our own professional development perspective and analyze…
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365 Photos – Telling a Story
Photos are snapshots of a flash of a moment that will never happen again. They freezes time, space, people. They tell a story. They keep memories alive. Since 2009 I’ve been part of this wonderful group of passion-driven people, educators, amateurs who take their time every day to share a snapshot, that frozen moment of…
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m-Learning for Kids
If you are considering using tablets with the young ones, this guide from Laura Wright is an excellent start: Open publication – Free publishing – More education
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m-Learning – Screencasting App
I downloaded showmeapp to my iPad. You can write on the whiteboard and record a screencast, or you can use an image to record your impressions, stories, tutorials using it. Here’s my example for basic students: http://www.showmeapp.com/sh/?i=5220 I uploaded it from my iPad straight to the site. From there, you can embed the video or…
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Images in the Classroom Series – Emotions
http://www.flickr.com/photos/21204781@N07/2501994750/ My husband calls me a tourist or gadget girl. I always have a device which can help me capture the moment. First, because of my interest in photography, in getting that moment that in nanoseconds will be simply past. However, my most preement reason for being a gadget girl is that I am an…
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m-Learning in the EFL Classroom
More and more, I’ve been interested in finding and testing possibilities of using mobile devices in the classroom – flip cameras, smartphones, recorders, tablets – everything which is at a student’s reach. When I had a group of teens, it was simply natural to explore what was at my students’ fingertips, as for them it…
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ISTE – An Ed Tech Conference worth Following
For many educators in the world, it is vacation, summer time. For others, like in Brazil, it is winter break. In any case, a very opportune time of the year to keep our learning path running. ISTE is one of those unmissable opportunities. Of course, the best way to attend it is by being there.…
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Powerful Tool for the Classroom – Qwiki
Imagine a more dynamic, visually-appealing Wikipedia with audio and video. Mind-blowing Qwiki is exactly this!Great visuals, narration, subtitles. An impressive tool with great potential for any classroom. Take a look, for example, this video I got after searching about Pelé: View Pelé and over 3,000,000 other topics on Qwiki.
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Control X Emergence
I was just listening to this wonderful online presentation by Nancy White Marching into the Future with Heads, Hearts and Hand Nancy, as always brilliant and inspiring, talked about the connective possibilities that the Net has enabled us, but the point that really caught my attention was when she talked about emergence x control. This…