Open Culture

Checking out openculture.com, I see that it is an excellent resource for free meaningful cultural and educational online material. It’s useful to have a site like this, which works to compile all of this information for you. There’s so much junk on the Internet and it can sometimes be time consuming to weed through it all until you get to content such as that which is posted on this site. I especially like the documentaries under the Free Movies section and the Smart YouTube Channels section. The site also contains movies, which could be used in an ESL/EFL classroom as a basis for speaking activities such as the ones we went over in class the other day (silent viewing, prediction, body language, etc.). I think that the free audio books on this site could also be useful for listening activities. I would provide a printout of the excerpt so that students could read along. First I would have them skim over it and pick out any words they don’t understand. There are endless activities that could be done using these audio books.

Photo Story

I thought that the assignment to create a digital story was a project we were going to spend some time on, but it turned out to be no big deal at all. I got really into writing my script and choosing accompanying images and when we discovered that we could only use Photo Story 2 and upload five images, I was really disappointed. I planned on downloading Photo Story 3 at home and redoing my story with more images and a better mic, but it turns out there is no version of the program for macs. I thought that the program was intuitive and fun. I’m sure that students would get just as attached to their stories as I did. I would absolutely use this in a teaching environment, but the fact that the program isn't available for macs and you can only upload five images without paying is very limiting.

What is your favorite journey?

Khan Academy

My first reaction to this was one of puzzlement. Why would anybody prefer to learn like this over learning in a classroom setting where there is face-to-face personalized interaction with the instructor? But then as I listened to Mimi explain the benefits of it and I dug a bit deeper into the content on the website, I see now what an excellent teaching tool it can be. The part I find to be the most appealing, especially thinking back on myself as a middle school and high school student, is that the teacher is endlessly patient. The student has the ability to pause the lesson and go back over it as many times as they want without the teacher getting annoyed at having to repeat him/her/itself or telling you that you got the wrong answer in front of your classmates. I used to (and still do!) get very anxious about speaking up in class and I know that I was/am not alone. Also, I think that spending classroom time going over what you learned on your own and having the opportunity to use that time to complete assignments seems very productive to me. I suppose that it's true though, as Mimi mentioned, that this type of flipped classroom would be most conducive to learning math and science rather than the humanities.

ePortfolio

I love the idea of this! What a great way to motivate students and to help them take pride in their work! The fact that you can individualize pages and get creative seems like it would be fun for students of all ages. And since the content is shared with teachers and peers and can also be shared with current/potential employers, there is positive pressure to work hard in general and on putting together/maintaining your profile. I like that this space can be used to start a dialogue with peers and also that it can so effectively showcase progress. I think that to have the ability to see your work in such an organized way and to see the progress that you have made would be really motivating. In my Teaching EFL in International Settings class, my group and I will be creating a curriculum for college-aged EFL students in Argentina. I think this would be an excellent tool! Unfortunately, the ePortfolio website is kind of bland and doesn't show any good examples of student ePortfolios like Mimi showed us in class and I couldn't (after a brief search) find any creative-looking ones online.

VoiceThread

VoiceThread seems like a fun way to get students communicating. I would definitely implement it as a teacher. I like the idea of choosing a particular theme and having students upload their own photos to allow them to take ownership of a voice thread. I can also see how it would be a useful tool to start a dialogue on a particular photograph or piece of art related to whatever content we are covering in class. I think Ana mentioned using a photograph of Ellis Island. What an excellent way of getting a conversation started--the use of historic photographs. For the most part I found VoiceThread intuitive and easy to use. However, I didn't find the part about how to share what you have posted to be so straightforward. I thought that I had opened my thread up to the public and invited Ana to see it, but then I was told my thread was still private and I don't understand why. I hope it works!

Autumn Transport

What is your current state of mind?

Autumn transports me. I look forward to hibernation and coziness. Forward. Once the leaves begin to fall and blanket the ground with crispy colors and fill the air with that sweet familiar scent, nostalgia arrives. Nostalgia is comfort. It is known. Childhood memories of tree-lined Brooklyn streets. 349 Carlton Avenue. 718.622.7976. Backward. Another lifetime. Pero me pregunto, What about right now? This moment. Now. Consciousness grounds me momentarily until I dive down into the dank underworld of Franklin and Eastern Parkway. Moving through city streets and subways makes me anxious. Too many people. Too much noise. I plug my ears with music. La voz de Jorge Drexler soothes. And transports me away again. Backwards and forwards. Backwards and forwards.