You in four

Thanks to Cool Cat Teacher and the Flat Class Project I had the chance to come across a wonderful video on how to make your presentations stand out by Dean Shareski. The beauty of this is that it practices what it preaches by incorporating the advice given on originality, simplicity etc. . I have already used it once with one of my private students in order to get her started on her project (I'll link to it later when it's completed).

However, Dean mentioned an idea that the University of Chicago School of Business has introduced recently into its admission procedure. Basically, students have to submit,

"four slides or less, please provide readers with content that captures who you are."

I thought that this would be an excellent project for students wishing to start off their blogs. The university suggests Powerpoint or something similar. I would also recommend Comeeko.com which is a site that allows you to make comic strips using your own photos/images.

By the way, the 19th century is over

I came across this great video whilst over at Cool Cat Teacher's blog and it just about sums up everything I've been trying to do via my lessons over the last few years. As well as teaching English I've been trying to impart to my students, irrespective of age, how we are now part of a truly global economy and that much of we'll need in the future can not be found in the antiquated education system they have to endure.

Cool Cat Teacher

Vicki Davis, a high school teacher in Georgia, USA is out there on the bleeding edge as far as web 2.0 in education is concerned. Thankfully, her work had been recognised by others and she, along with Julia Lindsay were winners of the 2006 Edublog Awards for best wiki (see here for the winning entry). Listen to her interview two of the judges in the contest for the reasons behind their choice. It's always fascinating to hear how educators use technology in their teaching situations and to see what works and what doesn't.


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Practising what you preach

One blog that I regularly read is Cool Cat teacher, which is by Vicki Davis, a middle school teacher from Georgia, USA. She also has a podcast which is great way to pick up on new ways of using web 2.0 tools in the classroom. Inspired by her example I decide it was time to update my wikispace on teaching EFL/ESL with technology.

Check out her latest one which is an introduction to all these wonderful ways of using the internet in our teaching practice. If you're not using PowerGrade then I'd skip the first 18 minutes and go straight to her presentation on learning with podcasts, blogs and wikis.

Organising a student exchange using the internet

This is something I've been wanting to do for a long time. It just seems that there is never enough time. However, over the next week I'm going to make a concerted effort to chase up possible student exchange possibilities. I've already signed up one of my older classes with the Dekita.org site with the aim of getting the students to communicate via their blog with other EFL/ESL learner across the globe. Also I want to get my younger students to do some kind of exchange with some Canadian students, courtesy of Excellence and Imagination.

If you want to see some excellent web 2.0 teaching ideas put into practice check out Cool Cat Teacher's latest joint project.

"The Flat Classroom project is a genuine assessment project between Julie Lindsay's grade 11 ITGS class at International School Dhaka(ISD) in Bangladesh and Vicki Davis' 10th grade Computer Science class at Westwood Schools in Camilla, Georgia."

Mind blowing ideas

Photo courtesy of Seth Fisher

In a good month I get about 2000 visitors to this blog, a number that far exceeds my wildest expectations when I started it, however, imagine a school that gets 1.5 million visitors a month to their site. No, not a world famous university, multi-national corporation or big name e-retailer, but a middle school in Georgia, USA.

When I was over at ever interesting Cool Cat Teacher blog I came across an interview Vicky did (listen here) with the Principle of Mabry Middle School, Dr Tim Taylor, who set up the site.
The school is a world leader in the integration of technology into teaching practice and the amazing thing is how low cost and easily accessible most of the tools are. For example, the site itself is, in fact as series of connected Movable Type blogs. What you can't put a price on though, is the sheer inventiveness and creativity of those teachers and students that are making this idea a practical reality.

I found the student produced video particularly amazing. Now that I've figured out how to post stuff on YouTube and have access to broad band at school and at home I'm definitely going to start on some of the video projects I blogged about during the summer.

Check out their film festival here.