Week 4

Hey guys,

Hope you had a great week. This week is all about Graphics and Visuals.

How can we use them to our benefit as teachers and what do our students know on how to find, work with and generally use them. It's widely spread that a picture is worth a thousand words. This is, of course, a saying/cliche that refers to the idea that complex stories can be described with just a single still image, or that an image may be more influential than a substantial amount of text. Therefore, there is an abondance of opportonities in using Graphics and Visuals. It can help you easily teach vocabulary and get your students more engaged (as it is more appealing), for example. It can help your students create better presentations and evolve creatively. You can use pictures to get your students to write what they see and much more...

I advise you to read this very interesting article on how images and pictures with text appear all around us. It suggests that every student can  find them in his daily landscape and we can ask them to bring examples of such that have problematic grammar issues. What a great idea!!! This will help them practice their meta-linguistic knowledge!!

My tips are for you as teachers but I advise you to share them with your students, so they would use them too...

Having trouble finding pictures or images on the web? Most of us know how to use Google Pictures but Scribds makes it a lot easier for us teachers to find complete sets of them related to specific vocabulary.

Want to add something to a picture you find or make your own image? MS Paint could really come in handy! You already have it on Windows so why are you wasting time? Watch this here to learn all about it!!! 

Want to go to the next level? Make your own cartoons? My fellow blogger Shuki Sela told me about a great website by the name of Toondoo.   

Finally, there's Photofunia. I've encountered it a few times reading other blogs. It's fun for sure to play with pictures, but no-one has given me an idea on how to implement it in class, so I've decided to leave it here for you... Who would pick up the gauntlet??

Week 3

Hey all,

This week I found out about many interesting tools.

I chose to use tools that I haven't used before.

I am going to teach a lesson to 11th graders next week.

It is a reading activity and as pre-reading activities I figured Quizlet and Crossword Puzzle Maker

could help me teach the vocabulary needed for the text in fun and easy ways.

As you can see in this link https://quizlet.com/129182918/do-vegetarians-kill-more-animals-than-meat-eaters-flash-cards/

Quizlet is very easy to handle. It finds the pictures for you and enables the students to practice the vocabulary in various fun ways such as flashcards,speller, test etc.

I also used the Crossword Puzzle Maker as can be seen here http://worksheets.theteacherscorner.net/make-your-own/crossword/crossword.php

to further instill the vocabulary to my students.

Both activities turned out to be easy to create and fun and engaging for my students!!!

Along other Apps I've encountered the Text Compactor  and I really can't wait to find
an opportunity to use it in class. It helps you summarize texts in seconds!!
I strongly recommend you to use them... I sure will!

I follow these blogs

Hey guys,

This week I want to tell you about 3 interesting Technology in Education blogs I've decided to follow. I will cover them weekly, and let you know of any new and innovative tools, techniques or ideas bloggers share in them. I also advise you to follow them yourself as I truly feel they can enrich your knowledge and open your minds to new and intriguing ideas.

Now, the first blog I want to talk about is called BYOT Network and it's all about Bringing Your Own Thinking (BYOT). The goal is to get your students engaged with the lesson by letting them choose from a variety of sources. Although the blog is not about specific technological tools, reading this blog is a MUST. The blog will guide you in details towards designing your classroom to fit and accommodate the environment needed for meaningful learning. How to provoke critical thinking, What are the qualities of choice and How to provide choice, How important it is to encourage creativity, and moreover - How the integration of technology will benefit this factors. Read the latest post on confidence-for-personalized-learning to learn about the importance of building confidence and trust between teachers and students in the era of technological abundance. I can't wait to put these ideas in practice!!!

The second blog I recommend is called Class Tech Integrate. The is written and updated by elementary school educator Mickey McFetridge who has made waves with his platform how-tos. This guy will tell you all about what actually works in the classroom and is worth using. Furthermore, he will guide you how to easily use this technology yourself. His latest posts are about Accessing free eBooks with Open eBooks, My Maps in Google Drive: Create Interactive Maps and Student Response Tools for the Digital Classroom. The last mentioned introduced me to 4 unfamiliar apps : Answer Garden - that allows a teacher to ask a single question and makes a word cloud out of student responses, Nearpod - that allows the teacher to control what is on the screens of the students via WiFi, Poll Everywhere - that shows real time results in a bar graph on the teacher dashboard, and Socrative - which is an excellent site/app for giving tests/quizzes to students. All of these ideas are great and sure worth a try. I believe that Nearpod and My Maps would greatly assist the learning as well as the general fun!The last blog I want to introduce to you is called Edutech for Teachers where Educational technology specialist Jamie Forshey brings some color to the world of classroom technology solutions. The blog is colorful and inviting. It offers, for example, 16 Edtech Tools to Check for Student Understanding or how to Spark Creativity with the Plot Generator on its latest posts. I find the last one very intersting. It allows you to stimulate creativity for writing projects and/or to motivate reluctant or struggling writers. I would definitely use it in my classroom. Whether my students are going to write short story, film script or novel in the near future, the Plot Generator will help them do so with its varied features!!

That's all for today,

See you next week.

about me

Hi,

My name is Yehuda Elbocher and I'm 33 years old. I'm a third year student at Levinsky College. 

I'm married to Vered and we have an adorable one year old boy named Yoel.

We live in Holon with our two dogs - Jackie and Lulu. 

I work as a private teacher, teaching Math, English and Language (Lashon).

I've practiced teaching in 3 different schools so far and it's fair to say that today's generation is very different than my generation in the way of learning as well as for its interests and abilities regarding technology and its use. Therefore, I feel that it's necessary for us as educators to update our teaching methods and adjust them to this generation's needs. This change, obviously has to do a great deal with bringing the use of technology to the front stage and make the best of it.

However, this course is not the first one I have as a student in Levinsky regarding that subject.

I have had at least four of them by now and also had the opportunity to practice teaching in a school that is considered the cutting edge of technology use in the classroom.

That being said, I hope this course will add meaningful insights and ideas to my arsenal.