Cincinnati Shot

I-471

Originally uploaded by Picture_taking_fool

This one is for Grazi. This is a night shot of Cincinnati, a place where I spent a lot of time when I was younger. Here you can see the Ohio River.

This picture reminds me of the time I went to a Jimmy Buffett concert with some friends. Great nice, great times, great memories.

Hope you like it!

Big Cities

Unit 3 in Teen 9 deals with big cities.  I will propose two different activities for my students:

In the first one, they will find a striking / unusual / pleasant picture of a big city on the internet (I’ll get them to explore flickr) and post something about it.

In the second one, they will go to 43 places and choose a big city to write about.

My Teen 7 Blog Clusters

Here is a link to my Teen 7 Brainstorm Clusters that we did last on Thursday, September 6th, 2007. In the 2 classes I decided to work in groups of 3. You can see the results for yourselves. I was impressed by some of the groups´ imaginations. This will give us a place to start.

See the group here: http://www.flickr.com/photos/10124756@N08/sets/72157601948743189/

Our new poster…

My creation

Originally uploaded by willisca

I just created a magazine cover to post in the teachers´ rooms at the branches. What do you guys think??

Flickr

This is a test post from , a fancy photo sharing thing.

What to do next?

I am going to throw Rick´s doubt back to the group.  What do you think you should be doing with your students?  What will get them to have fun, react and produce? 

Remember, we are testing this idea; nobody knows what should be done next.  I know Renato is trying something more open, not necessarily related to the topics we are discussing in class.  This approach will probably work best for him.  For me, I am going to work on free, but guided activities, also not directly related to the class material.  But not everybody has the same perspective. 

I would say that Rick should work on writing prompts with his students.  This is something he is very good at, but will it work here in the blog project.  I don´t know and we will only know if we try.

Don´t forget that we have to ask our students what they would like to do.  Last Friday we had a discussion at the meeting about this.  We decided that a brainstorming session in class would be a great idea.  Try this on the whiteboard and have someone take a picture with their cell phone and post it to the blog.  Then post it here to our blog for everyone to see!!! 

I think we are going in the right direction and just to have students writing is something very positive. 

More to come later…. 

Correcting Mistakes

Hi guys,

 It is me again. I was browsing through Renato’s and Cory’s students’ blogs and I have noticed that I have been a bit too leading as far as assignments go. What is our role as teachers in their blogs? How should we deal with our students’ grammar and vocabulary errors? Also, some of Renato’s students did stick with the topic (addiction) as a main theme for their blogs, but some other students simply wrote whatever they felt like writing. What exactly are we supposed to be doing? How much leeway are we supposed to grant students in this project? (Sorry about being so lost myself

Rick

First Entries …

Hi guys,

 My group has been able to write their entries in our blog (it2itaim) successfully. They seem to have enjoyed the activity and had quite a positive outlook on this project. I am sure that they will be enjoying the blog much more than the Song Project in Inter Teen 2. I know it is a lot more work on us teachers, but I believe the benefits as far as language learning goes are far more reaching than the original class project. Blogging allows for the development of a stronger, tighter rapport between teachers and students as well as amongst themselves. Teens tend to be aloof and quite reserved in class discussions, fearful of what others may think of them. Blogs will allow them to feel free and say whatever they want. Some of my students have already read what other students have written and have started to chat about topics they would not be addressing had we not started this blog project.

 I am not so sure where to go from now on. My original plan was to go ahead with the Little Mermaid prompts, but I have written extensive comments back on what they have already written (You guys are more than welcomed to take a peek at them) and there is a lot of room for them to already write something back to me. Some of the comments are suggestions for them to revise what they have written on their blogs in a very subtle way, by prodding them to just go further in what they have written. That is a great start to have them learn about revision from a writing point of view. Being more specific is learning how Americans write. I am going to go with the flow for a while and see where these comments I have made take us. My only fear is that my students and I start having a Teacher-Student blogging experience when what I really would like to do is to have them interact more with each other. If anyone has any suggestions, I am all ears

Rick

Problems using the computers in the Learning Center

Grazi and I have been having problems accessing BRMA using the passwords provided in Marilena’s e-mail. It flags us as unathorized users. However, I was preparing the computers here at Itaim for my group’s visit next Monday, and I had no problems accessing the WordPress site using ALUMNI / ALUMNI as user and passwords. I do not know if you guys are running into the same glitch, and I was wondering if you guys have had any problems using the site at Alumni because of the limits imposed by CDP on some electronic addresses. Thanks. Rick.

Rick’s Inter Teen 2 Blog

I have just created my group’s blog (www.it2itaim.wordpress.com, just for the record). I told my students to think of a couple of things to say about themselves as an introduction of the group members and wrote one myself as a sample for my students to follow. I know that introducing themselves is an easy language task, but the purpose is for them to get used to writing a blog. Plus, I don’t want to discourage them with all the bureaucratic procedures of signing up at WordPress, etc. Also, I wanted them to have the sensation that this is going to be a light activity and not another way of assigning homework.

My plan is, once they all sort of introduce themselves, including their likes and dislikes, is for me to start commenting on their hobbies, and to encourage them to start doing the same. Next week, I am finishing a short video activity I have prepared on the Little Mermaid, where King Triton asks Sebastian to keep tabs on Ariel, which ties Northstar Unit 7 to a teen reality. I was thinking of making this blog a discussion forum for the topics we discuss in class. Many times, some students withdraw from class discussion for being shy and fearful of group pressure, but that on-line, may feel more at ease at sharing their thoughts.

I am not so sure we are supposed to be using the blog as an extension of our class discussions, or if it is supposed to be a looser, freer way for them to express themselves in English. Most of their posting should be done next Wednesday. At the end of next week, you guys will be able to see how our blog is going and I am really open to feedback