Journal July 31th

In this class since we had chance to put into practice all the knowledge regarding the use of technology we have acquired during the course. We presented the different teaching activities we created to teach, in some cases listening skills, in some others speaking skills.

The first group presented the topic: Exchange Greetings, Introductions and Leave Takings for 7 graders. They planned very interesting activities involving the use of technology. Here it is part of the activities they presented:

Name of the presenter: Sebastian, Steven and Fidel 

Subject: Exchange Greetings, Introductions and leave takings for 7 graders

Activities:

Listen to the song “Hello, Good Bye” by the Beatles http://www.englishexercises.org/makeagame/viewgame.asp?id=2417

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PgQZLYdyBDg  video about common phrases to introduce your-self, say hello and good bye. Informal and informal language were used

http://www.englishexercises.org/makeagame/viewgame.asp?id=3497#a  This is another activity to teach students to introduce themselves.

http://www.esl-lab.com/selfintro/selfintrord1.htm

http://www.tolearnenglish.com/free/audio/1g.php

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A7TJit1tq60  video about greetings and introductions http://www.englishexercises.org/makeagame/viewgame.asp?id=837
They presented a lot of good activities, many of them are online exercises. Some of the activities might be a bit difficult for seven graders; however, with the proper introduction all the exercises can work.
The second group worked on Science and Technology; they presented very interactive activities for listening comprehension.

Name of the presenter:  Luis and Monica

Subject:eScience and technology

They prepared some vocabulary about the topic. They created very interesting activities to combine the use of the tech with the teacher’s ability to guide students. We played Hot potato, they did fill in the blanks exercises and for the consolidation they asked us to think about a future invention and create a power point presentation based on that.

The following group also focused on listening skills; they worked on symptoms, aches, pains and different diseases.

Name of the presenter:  Liz and Stephany

Subject: Aches, pains and diseases

I really liked that they were well-organized. They presented different activities to improve listening skills, but they also put into practice other skills such as speaking through the use of role plays. Here are some of the activities they presented:
  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uyCXPaczZ7A
http://esldivlabs.vcc.ca/ELSA/Instructor_Web_Exercises/Vocabulary/Aches_and_Pains_Multiple_Choice.htm

Finally my group presented an activity based on speaking skills, our topic call centers. We provided our students with different situations and they created phone conversations based on the situations.

July 24th

In this class, we presented our first teaching activity. It was a very interesting class because we had to take the role of teachers and carried out a lesson plan.

In our case we chose to work with the target content number 10: Senior citizens and minority groups for 11 graders. We focused on listening, so we presented different activities for our students (In this case, our classmates) to achieve these objectives: 

Identifying main ideas

 Drawing conclusions

To reach that goal, we created a prezi presentation and asked our students to follow our instructions. Here is the link to the presentation mentioned before. http://prezi.com/o3blssnelxhx/watch-and-listen-to-this-video/

Then, it was our classmates turn to present their teaching activity. They decided to work with the target content: Occupations for 8 graders. Here is a summary of their presentation.

Name of the presenter: Maria, Angelica and Allan

For the Warm up, they planned a game about occupations. The activity was very funny, but I think it might be difficult for students to follow the steps and get to the right website: http://www.mes-games.com/

The next activity included oral questions about occupations and famous people. Then we listened to a song by Shania Twain: “She is not just a pretty face.” https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mFe5Ac01eMc

As a post activity we wrote some sentences about occupations and our relatives.

What I personally did not like about this presentation is that the group could have used more technological tools to avoid the use of common worksheets. But besides that, the presentation was very creative and interesting.

July 17th

In this class, we presented out third project. This was based on the use of websites to encourage students to participate in an English class. All the presentations were very nice. Each group presented different ideas and approaches; all of them using the web responsibly and in benefit of the students. This is the link to our presentation: http://prezi.com/n9sogiagnaz8/target-content-n-8-use-a-dictionary-to-spell-words
Here is a summary of the activities carried out:

Name of the presenter: Angelica, Allan and Maria

Subject: Prefixes and suffixes

Comment: With their activities they pretended to put into practice their students’ previous knowledge. They focused on culture and values like students respecting each other while working in groups. They also tried to combine technology with the teacher’s support. These are some webpages they used:
http://www.quia.com/cb/221179.html
 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_zoVt8mIeSI
 http://www.ezschool.com/games/english/prefixsuffix/prefixsuffix.html

Name of the presenter: Fidel, Steven and Sebastian

Subject: target content: Describing people’s physical appearance 8 graders

Comment: They have a bunch of pages to work with students. They focused on listening. All of them are very interactive and interesting. These activities were really nice; however, some of them could be a little bit difficult for 8 graders.
 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sEDy0wGaXJY
 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qhWV4fzchq4 
 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VgJD8jeF9TI
 http://chagall-col.spip.ac-rouen.fr/IMG/didapages/description/index.html
 http://www.buildyourwildself.com/
 http://www.esolcourses.com/content/exercises/grammar/adjectives/appearance/antonyms/wordmatch.html

Name of the presenter: Liz and Stephanie

Subject: Linking words

Comment: Very interactive for students to be creative and learn to use their own ideas. Teachers must take the lead role; values are really taken into account in the reading part and also because they encourage teamwork.
 http://www.tolearnenglish.com/exercises/exercise-english-2/exercise-english-4236.php
 http://www.powtoon.com/dashboard/templates/

Name of the presenter: Luis and Monica

Subject: Occupations 8 graders

Comment: Students are going to love these activities, especially men. The activities are very interactive and very competitive for students to work in groups. However, these kind of activities represent a challenge for the teacher to keep control of the class.
 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2oy7IfICtQE
 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nfvle2Wd4I
 http://mncquiros.blogspot.com/2014/07/httpswwwyoutubecomwatchvnfvle2wd4ie.html
 http://mncquiros.blogspot.com/2014/07/esl-jobs-vocabulary-game-car-racing.html

After the presentations, we used the web to learn a new concept: Didactic Software. We surfed the net and we found some definitions and examples. For instance, we found that this type of software helps teachers to create or edit activities to teach students and to contribute with their learning process. We also found three examples of didactic software: hot potato, macromedia flash and PHP.  This activity was very useful since we had access to new information and could learn about a software that can be used to enhance the learning process. 

July 10th

During this class, we decided what unit plan we are going to work with to present our third project evaluation based on websites.  Odette and I chose to work with the target content number 8 USE A DICTIONARY TO SPELL WORDS, which corresponds to seven grade.  

Surfing the net is not easy because you can find both useful and useless materials. The most important thing is to evaluate each website and each activity effectiveness so that students are given the best tools. It is necessary to remember that teachers need to satisfy the objectives set by the MEP, so technology should be used in that sense.

Another important aspect we took into account when planning this unit was that technology enriches lessons but it might also have a negative impact in students.  Therefore, it is necessary to combined technology with more traditional tools so that the students can get the best of both worlds. 
We planned to use different and interactive websites. Our main purpose is to keep students active and motivated. 

July 3rd

We started the class analyzing the reading “The Use of Technology in English Language Teaching and Learning.” The most important aspect about this reading is that it recognizes that using technology might be a great tool to improve students learning process and performance, but it also states that technology has to be used wisely. In other words, if not used properly, technology does not work for educational purposes. This preset was the basis to carry out the rest of the class. Since the objective of the lesson was to work with Internet, we were constantly motivated to think in the veracity of the information we use from the web.  Sometimes professionals use technology just to catch students’ attention and they forget to teach. The use of technology must be justify and help students to reach high order skills very necessary to subsist in real life.

Then, we chose a target content to work with. Stephany, Odette and I chose to plan an activity for 11 graders: types of food and table manners. We searched on the web for activities to put into practice the 4 English skills. It was not that easy. Nonetheless, we could find some nice activities to reinforce listening and speaking skills among students. Then, each group presented its activities. The purpose of this activity was to apply technology in the right way, always keeping in mind that there are both advantages and disadvantages related to it.  Our classmates gave us feedback in order to improve and start working on our third project presentation which will based on website’s resources.
We understood that when working with Internet it is mandatory to verify the website’s security, veracity, and also to check whether the info has been updated or not. In this way, teachers can feel confident and transmit knowledge of quality. At the end of the class, we realized that almost each topic can be worked on using technology; everything depends on the professor’s ability to apply tech in the right way. 

June 26th

During this class, we had the chance to present our second project. It was a very interesting class since we could see our classmates’ ideas. In this project we were supposed to use moviemaker, storybuilder and storybird.

Each group presented its job and to our surprise more than two groups chose target contents related to the protection of the environment and natural resources misuse. Odette and I worked with that topic too. We were the last group to present. Even though we had some technical issues we ended up feeling happy with our presentation and the project´s results. Here is a summary of the presentations gave by our classmates:

Name of the presenter: Steven, David and Sebastian

Subject: Careers, jobs and lifestyles / listening and Speaking

Comment: to teach culture in this topic, ask students what they relatives do for living. Since some parents are in the United States, students can relate what they do there to what other parents do in Costa Rica. Values are also encouraged with this topic like working hard and being honest and responsible.

Name of the presenter: Allan, Angelica and Maria

Subject: Natural Resources 9^th grade. The focus on writing

Comment: These activities were carried out to work on student’s creativity.

Name of the presenter: Stephanie and Liz

Subject: Tourist attractions for 10^th level. This group focuses on writing.

Comment: They presented very creative activities. Visitors come to CR to live nature; some of us do not appreciate our natural resources, so it is important to encourage our students to protect and love nature.

Name of the presenter: Luis and Monica

Subject: Tourist attractions for 10^th level. They focus on Speaking.

Comment: They wanted us to participate so they asked us to create an itinerary to enjoy Costa Rican’s nature and promote values and patriotism. This kind of activity teaches students values and respect for nature.

That day we learned that technology is a very good tool to work with, but that we must be careful. When using technology is better to prove the equipment and Internet connection first; it is also a good idea to have a backup plan. Here is the link to our presentation. 

http://prezi.com/z6vlnkozx0lk/causes-effects-and-prevention-of-environmental-pollution/ 

and to the dialogue created on storybuilder  http://goo.gl/gySBA8

June 19th

First, Odette and I decided what target content and grade we were going to work with for our second project. Second, we chose the linguistic objectives and we planned the activities according to them.

In the second project we must use Moviemaker, Storybird and Storybuilder. Therefore, we thought of a least one activity to use each of these applications. Then, we set the actions to be carried out during that class and we started to work.

We created a video using Moviemaker about how people should think globally but act locally in terms of environmental prevention; through this activity, we pretended our students to know about culture and nature’s protection.

To use Storybird, we planned to create an activity to have our students organizing sequences.

The last activity we planned was our students using Storybuilder to create a dialogue based on what they saw on the video (Moviemaker)

What I liked the most about this class is that we had the opportunity to discus and put our creativity into practice.