Teacher Trails

Everybody likes listening to a good story.  Have you ever wondered why?  What do you think about this statement? Do you agree?  A story can put your whole brain to work.   This article may give you a few ideas on the power of storytelling.    The Science of Storytelling .   Which are, in your opinion, the main concepts? What do you think about the suggestions for telling stories? Do you have any of your own? There are a million ways in which we can tell a story. An interesting game to develop a number of skills is the following: "This quasi-experimental web site is designed to foster visual thinking and build stories. It  draws upon collections of photos specified by a tag in  Flickr . You are dealt five random photos for each draw, and your task is to select one each time to add to a selection of images, that taken together as a final set of 5 images- tell a story in pictures." F ive Card Stories Give it a try and then share your pr

Building Excellence in Student Work Through Critique and Revision What do you know about peer feedback? Have you ever tried it in any of your classes? Now let´s watch the following video. "This six-minute video gives a clear picture of how student work can improve through focused critique. It shows the evolution of a scientific illustration of a butterfly through multiple drafts toward a high-quality final product." Austin's Butterfly: Building Excellence in Student Work from EL Education on Vimeo . So far so good, but....  is  there anything we (teachers) can learn in relation to our own learning? State 3 ideas you can pick from the video which  describe  the aspects  you´d  highlight.  The following article provides some ideas particularly suitable for young learners. Have a look at the four ideas described and share your ideas with the group.  Strategies to enhance peer feedback Two stars and a wish Plus, minus and what's next? Warm and co

A new year is starting.  It is a time when energy is at the top, we are full of expectations, projects, and ideas.  It is also a good time to reflect, consider and share views.  I´ve chosen 2 different inspirational videos from this site:  Best Kickoff Videos Choose one and generate your own video as a response. You can include your views on the topic, what you think, how it relates to your teaching situation. You can use your own photographs, images you get online, music... you can even record yourself!   Making your own video is very simple, probably one of the easiest ways is using   Windows movie maker   (you can download it from this site if you don´t have it in your computer already)  once you have it ready you can upload it to youtube and share it. 

Jonathan Acuña is an ELT Instructor & Trainer. He was hired to train a group of teachers in Costa Rica. He starts by addressing an interesting question,  Why were/are they so reluctant to using technology? Read his blog post and go over some of the highlighted concepts:  comfort zone  develop technological competences  self-training Exploring ELT Teachers' Reluctance Towards Technology 1. What do you understand by "comfort zone"? 2. What type of "technological competencies" do you think teachers need to develop? 3. Do you think it is possible to self-train in order to develop these competencies? If not, how do you think this could be done? 4 Have a look at this image. What message do you think it is trying to convey? Do you agree? 5. What about you? How many hours of computer training did you receive? What do you think about technology integration to classroom settings?

El pasado 7 de mayo participamos con AIRE digital en la presentación de la ponencia " Experiencia Esconectar: una instancia 1 a 1 de Capacitación Docente" .  Allí conocimos a Carlos Gonzalez Ruiz quien comparte en el portal Ineverycrea un resumen del evento y palabras muy generosas para nuestra presentación. Una crónica del evento 1.edu apropiación y desarrollo: modelos 1 a 1

Some time ago I heard someone say we are living in "interesting times for teachers." Definitely! Never before have I seen educational issues discussed and debated in such a way. Of course we have a tool we did not have before: technology. This allows us to connect with colleagues, working and learning together, sharing what we are doing, how we do it and the results we are getting. But technology is not just a means of communication, it is present in everybody's daily life and schools cannot ignore this. It now stands at the classroom's door trying to enter and become a powerful partner. Technology is not just an incredible collection of relevant information updated to the minute. It allows us to connect what happens in school with the real world, contributing to the significance and purpose of what happens in the classroom. A common mistake is to think that by filling schools with machines and training teachers in office software and other desktop tools, ap

High expectations on the part of the teacher, regular feeedback, praise for work and effective classroom discipline have been shown to be associated with students’ positive attitudes towards school and education. Most educationalists are aware of the importance of these factors. Research shows that many teachers are not lavish with praise. It seems clear that there is a need for action which will encourage and enable teachers to make more use of these strategies. High expectations, regular feedback, and praise for good work, have shown to be associated with students’ positive attitudes towards school. Research has shown students like lessons where they can make things, and many prefer lessons where they have discusions, to lessons where they have to work on their own. Activities which promote students involved in their own learning, building upon their preferences for co-opearative and practical work and discussions help remotivate bored and disaffected students. Teaching is a compl

As I was trying to "organize" all the files I have on my computer, I found this paper I wrote back in 1998. It feels strange to read what I thought and read back then...   The idea of computers in classrooms was science fiction for me at that time still, most ideas hold so very true.  My generation stands in awe as we see how much things change, mainly regarding technology and communications. Life has become so accelerated that changes are outdated before we can truly understand them and integrate them into our lives.  Immersed in this situation schools and teachers are facing complex questions: What should schools teach? What knowledge is essential? What knowledge will be most needed when our students leave school? Schools and teachers have a very important challenge ahead; provide our students with tools in order for them to live intelligently in today’s world and become useful members of society. John Holt in his book “ How children fail ” (1964) sustained “Since