Training Tool

http://voicethread.com/share/34304/

New Semester

For the 1st semester, 2008, we will be working with Teen 9 and developing a blog for the restaurant reviews.  We have lots of groups:

Jardins: Cory and Robert
Itaim: Henio and Marcia L.
Perdizes: Rich and Jeane
Morumbi: Enery
Santo Amaro: n/a (sorry)

More Alumni Blogs! :)

Just so that you guys know… we are piloting a blog in the new high inter 1 course! Also, I have gotten permission from Terry and Bia to use blogging in my two writing 1 groups Here are the sites.

http://alumnihi1.wordpress.com

http://alumniwriting1.wordpress.com

An article to read…

From Debbie here at Paulista Jardins…

http://www.hltmag.co.uk/sep07/sart01.htm

Updates!?

Just to let everyone know what has been going on with my groups:  I began having problems with time in T7, so I decided to lighten up on the blog project with my groups.  I will resume activities this week with an activity related to the writing assignment they will be doing. 

However, I have began writing activities for what I think will we do in IT1 next semester.  Remember the post about my students´ brainstorming clusters for blog activities?  Well I have come up with some general categories for the activities and have been organizing them into groups.  I will be posting them later this week and hopefully, you all will be able to help me to expand and start creating activities for these topics.

I will keep you posted!

ANY NEWS?

How are your blogs doing? My students have been posting on a weekly basis, motivated by the 5-point-credit-per-post policy I proposed. Thay have finally started checking out other students’ blogs and leaving comments, which I hope will encourage more frequent visits to their blogs outside class time and project assignments.

An article from Terry…

That reminds me, Terry sent an email last week:

Wikis and Podcasts and Blogs! Oh, My! What Is a Faculty Member Supposed to Do?

a great article about blogging/teaching

I found a great article about blogging and teaching.  I think it is very important for our work.  Give it a read and tell me what you think:

Linkin´ (B)Logs: A New Literacy of Hyperlinks

Adding Pictures to the Blogs

Hi guys (again),

 I was browsing through some of your blogs and I have noticed that you have been attaching pictures to some of your entries. How do you do that? (I am sure I can ask Grazi to show me at Itaim, but having a brief on-line explanation might also help other teachers who do not know how to do it I have been able to add a YouTube video to my latest entry, but no pictures so far.

Thanks for the help.

Rick

Song Project — Inter Teen 2

Hi guys,

Unlike I had mentioned before, I did not use the Little Mermaid activity in our blog. It made more sense to deal with it in class since it closely related to Unit 7 in Northstar. Also, I felt like my group was a bit tired of discussing surveillance, parents keeping an eye on their children, etc because of the many readings and extra activities related to this topic. I did not want our blog to be an extension of our class discussion, but something a bit more enjoyable, less academic related. So, I have decided to borrow the idea of the Song Project from the course itself, and adapt it to a blog acitivity. I have written one as guidance to my students, which you guys are obviously more than welcome to take a look at.

As I progress in this blog project, the more I feel that the focus our blogs should not be the teaching of English itself, but an opportunity for our students to USE English as a way to communicate their ideas to the world. English should be the means through which our students get their ideas across, and not the final goal itself. What do you guys think?

 Rick