Bring your classroom to life

Bring your classroom to life

I want to recommend a program I am using in my classroom with my kindergarten students.I have used the program for several years and my students love it and they can’t wait until it is their turn at the computer. You can use this program as a group activity and as a single activity. I have three computers in my classroom and I normally have six students working in pairs, to get the most out of the activity. You can use this program as homework for your students to play before each lesson to learn all the words. There are different themes and levels for all ages and interests.

Fact

The name of the program is Genki English and the founder’s name is Richard Graham. I am a big fan of his as he puts a lot of importance to students’ interests through games.

The program I use in class teaches students with energy, passion and gives them confidence to use what they have learned. As the key to learn a new language is to have fun as you are learning, it is very important to me that students like the activity I am proposing.

How to use it

Learn and play: It is important that the students have a basic grip on the target English before playing the games.

Songs instead of drilling: The game includes songs with actions instead of drilling words. 

Set the level: Make sure you teach the students at their level to avoid too difficult or to easy witch won’t be very effective.

Motivation: As students learn through playing it gives them extra motivation as they win the game if they learn new language.

It’s the kids: as the students play together in groups it becomes less teacher orientated.

Most of the games are for free, all you need is a computer with internet access.

click on the link to get to the games:

http://www.genkienglish.net/onlinegames.htm

Easy level: What time is it 

                                          




Higher level: Have you  ever…?

As a teacher I recommend you to start by reading the curriculum page first, to get at hint of what you can teach by using this program. There are also many lesson plans you can get access to for free.

http://genkienglish.net/teaching/where-to-start-with-genki-english-easy-as-123/

Enjoy !

Scribble press

 I´m going to write about an app for iPad that one of my friends, who is a teacher, recommended. I have not had the opportunity to test it myself in the classroom so this is information that she told me and information that I found on the Internet.

In Scribble press students can create books and practice their English. Inside the app students can both create books from scratch or create a book by filling in words. 

It is also possible to buy extra material, which gives students the tools to create own pictures to their stories. There are for example, 500 drawing tools (including markers, stamps, different colours and pencils).

When students work with the filling parts they can work together and help each other to understand what the text is about and how to fill in the words. This gives students the chance to develop their vocabulary and their social skills. They learn from each other or by using a dictionary. There are 50 different templates that students can choose from. For example, they can choose to write about themselves, their family or holiday.

Stories made in the app can be edit and students can also choose to write in English on one page and then have the translation on the other page. It is possible to create pictures, download own pictures, take pictures with the iPad or use photos that come with the app.

One part of this app is also a very good part! Teachers can create a certain account only for students in the class and this allows students to open up their stories at home and share them with their families and friends. This gives students the opportunity to practice English at home and to involve others in their education. Stories that are created can be uploaded in iBooks library but students can also choose to upload them to Facebook, Twitter or email them to others. It is also possible to print out the stories if you connect the iPad to a printer.

Scribble press can be used from an early stage and continue when students grows older. I also believe, that by using this app teachers can make students aware of their own develop in English. By saving students stories, they can go back and see how their English have been improved and make them feel proud of what they have done and accomplished. Scribble press can be used both by students that are very good at writing and reading and by students that have difficulties with writing and reading. The app can be used as a tool to develop fantasy and creativity. 

Scribble press is not only for English learning. Teachers can use it for teaching other different languages, create lessons in the app or make portfolios for the students. Students can use the app to create books about different facts, instructions or words. They can also for instance ,create reports or use it as a journal. Think outside the box and you will find many different ways to work with the app J

You can buy the app on Appstore for your iPad and it cost 40 Swedish crowns. It is also possible to use Scribble pass on the Internet where students can do some things for free and others are not for free: http://www.scribblepress.com

Here you can watch a information video about Scribble pass:

Hopefully you got inspired to try Scribble press in your classroom, I know I will ;) 

GoNoodle.com - a fun Place to be in...


I've been thinking quite a lot about what to share in this blogpost but ended up with telling you about the website GoNoodle. GoNoodle.com is an American website dedicated to get kids moving regularly and in a fun way. Short videos with exciting and interesting songs, dances, kinesthetic moves and more. The site is made up as a simple videogame where the class has got an avatar that changes/develops due to the pupils activities. One can make a free account and use very much of the content but there is a premium too called GoNoodle plus. I don't use that yet. So I'm not sure about how big a difference there really is.

Even though the basic thought of this website is exercise in different ways, there is quite a few more approaches to learning. GoNoodle is constantly developing by the help of its users. One can write and ask for new exercises for instance. There is also a blog to read and get new ideas from.

My reasons, for using GoNoodle.com, are basically two: To get my pupils moving now and then in a fun way but also to let them get to know the English language in an informal way and to listen to it and learn some. Through the semester with my 1:st graders, I've heard the children develop their language and pronunciation through having fun. I sometimes help them along with translations and pictures as a support. /Mickaela

Digital pedagogik

I am a big fan of  the ICT resource "Digital pedagogik" which is the new name of Mediapoolen's digital resource page for teachers and students. I have the fourtune to work in a municipality where all the schools are connected to several services provided by Mediapoolen. Your school need to have an agreement with Mediapoolen if you want to use "Digital pedagogik".

First you will need to register at their site with your workplace connected e-mailaddress and verify that you belong to a workplace with an agreement. When you have registered you can login from any computer and surf around the site. You can find streamable movies, shorter films and audio recordings for any subject. Make sure you have a good internet connection if you want to stream anything. You can search by resource type, age group, language and by theme. Say you are going to have a theme based teaching method in class for a week or two about Sweden. Then you can enter "Sverige" in the search field and click the theme named "Sverige", now you'll see this view:

 
At the left hand side of the screen you will see all the site's resources connected to the theme. Many resources come with a teacher's guide with examples on how you can use it in class. I use this ICT resource on a weekly basis mostly in the subjects general science and English. In my second grade English class the students love "Kids English Zone" and "Muzzy in Gondoland", both in very simple English. And they learn a lot bu them especially since we always do something practical to use the new knowledge connected to the English class. I really like the fact that I can look around for a suitable resource during my planning hours and attach the resource to my personal pinboard.

Students can also register to the site even if its regulated by the same rules as for teachers. If the students are connected and know how to use the site many new possibilities opens up. I think that I would use this choice mainly with older students. Since I really like the idea of flipped classrooms I could give homework to watch a short film or listen to an audio file which we then could discuss later in class.

As if this wasn't enough you can also create music and use the softwares Creaza and Vocalex right there on the site. Creaza lets the students create digital mind maps and their own comic strips. It is also possible to edit both video and audio clips within this software. Vocalex is an easy to use word translation / glossary software which is great to use for extra pracitce. It is also siutable with students from foreign countries. One thing that I like in particular is the fact that you can switch between different languages quite easily. You can also switch between different kinds of exercises like reading or listening comprehension.

To sum it all up. Digital pedagogik is a site with a lot of content. Try it and you will like it!

//Therese Ahl Lennartsson

K-5 Math Teaching Resources

K-5 Math Teaching Resources http://www.k-5mathteachingresources.com/ is a website where a teacher can find ideas for how to work with numbers, geometry, measurement and data. It provides complementary activities for each grade between K-5 and links to free games for students to practice. The website also sells some of their products for single use and multiplayer user license. 

Teachers´ can use the website as a source for ideas or they can simple just use the exact activities on the site. The website can mainly be used to complete books and other methods when teaching math. 

The website can be used by students with teacher´s help, since it can be tricky to find to the games. Number, geometry, measurement and data are categories which have activities and ideas for the different grades between K to 5. They also have something called IWB resources in each category of number, geometry, measurement and data. In these IWB resources you can find link to different games for students to practice for example the clock: http://www.oswego.org/ocsd-web/games/BangOnTime/clockwordres.html

More over the website has a gallery where you can see some of the activities done by the students in their different grades: http://www.k-5mathteachingresources.com/1st-grade-math-journal-gallery.html

To have in mind when using this website as a resource: 

You need to have adobe reader to access the pdf files on the site. They do not give everything for free, so you need to pay for some things, like for example recommendations for books that you can buy through Amazon: http://astore.amazon.com/k5matteares-20 

It is always good to find new approaches and ways to develop your teaching methods and ideas. This website can open some new ideas how to teach to a specific group of students or a whole class something in a different way that you as a teacher are used to. 

//Tone Blomberg 

I’m sure that you already are familiar with the website https://glosor.eu/ but it is worth mentioning. This site give both you as a teacher and your students help learning the vocabulary. Until now I only used it together with my daughter because I don’t teach English yet.

You can become a member for free but certain parts of the site has a cost. The most part of it’s paid for by advertisements, there are ads on the website. It’s really easy to sign in, you just need to have an username, a password and a mailadress. It took me about to minutes. After you logged in you can start making exercises for your students.

I tested to use the glossary for the homewoork this week, and after I hade written the words in the column I got access to the exercises immediately. For example: You can write the words or sentences in English and have them corrected right away. You can translate in both directions.

If you want to listen to the words you can get direct speech for a cost of 9:- /student and semester. Most of the students like this function so they can work on their pronounciation. Further more you can play different games. My favourite game is multiple choice, you get a list of words and you should choose the right one.

You can also print out exercises so you can work whith the glossary that way. That’s perfect for the students to have a list of the words for the week correctly spelled and in form of an exercise. (Not everyone can write right off the blackboard.)

The students can log in wherever they are and take part in these exercises. They can use glosor.eu to practise English at school and/or att home, My own daughter  find this site useful because she can study the glossary for the week without help from me and she can go back and look on previous uploads when it’s time for an exam. It’s a resource for students, especially those who tend to misplace their homewoork.  With this site they always have acces to the homewoork and it’s also spelled correcltly. I think this is a part the parents appreciate.

This is a commercial website but I have not seen inappropriate commercial yet. I teach mathematics and I appreciate the function that you can make statistics/chart about the results on the exercises.

Please note! I would add that it is important to be careful when you add a task, make it grammatically correct and spelled correctly. Otherwise, it's a useless exercise. (Thank you David for reminding me of this.)

//Marie Karlsson

Sli.se

I want to tell you about this webpage called Sli.se.
It is a webpage which offers a broad spectrum of online videos and listening programs. If your school or municipality is connected to a media central that has this service you can get access to the content of this webpage. You can read all about the media centrals in you area on the homepage.

Once you get access to the page you are able to make an account. You can do one for your self and you can also make students accounts. The account is free. There are many selections available so you can find programs that is preferred for a specific subject,  choose which age you want the program to fit, language, length, texted or not texted.

To get to the webpage, write www.sli.se. You can also download it as an app, go to Apples App-store or Google Play and search for SLI.SE Play.

If you want to stream a program you must be sure that you have a good internet connection, or else could the program stop or not work at all. You can watch these videos and listen to the programs on computers, Ipads or smartphones, basically anything that has a good internet connection. It is good to know that if you are watching something from the webpage on an Ipad or smartphone the function with underline texts does not work. If you instead are using the app, these functions does work.

For some of the programs there are tutorials for the teachers about how to use the program in the class before or after watching/listening to something at the webpage. These tutorials you can download.

I use Sli.se as an complement to the teaching since I believe that everyone learn in different ways, and that this is one alternative. Some students maybe learn best when the teacher is writing or reading, but some also has to have something more concrete like watching and listening.

If you want more information or need help please visit www.sli.se/help

Kajsa B Nässlander