Digital Integration CI

Lucas Rigonato from our Goiania Sul branch has sent us a very interesting activity. Check it out:

• First of all, this was an activity I carried out as an assignment for the Early Inset course which I'm taking these days.
As a lead-in I posed the following question to my Plus 5 students "What would you say if I asked you what your favorite English word was?". After that I showed them these 2 videos:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eU5TNOzDd98  
http://www.macmillandictionaryblog.com/whats-your-favourite-english-word ;

The latter one finishes reading the lines "Learn English, Love English, Live English" and then one of the students questioned why we didn't see the same happening with Portuguese. I, of course, directed the discussion to the other kids in the room. They all came up with different reasons. Then I put a list of factors favoring English as a Lingua Franca (which can be found here: http://revolutioninlearning.wordpress.com/2012/04/02/global-english-a-paradigm-shift/  ) on the board.
I briefly asked some of them what their favorite English words were and then said I wanted them to do the same thing they saw in the videos using their iPhones, iPods or whatever gadgets they had. They looked a bit shocked at first but eventually seemed to love the idea.
It was a 20-minute activity. After they finished one of the pupils promptly offered to edit the shootings. The following week they saw the result and were extremely amused laughing at themselves.

This edition of SandBox, we feature Camila Santos, teacher at our Freguesia - RJ branch. Take a look at her activity and you will realize it's not difficult to integrate simple yet effective uses of technology in class:

DIGITAL ACTIVITY USING MOBILE(S)

I had some extra time with my Junior A group so I decided to prepare a different activity with them. I do not remember exactly what lesson it was but they had just learned on the previous class how to ask and answer questions about people’s possessions by using “whose”. Besides that, they also learned some parts of the body in English on the previous week. The initial idea was to make them use their own phones but unfortunately some of them did not have them there so I used my mobile. I showed them a video on the board in order to catch their attention for some minutes while I was taking pictures of some parts of their body, one student at a time behind the group so that the others could not see us (it is a small group so it made this part easier). Then, I presented one of the pictures I had just taken and asked them, for example, “whose arm is that?” and they answered “it’s Camila’s, oh no...it’s Jessica’s” and so on. After modelling, they were able to ask their friends by themselves and make them answer.
It was funny and very fruitful as they laughed every time they saw a picture of themselves but they could not tell the others. Some of them found it funny because they had forgotten that they were on that picture I/their friend was showing. If I had more time on the following class, I would have repeated this activity but with their phones (or with somebody’s mobile if they did not have it).
All in all, it was a great experience! =)

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What about you?

Have you got any ideas on how to use technology in class?

Drop us a line:

bruno.andrade@culturainglesa.net

giselle.santos@culturainglese.net

Jumping onto our Sandbox of the week, we have Francisco Gauldino Costa from our Ilha do Governador branch. Check what he has done with Wallwisher (click on the pic to go to his page):

Theme: interesting animals. The theme was based on a coursebook unit which focused on pets. The aim was to promote class and online dicussions on the issue. My students built up a webpage whose title is 'World 'Wlid' Web'. It consisted of a number of mini-articles featuring animals written by them. The articles are displayed throughout the page, most of which enclose a short video. The site address is: http://wallwisher.com/wall/worldanimals

Marc Prensky Keynote Segmen at ISTE 2012...

Handout - Guidelines on good practice for using technology in the classroom.

This edition of Sandbox features an activity created by Luciana Sá, teacher in our Taquara branch. 

Her students used Google Docs throughout the semestre in order to write their compositions. Some tasks were done collaboratively, that is, a group of students wrote the same composition together. This way students had a chance to learn from each other's mistakes and get ideas from their peers.

The ISTE 2012 Sunday Keynote featuring Sir Ken Robinson with Shawn Covell, Marc Prensky, and Mayim Bialik on the topic of "Redefining Horizons: Encouraging S...

When the typical teacher sees her students using cell phones in class, her response is to put it away, take it away or through some other means remove the phone from the classroom.