Well, after a fabulous vacation, we are back in the
classroom fully energized and ready to continue to build an enthusiasm for
learning within our students:)
Students love technology so what better place than that to
start off the new year! After all, the
BYOD movement (Bring Your Own Device) is radically transforming the classroom
to one where almost every student can access the internet through a wide variety
of tools. With this as the focus of this
newsletter, we will explore a site that is building quite a strong following
among educators and it is FREE! That
site is INFUSED LEARNING.
We will start off with a quick introduction through a video.
Immediate feedback to the teacher is crucial so that strugglers can be
quickly identified and supported. This
site also allows different ways for students to demonstrate mastery. Students may draw responses for example. For English learners especially this choice
opens up a chance to demonstrate grasp of a concept without being hampered by a
language that they may not yet be very familiar with. For classes not involving language
development, being able to draw would allow these students to transfer
knowledge from their home language to the teacher with ease (think math for
example). After all, a picture is worth
1,000 words they say. For older students
who are literate in their home languages, they may use a translation tool on
the site. For such students, this site
permits them to earn the grades they deserve-grades based on actual content
knowledge and not on full understanding of English.
Here are some simple guidelines to get started:
1. Teachers need to set up a class. Teachers can manually input all the names or
use some tips from this site on using a Microsoft Excel template.
2. Types of
assessments are varied. We have the
traditional such as True/False and Multiple Choice as well as short answer,
sort and order, drawing, numeric, and likert scales. Let us look at how to create a quiz for students first.
3. Interactive tools video
lays out the process for using all of the interactives in any class setting.
4. Quick assessments can now
be easily interwoven throughout any lesson so teachers can keep a finger on the
pulse with a snap.
I intend to kick the new year off with this since I believe
that cell phones can serve a higher purpose.
After all, students will bring them so I might as well put them to good
use:)
Happy New Year!
Denise, Marnie, and Cheryl
Pinterest DMCYBERTEACHER (pinner name)-3500 followers
Twitter @ell_teacherpros (3000 followers)
Teaching
Successes With ELLs blog (72,00 page views)
No comments:
Post a Comment