What do we know about teaching tools?

Teaching English is not an easy task, and it gains difficulty when it comes to adolescents whose main interests are related to video games, computers and mobile phones. So, what happens when we have to roganize our classes in order to call their attention? We live in a society in which everything is connected provided the fact the main tool we use to communicate each other is our mobile phones. Therefore, I consider teachers should adapt their classes to the changes we are experiencing. 

To be honest, I have never been extremelly intresed in this field. I am not very good working with my computer and I prefer to do everything as we used to. However, yesterday I realized that using internet tools in my classes is a must. I was on my 'Tutoria i Orientació' lessons when our teacher showed us hundreds of websites and platforms related to education. There exist a great number of education platforms but today I am going to focus on three of them which are the ones that mostly called my attention.

Issuu:

Issuu is a social platform in which anybody can publish any kind of article or piece of information related to issue. It is quite easy to use, you just type what you are looking for at the top of the page and then hundreds of articles, magazines and newspapers appear. 

Here I add the link to one of the magazines I chose. I is about how children use their tablets and for which porpuses.

http://issuu.com/tempomedia/docs/tie-4-2013

Tiching:

Tiching is a website about education which is full of tools teachers share and use to organize and prepare their lessons. You can share your own expiriencies and use other teacher's materials to teach. I consider this website very useful because sometimes teachers get confused and they had too many things to think of, so it is very important to know how to organize themselves.

http://es.tiching.com/

Educared:

Educared is another platform related to education which is mainly focused on the publication of updated information about education practice either in schools or high schools. I would say that this platform has called my attention because it has the most updated versions of education in our country and therefore you are aware of the way it works, being aware of the education situation in our country is very important in order to be a good teacher; because the more you know about it, the more you can work on it.

http://educared.fundacion.telefonica.com.pe/

In short, I have shown you some of the websites internet offers to the audience to work with. They are tools we can use to improve the way we teach. There are some occasions in which teachers may think there cannot go on with the porpuses they had at the beginning of the course because they don't work. My advice is not to get nervouse; look for information, you will be rapidly informed about how to organize and structure your classes and, what is more important, how to call your students' attention.

How can we improve students' linguistic skills?

After today's class, I have decided to talk about it on my blog as I have found it truly interesting. It is a universal truth that student's linguistic skills are quite difficult to improve if you use the traditional method, what is to say, the teacher going through the book and students doing one exercise after the other. 

However, today I have learnt a new method of teaching the content of a subject just using different styles. Today it has been Shakespeare's turn, we have seen different types of exercises to do with our students to ask them about Shakespare' characters and plays. For instance, Isabel gave as different cards with some quotations of his plays, and after that she showed as different images and we had to match the images with its corresponding fragment. It was very interesting and I would say it is a very dynamic activity because students are constantly focused on what they have to answer; they have no occasion in which they can get distracted.

As it is, I have also discovered one of the most important aim of the class which was to make us conscious that one of the most relevant thing when teaching is getting students' attention focused on listening, they must have a purpose to fullfill during the lesson, and the teachers mus constantly remember students in what the purpose consists of.

Last but not least, today I have also been aware of the existance of Book trailers and Glogsters, I would say both of them are modern and useful material to use in class; in this way, students realize they are the most important element in the class, because they both participate and acquire new knowledges at the same time.

New tools on my blog!

The second topic I would like to talk about in my blog today is about new tools to use in your blog. It is a kind of technique called 'pageplugins' and it consists of having the opportunity to create any sort of flash tool, for example, clocks, calendars and countdowns.

In my case, I have decided to use this post to use one of this sort of flash tools. Since I was a child, I have always loved the fact of celebrating my birthday, what is more, as it is in December, I have my own countdown from November onwards until the day of my birthday. So, here it is, the countdown of my birthday.

Although my birthday has no direct relationship with methodology issues, I have chosen it as the topic of the countdown in order to see how it works so as to use it in my future posts properly!!!



<center><embed src="http://www.pageplugins.com/generators/animated_countdown/show.swf?clickURL=http://www.pageplugins.com/&flashLABEL=PagePlugins.com&skin=http://www.pageplugins.com/generators/animated_countdown/skins/a14.swf&text=Happy%2022nd%20Birthday%21%21&untilColor=16737792&textColor=0&datesColor=10053171&year=2014&month=11&day=10&hour=0&minute=58&second=13&x=6&y=77" quality="high" bgcolor="#ffffff" width="300" height="200" name="countdown" align="middle" wmode="transparent" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" pluginspage="http://www.macromedia.com/go/getflashplayer" /></embed><br><small><a href="http://www.pageplugins.com/">Myspace Countdown Clock</a></small></center>

Guidelines when using a blog properly

In today's post, we will give you a few pointers on how to keep your blog's personal information safe as well as a few tips on how to make a good post.

-The first thing to take into account if we want to keep our personal data safe is not to write down your surnames. Just write the first letter of your first one.
- Do not add people you do not know without your parent's permission.
- Use a safe password that does not contain any personal information such as name, surnames, date of birth, etc.
- Let students know that plagiarism is a crime.
- Make sure they understand that they have to be proud of any information they publish.
- Do not offend anyone on your posts. Treat anyone the same way you would like to be treated.
- It is essential to double read your post and check any grammar and spelling mistakes.
- Make sure everything you write is relevant and factual.
- Keep your posts educational-oriented. Avoid to write anything too personal, such as gossips, etc.

ICT: what does it mean to me?

Before I started the master I am doing I had no idea of what the terminology 'ICT' meant, what is more, I couldn't consider it as one of the most important factors when teaching a language. However, it all changed the first time I entered the classroom in which we are taught the ICT as regards to language learning and teaching. 

As it is, I have never been one of those girls who uses internet as an essential tool to carry on my projects. I use it if it is necessary, but it is not one of my hobbies. But, I changed my mind the moment I realized how important were ICT when teaching a language. I consider it very difficult to teach a language to students who are not familiar with it at all; and English is not an exception.

The ICT stands for information and communication technology, and it means integrating technology as part of your teaching, so here the importance is on the idea of integrate. ICT are said to be meaningful in the way teachers teach a language because it grows the use of technology, it also motivates both the teachers and the students,  it is effective and efficient and with richer source materials than actual books, it makes the classroom layout be dynamic and interactive and teachers may recieve more collaboration from their students as new technologies draw their attention more than any other thing.

During this course, I expect to learn a great number of things related to ICT as a tool to integrate in the way you teach. I think it will help me to prepare my classes better using all the materials ICT can provide me with. Nevertheless, I believe that reciving new materials from ICT is as important as looking for these new materials which are nowadays available on the net.