Wednesday 31 December 2014
Saturday 27 December 2014
Wednesday 24 December 2014
Sunday 21 December 2014
Thursday 11 December 2014
Thursday 4 December 2014
Sunday 30 November 2014
Thursday 27 November 2014
Happy Thanksgiving!
To know more about Thanksgiving, its history and traditions, read T&L here. You may also check some relevant multimedia resources on this topic @:
You can get ELT resources (further info, lesson plans, printables, posters, slideshows, recipes, graphs, crafts, colouring pictures and greeting cards) on the topic @:
Friday 21 November 2014
Saturday 15 November 2014
Tuesday 11 November 2014
Friday 7 November 2014
Monday 3 November 2014
Sunday 2 November 2014
Friday 31 October 2014
Thursday 30 October 2014
Monday 27 October 2014
Friday 24 October 2014
Tuesday 14 October 2014
Wednesday 8 October 2014
Ten Tech Terms We're Mixing Up
The Internet vs. the
Web
The Internet
is actually millions of computers interconnected in a global network. (Interconnected
+
Network = Internet.) All of these computers can talk to each other to send
and receive data around the world as fast as you can favorite a tweet.
The web, on
the other hand, is the system where some (but not all) of that data is kept in
the form of special documents. These documents are linked together and more
commonly known to you and me as web pages.
image credits: Skillcrush |
HTML vs. CSS
Speaking of
the internet, here’s a bit more about how the websites on it are made. HTML —
or HyperText Markup Language — is the language used to write web pages. HTML is
made up of “elements” (paragraphs, headers, lists, links, and the like), which
give each web page structure and contain the content of the page itself (text,
images, videos, and so on).
CSS — or
Cascading Style Sheets — tell web browsers how to format and style an HTML
document. In other words, CSS is what makes HTML look good. Using CSS, you can
give a web page its own font, text styles, colors and, with the newest CSS
version (CSS3), even multiple backgrounds, 3D transformations, and awesome
animations.
To put it simply, HTML holds the content in place, and CSS
makes it look pretty.
Front End vs. Back
End
Now you know
how websites are made, let’s talk about how they work. The front end of a
website is the part that you can see. This includes HTML and CSS and all the
other things you look at in your browser. Think Facebook posts that update or
Google search terms that autocomplete—these are all thanks to the powers of the
front-end programming language JavaScript.
The back end
of a website is the part of a website that makes it work. It includes
applications that tell websites what to do, servers where websites get data
from, and databases where information websites use is stored.
On Twitter, for instance, the look of your feed is the front
end, and all the data is stored in the back end.
App vs. Software
Speaking of
telling computers what to do, you’ve probably heard the term “application”
before. In a nutshell, an application, or app, is a program or set of
instructions that you can use to do certain things on your iPhone or Android.
The general
term for any instructions for your computer, tablet, or phone is software. So,
apps are just one type of software. But, system software—like operating systems
(think iOS7 or Windows 8), drivers (controls for your printer or speakers, for
example), or utilities (like anti-virus or backup)—are a different type of software
that run your computer as a whole and make it possible for you to use all those
apps you’re addicted to.
That means: All apps are software but not all software is an
app.
UX vs. UI
Even pros
can get mixed up about these two abbreviations. UI — or User Interface — is how
a product or website is laid out and how you interact with it: Where the
buttons are, how big the fonts are, and how menus are organized are all
elements of UI.
But UX — or
User Experience — is how you feel about using a product or a website. So, your
love for the way the new Apple Watch looks or your excitement that there’s
finally a tablet-sized iPhone to watch those Corgi videos you’re obsessed with
are reflections of UX.
So the new look of the Facebook news feed involves a change
to UI, and the way you navigate that new page is the UX.
Source: MASHABLE
Sunday 5 October 2014
Thursday 2 October 2014
Wednesday 24 September 2014
Stay hungry. Stay foolish. T&L is 3 years old!
Our main targets were: giving suggestions of ELT resources and Web 2.0 tools applied to English language teaching, gathering some practical examples of students' work and discussing their relevance/success in class context, creating an interaction tool with Students/ other Teachers and, above all, keeping close to Steve Jobs motto: “Stay hungry. Stay foolish.” as we believe work can be done with pleasure and it can be much better if we don’t forget about laughing, enjoying and adding a pinch of foolishness!
More than 90000 hits later, I believe those objectives were positively achieved. Let's hope T&L audience continues to grow every day, Thank you for reading Teaching & Learning, for supporting it and above all for being here!
Three years and counting… HAPPY
BIRTHDAY, TEACHING & LEARNING!!! Let's celebrate...
Monday 8 September 2014
Sunday 7 September 2014
Some Back-to-School Magic!
image credits: New Class/ Ice Breakers |
Everyone loves a good icebreaker—it’s
a great way to get to know other people and help people feel relaxed in
stressful situations, such as the first day of a new school year.
Here are a
few icebreakers and some variations to the icebreakers to try during the first
week of school to build a good sense of community in your classroom that will last
throughout the year!
1 - Name
Chain Games
By far and
away the best way to learn and retain student names is to do a name chain game
to start off the class. You can vary the specifics to fit the needs of your
particular class, for example: the first student says 1) his or her name, 2)
his or her home country, 3) one interesting fact about himself or herself, and
4) his or her favorite English word. The next student must then repeat all of
the information about himself or herself and then say the name and favorite
English word of the preceding student. The third student introduces himself or
herself and then says the names and favorite English words of the preceding two
students, and so on until the last student.
2 - New
Year’s Resolutions
Your students
may be familiar with this popular tradition in January, but a new school year
should bring about new resolutions for students and teachers alike. Have students
partner up with each other and discuss what goals they have for themselves for
the school year. Encourage them to be specific with the things they would like
to accomplish and what they want to be different. Make sure that you as the
teacher make some resolutions too!
3 - Name That
Person
Another great
activity to get to your students to know each other a little better is a
guessing game. Pass out small pieces of paper or notecards to each student and
tell them to write down two facts about themselves on the card without writing
their name on them. Collect the cards in a basket and mix them up before
redistributing them to the students. Students take turn reading out the facts
from the note card and the other students guess which person wrote the card.
4 - Find
Objects to Describe Me...
A classic get
to know you activity is to have students go through their backpacks, folders,
pockets, etc... and find 3 or 4 things that they feel describe them very well.
Students then need to describe their objects and why they chose them as their
defining objects. Put students into pairs to share their objects or share as a
whole class so that way everyone can hear about their new classmates!
5 – I am cool
because…
If students
are getting sluggish and you need them to move around the first day, do this
activity. Have all of the students seated in a circle and you as a teacher
stand in the middle. To start off the activity, you will say “I’m cool
because...” and then finish that sentence with something that’s true about you,
for example, you’re wearing blue jeans, you speak 3 languages, etc... Then,
every student who shares that fact in common with you must stand up and find a
new seat. You also will need to find a seat meaning that one student will be
stranded in the middle. This game is great for finding commonalities and
getting in some good laughs!
Variation:
Play “I have never....” instead. When students are in the middle, have them
call out things they’ve never done and have the students move who have done
those activities.
6 - 3 Common,
1 Unique
This activity
is good for small groups. Randomly group students into three or four and give
them a time limit to discover three things that all members of the group have
in common and one thing that is unique for all of them. When the time is up,
have each group report to the class. Then, change up the groups and have them
do it again with their new class members. If it starts to get too easy, start
ruling out common answers like “We’re all from different countries” or “We all
breathe oxygen.”
Variation:
Try this with the whole class after doing it in small groups. If they’ve been
good listeners, they should be able to recall many things that all students had
in common. It may take awhile, but there are surely at least 3 things the whole
class has in common!
Source: Busy Teacher (slightly abridged)
Saturday 6 September 2014
Reading online
image credits: Royalty Free Stock Images |
Research suggests that online reading
requires a different set of skills and strategies than offline reading. These different skills and strategies are
required because online reading is frequently information seeking, guided by
the reader (rather than the teacher) and non-linear (readers follow a series of
hyperlinks and navigate through multiple windows rather than reading something
from beginning to end). The skills
required for successful online reading are: the ability to formulate
appropriate questions, locate reliable information, and evaluate, synthesize
and communicate that information.
Additionally, because online reading
occurs within rapidly changing technology that may or may not be familiar to
teachers, and students are frequently engaged with outside of school, lessons
that build on students’ prior knowledge of these technologies can and should be
employed.
Finally,
research tells us that proficient offline readers are not always proficient
online readers and vice versa.
STRATEGIES
There are a
number of ways that you can help students formulate good questions:
- For younger
students, teach them to use appropriate search terms and quotations marks
rather than full questions when using a search engine.
- For older
students, teach them Boolean Operators (and, or, not, near, ( ), *) to better
refine their searches. Ask students to
perform a search before introducing Boolean Operators and then to perform the
same search after. Ask them to reflect on the different types of information
these searches find.
By asking
students to reflect on their already established online behavior, you can
engage in metacognitive reflection about their information seeking behavior and
what skills they need to develop:
- Have students
draw a map of their online reading behavior.
Start with a general research question and have them draw or take screen
shots of the various steps and detours they take to find the answer. Students can share their maps or screen shots
in class and reflect on the decisions they made at each point in their reading.
- As a class
you can use this as an opportunity to discuss how students assess the
reliability of websites, interact with their peers for advice during online
reading, and what problems they encountered and how they solved those problems.
In order to
help students learn to analyze and evaluate the information they encounter
online you can:
- Teach a
mini-lessons on the differences between .com, .gov, .org, and .edu domains.
- Design a
lesson that asks students to examine websites you select (be sure to provide
both reliable and unreliable sources). Elements for students to check for: can
the information presented be corroborated elsewhere? Is the writer of the
information reliable? Is the information current? Is the information
documented? Is the website advocating for something and therefore potentially challenged
as a neutral source? Is there a conflict of interest present?
- Have
students examine a famous website hoax (like the Yes Men spoof of a Dow
Chemical site that landed them interviews with the BBC
http://www.theyesmen.org/hijinks/dow) and search for clues that suggest it is a
hoax.
- Teach a
mini-lesson on propaganda techniques and have students identify the use of the
same techniques in online advertising.
Reflect with students on how the interactive medium of online reading
can increase or decrease the power of a particular propaganda technique.
Source: Read Write Think
Tuesday 2 September 2014
Thursday 31 July 2014
T&L Summer Break 2014
It has been a hard year, but now it is high time to have a break and relax so we can face new challenges in September with energy and a positive mind.
Summer time mode, here we go!
Summer time mode, here we go!
Praia do Molhe, Foz do Douro, Porto - Portugal Photo credits: Ana Figueiredo |
Tuesday 29 July 2014
Lexical Distance among Languages in Europe
This diagram shows the lexical distance among the languages spoken in Europe. As I speak languages of Romance and Germanic root, I find Greek, right there in the middle, particularly tempting... What about you?
Diagram credits: Lingholic |
Sunday 27 July 2014
The World Map for THANK YOU
I really don't know if I agree with the "cheers" as thank you for British English... But let's assume the other suggestions are accurate. The Portuguese "OBRIGADO/OBRIGADA" should also be shown for Portugal! Do leave your remarks for your language as well! Obrigada. :)
Map credits: Lingholic |
Thursday 24 July 2014
Monday 21 July 2014
If you're missing London...
LONDON was shot by Alfred Marroquin in the UK while a small trip during the
holidays. He wanted this short to be representative of London's diversity,
culture and life. "When a man is tired of London, he is tired of life; for
there is in London all that life can afford."- Samuel Johnson
Friday 18 July 2014
Web 2.0 Tools applied to Primary School Teaching
Teaching English, and even History, to Primary School children doesn't have necessarily to be primary and Web 2.0 technologies applied to class activities and tasks may well be the answer to put it together.
This cute and interesting video was created from drawings by primary school
children from Shapla School and special effects by young people from the
Renaissance Foundation.
On Saturday 31st May 1533, Anne Boleyn was taken in
procession from the Tower through London to Westminster where she was crowned
the following days, find out what happened on that day! ;)
Wednesday 16 July 2014
Monday 14 July 2014
Tuesday 8 July 2014
Friday 4 July 2014
Happy 4th July!
Today, Americans celebrate their Independence Day.
Happy 4th July!
Happy 4th July!
If you to learn more about this date, read here on T&L.
Image credits: WEBGRANTH |
Bloom's Digital Taxonomy and ICT Tools
Many teachers use Bloom's Taxonomy and Bloom's Revised
Taxonomy in developing and structuring their teaching & learning
experiences. Bloom's Digital taxonomy is an attempt to
marry Bloom's revised taxonomy and the key verbs to digital approaches and
tools. This is not a replacements to the verbs in the revised taxonomy, rather
it suppliments and supports these by including recent developments, processes
and tools.
Many of these tools that are FOSS (Free
or Open Source Software). Click here for a comparison between Traditional and Digital approaches.
So what is Bloom's Taxonomy?
Benjamin Bloom developed, in 1956, while working at
the University of Chicago, a theory on Educational Objectives. He
proposed 3 domains or areas:
- Cognitive - person's ability
to process and utilize information (thinking), this is what Bloom's Digital Taxonomy is based on;
- Affective - This is the role of feeling
and attitudes in the learning/education process;
- Psychomotor - This is manipulative or
physical skills.
Bloom's Taxonomy is a taxonomy of activities and
behaviours that exemplify Higher Order Thinking Skills (HOTS)
and Lower Order Thinking Skills (LOTS). Bloom's allows use to
rank and structure different classroom activities and plan the learning
process. In 2001, Lorin Anderson and others revised Bloom's original work, creating Bloom's Revised Taxonomy.
Bloom’s and Revised Bloom's give us a learning
process:
- Before you can understand a concept or fact you
must remember it;
- To apply a concept you must understand it
first;
- To evaluate a process you must have analysed it.Each layer builds on the previous. The creative process naturally incorporates
these elements. You must remember (even if you are learning as you go),
understand and apply these principles and concepts, analyse and evaluate the
success of your design, the process and concept.
However, we don't need to start at lower order skills and then build
piecemeal throught the taxonomy towards higher order thinking like creativity.
By providing a suitably scaffolded task, the lower order skills of remembering
and understanding become inherent in the learning process. By challenging our
students to be analytical, evaluative or creative, they will within these
processes develop understanding.
Bloom's Original taxonomy
|
Bloom's revised taxonomy
|
|
Evaluation
|
(HOTS)
|
Creating
|
Synthesis
|
Evaluating
|
|
Analysis
|
Analysing
|
|
Application
|
Applying
|
|
Comprehension
|
Understanding
|
|
Knowledge
|
(LOTS)
|
Remembering
|
HOTS is an abbreviation
for Higher Order Thinking Skills
and LOTS for Lower Order Thinking Skills.
Bloom's Digital Taxonomy. This diagram details Bloom's Revised Taxonomy
with some of the original verbs.
Diagram of Bloom's revised Taxonomy showing the flow and process of learning. - A Churches |
If you want to learn more about Bloom's Revised/Digital Taxonomy, read here.
Web 2.0 Tutorials
Without a doubt one of the best resources on the web for web2.0 Technologies is the commoncraft show. Lee LeFever's productions are clear, simple and to the point; most of all they are "In Plain English". Here are the links:
- http://www.commoncraft.com/Twitter
- http://www.commoncraft.com/photosharing
- http://www.commoncraft.com/bookmarking-plain-english
- http://www.commoncraft.com/video-social-networking
- http://www.commoncraft.com/video-wikis-plain-english
- http://www.commoncraft.com/rss_show
- http://www.commoncraft.com/blogs
- http://www.commoncraft.com/video-googledocs
- http://www.commoncraft.com/mylocation
- http://www.commoncraft.com/wetpaint
SOURCE: Educational Origami
Thursday 3 July 2014
Friday 27 June 2014
Thursday 19 June 2014
Tuesday 17 June 2014
The Time Traveller’s Guide to Elizabethan England
Ian Mortimer takes us back to Elizabethan England
and reveals, in vivid detail, a living, breathing Tudor world in the Golden Age. Viewers learn
how ordinary Tudor housewives turned plants into medicine, how the middle
classes kept themselves clean using linen cloths, how the poor made pottage,
how cooks of the rich devised recipes for new ingredients, and how Tudors
learned to read and write. Two incredible episodes by BBC.
Friday 13 June 2014
Spooky warm-ups for Friday 13th
If you’re a big fan of superstition and the supernatural,
you are surely in your element today. Not only is it Friday the 13th (supposedly
the most unlucky date on the calendar), there’s also going to be a massive full
moon in the sky tonight. The last time there was a full moon on Friday the 13th
was in October 2000. We won’t see one again until August 2049! If you want to know more about Friday 13th tradition and superstition, read here.
In celebration
of this creepy (and rare) calendar day, TED-Ed has gathered up five of their
scariest lessons, sure to get you in the spirit of all things spooky. Check them out below.
Monday 9 June 2014
Saturday 7 June 2014
Wednesday 4 June 2014
Wednesday 28 May 2014
RIP, Maya Angelou
Dr Maya Angelou in 1985:
"What I would really like said about me is that I dared to love."
The world will miss you deeply, dear Maya. May you rest in peace.
Sunday 25 May 2014
Saturday 24 May 2014
Friday 16 May 2014
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