As the common core standards work their way into classrooms around the country, teachers will need a variety of tools to successfully implement them. Technology will play a key role here. As educators prepare their students for careers which do not exist, they must use 21st century tools to make that jump from the concepts in the text to real world application. Teachers must encourage students to use all the tools at their disposal to prepare them for the future that lies ahead of them. The more experience they have in solving real world problems using technology that may even be new to their teachers, the better their chances are of doing well beyond high school/college.
So what might a teacher's options consist of for starters?
50 WAYS TO USE TWITTER IN YOUR CLASSROOM
Most students are quite familiar with it. Many adults? Not so much. Adults know of its existence, but rarely use it. Well, it is a teaching tool and one that would support ELLs since here content knowledge can be addressed by the ELL without getting bogged down in language (that is important, but not with twitter where abbreviations and symbols serve to illustrate understanding). Imagine being in a history class studying world war 1. The teacher puts up a picture of a soldier in the trenches with a question such as "What is going through the soldier's mind in your opinion? Tweet your answer to @___________. Since twitter limits a writer to 141 characters, lengthy responses are not needed. Your ELL can easily respond without worrying about sentence complexity. S/he can demonstrate understanding in only a few words. A teacher can save all the tweets and print them out for students to use in essays or discussions later on in the lesson. This site will offer other ways to use a program that most of the kids are already quite familiar with:)
TWITTER IN A COLLEGE CLASS
Here is a video of Twitter in a college class. As in the example above, the students are more familiar with it than the instructor. She shows her creativity in using a tool that she may not be as skilled with as her students, but she proceeds along confident in her ability to try it (and she does succeed).
TECHNOLOGY IN THE 21ST CENTURY CLASSROOM
You may already be using technology in your classroom. This video should just affirm that you are on the right track. Quote from video ""Teachers will not be replaced by technology, but teachers who don't use technology will be replaced by those who do." Nothing could be further from the truth.
IPADS IN 2ND GRADE
Seeing students this young embrace the iPad so naturally underscores the need to re-evaluate current teaching practices. Students come to school already tech savvy so why aren't schools using this experience as a jump-off point to accelerate learning?
Denise
ELL TEACHER PROS
Asus TF300T-B1-BL Tablet PC
Samsung 16GB Galaxy Tab 2 Wi-Fi Tablet - GT-P5113TSYXAR
Lenovo IdeaPad A1 Tablet 22282EU
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