week 8. because i promised. literary agents, feel free to reach out in the comments section.

Week Seven!

Enjoy this exciting clip and equally riveting quiz from one of my favorite movies!

Why isn't anyone Google-searching WEEK SIX OF MY AWESOME ON-LINE CLASS?

Football and babies - I guess we know what's on everyone's mind!

So this week we've had some great fun interacting on a VOICE THREAD. Who knew? Someone just throws out a topic and then everyone can discuss - either by text (my preference, of course) or voice message (I actually also prefer when the other participants use voice - go figure), video (this totally creeps me out - nobody ever gets the lighting right) and maybe possibly there is an option to create a painting in response to the topic - interpretive art?  I admit, I didn't get this far. For entertainment purposes, it's not an improvement on SNL's perfection:

But for an off-site classroom discussion, I'd say it's downright genius.

The next stop on our On-Line Train of Fun Tools for Teaching was this great interactive spelling match with a Sponge Bob Square Pants kind of feel to it. I played for a while and considered waking up my kids so they could remind me of the Sponge Bob lyrics since the tune is now STUCK IN MY HEAD.

This FunBrain.com spell check game was also great.

The format actually reminded me of a great app called Kahoot! where the whole class can play a quiz game interactively. (hat tip to the English Dep't)

Even though I ranted about kids having cell phones in the classroom on the Voice Thread - my rant was not conclusively for nor against, but it was, indeed, a rant - IF kids had smart phones in the class, they could play a version of this spelling quiz interactively using Kahoot! Something to ponder.

Okay it's late. I got a little sidetracked making comics. This would be fun to have students do.
Here's mine:

And just when I thought I had not an ounce of creative energy left, I went and wrote this bestselling award winning original horror story (with the help of a story-maker)............

Imagine Said Story Inserted *HERE*

Alas, technology has failed me. My blogger page seems to have a picture limit. Stay tuned for my next post to read my latest thriller.

Week Five  - Coming at You Live

Learning all kinds of new tricks this week.

Turns out you can listen to real conversations on the Internet. I found one between this guy, who I'm pretty sure is the voice of Shaggy from Scooby Doo, and a very patient sounding girl (jump to the "listening exercise"). If you ask me, he's only PRETENDING to be interested in her studies....

I also learned that I can speak to my computer and there's a microphone somewhere in there that will record my voice! This finding begged a trial but I was at a loss for words. Luckily there were some Disney lyrics nearby....
Some found poetry

I had to close the door while recording because my brother was busy telling my mom about some recording of a British guy he listens to at night that lulls him to sleep. And then I found THIS recording of a paragraph about visiting the zoo. The pronunciation is perfect, the articulation, flawless, and the voice is so soothing....... I am definitely going to recommend it to my brother!

Finally, I checked out some great resources for using songs to teach English. I tried this once before, when actually teaching 7th graders, and until I found a song with G-rated lyrics, I nearly gave up! So I am thrilled to have sites with songs already selected to choose from. Imagine my joy at finding a grammar lesson based on Foreigner's 1981 classic I've Been Waiting For A Girl Like You!

Present Perfect Continuous Rocks!
(post script: on a more careful reading of the lyrics I had to censor them)

So long, I've been looking too hard, I've been waiting too long
Sometimes I don't know what I will find, I only know it's a matter of time

When you love someone, when you love someone
It feels so right, so warm and true, I need to know if you feel it too
Maybe I'm wrong, won't you tell me if I'm coming on too strong?
This heart of mine has been hurt before, this time I want to be sure

I've been waiting for a girl like you to come into my life
I've been waiting for a girl like you, your loving will survive
I've been waiting for someone new to make me feel alive
Yeah, waiting for a girl like you to come into my life

It's more than a touch or a word can say
Only in dreams could it be this way

When you love someone, yeah, really love someone
Now, I know it's right, from the moment I wake up till deep in the night
There's nowhere on earth that I'd rather be than holding you tenderly

I've been waiting for a girl like you to come into my life
I've been waiting for a girl like you, your loving will survive
I've been waiting for someone new to make me feel alive
Yeah, waiting for a girl like you to come into my life

I've been waiting, waiting for you, ooh
Ooh, I've been waiting
(Waiting) I've been waiting
(I've been waiting for a girl like you, I've been waiting) won't you come into my life?
Aah-aah-aah

Read more: Foreigner - Waiting For A Girl Like You Lyrics | MetroLyrics 

Week 4 - While Future English Teachers have been distracted by addictive internet fun (seizure warning), something way more sinister has been percolating....

I've just spent half an hour making graffiti art of me and my husband

followed by a scary animation of said husband where I learned (the scary way) that you must undo an effect before you overlay more effects lest you end you end up with something like this:

(you were warned).
[Effects used, in case you want to replicate this: hearts, zoom, horror]

And all this in the name of higher education! Whooop! Except that I left myself a little short on blogging time.

I love the links provided this week - it will be great to sprinkle my classes with comics, graphics and other visual learning tools. In my Advanced Proficiency class I picked up some (less seizure-inducing) highly useful resources as well - namely the "Essential Lexical Tools" referenced in this blog: http://leoxicon.blogspot.co.il/. He linked to some sites that help you find common expressions if you give some of the core words of the expression - although I didn't have much luck plugging in "You can lead a horse to water..." Hmmm.  I did have some fun seeing if any of the sites could answer that question burning in everyone's subconscious......

Wait for it........

Longshanks, winking, to his staff: Everything's gonna be all right!

So it's the start of week four (which I'll meekly argue is still the tail end of week three, depending on what time zone you're in and which Sabbath day you observe) and so, here I am. Pasting Bob Marley lyrics into Text Profiler. And there's a perfectly logical explanation. But before I get to it, check this out!

Now in one of my English courses I was taught that one needs to understand 95% of the words in a text in order to understand the text. In other words, learners of English as a foreign language can't really just "wing it" with weak vocabulary. That said, I can anecdotally attest to the fact that my understanding of Hebrew probably hovers around the 75% mark and, before the "say it again, slowly" request is honored, I get the gist of whatever's being said but miss any subtle nuance and all deeper meaning. And yet, check out Bob Marley! Nearly a quarter of his song is made up of official nonsense words and yet (going out on a limb here), EVERYONE understands No Woman, No Cry. I seh. Yeah!

I had intended to paste those timeless lyrics into Wordle or Tagxedo - cool sites which offer to draw the most used words of the song into a fun picture or word cloud for you - but got discouraged by the need to download a whole new browser to make it happen. I will imagine the word cloud would have looked like this:

'cause

friends

cry

woman

Everything's gonna be all right, yeah!

And I solemnly affirm, with my 54 anonymous and non-committed viewers as witness, that when the time comes to actually create a word cloud, I will, in fact, download the appropriate browser. 

I also had the great fortune of learning a new word, now that I am signed up to receive a word a day from WordSmith. I actually receive a word a day in Hebrew from Ulpan La-Inyan and it serves as a great source of self confidence as, 9 days out of 10, I already know the word. Imagine my shock when the very first word I saw on WordSmith was an actual new word I never knew. I've been speaking English for a long time so I assumed this word must have recently been added to the dictionary. Except that its first recorded usage was in 1620. Hmmmm.

Turns out my favorite scene from Braveheart was a defenestration and all this time I was just referring to it as 'that scene when the King threw Prince Longshanks' partner out the window'.  And would you look at Google - understanding that Guy Thrown Out Of Window = Defenestration. Impressive. 

Just for fun I searched "Everything's gonna be all right" in the Corpus of Contemporary American English.
7 hits and not one of them Bob Marley. Hmm....

So it's the start of week three which means I'm catching up on week two. I enjoyed revisiting some blog sites.

The Southern Accented podcaster interviewed a psychologist who spoke about children who suffer from emotional dysregulation.

Emotional dysregulation (ED) is a term used in the mental health community to refer to an emotional response that is poorly modulated, and does not fall within the conventionally accepted range of emotive response. ED may be referred to as labile mood (marked fluctuation of mood) or mood swings.

She gave some techniques for use in the classroom (for example, have students let their backs touch the back of the seat, put their feet fully on the ground, to release cortisol and help them focus) and spoke in general about how such students can benefit from more space, more time and from their teachers being mindful of their own nervous system in order to effectively reach the children (for example, is the teacher calm and taking a moment to sit down to speak with the students or is the urgency of the lesson permeating the teacher's own body language?)

In the freetech4teachers blog I learned how to create on-line flashcards. Of course I needed to test this new knowledge and so I went ahead and created a vocabulary list of some useful Hebrish for my myriad blog followers (as of this moment there are officially zero followers in spite of my 46 page views in Israel and North America). Go on, uncommitted phantom followers! Take a look! If I understand correctly, you should actually be able to add words to my list.
https://quizlet.com/_2rtbmu

Since the other blog I looked at last week hasn't updated I found this one: http://catlintucker.com/
which spoke about involving students in the unlikely processes of planning and teaching lessons, evaluating progress and facilitating communication with parents. I want to be in her class!

Until next time.....

(And the requisite disclaimer - it is Motzei Shabbat here in Israel, regardless of what Blogger says)

So I'm reading blogs about integrating technology into the classroom and I'm learning stuff already. I enjoyed this post about using Google Earth to bring lessons closer to home:
http://www.freetech4teachers.com/2016/11/an-easy-way-to-find-google-earth-tours.html#.WB4javl97IU
I actually experimented with the how-to by Google Earthing my parents' retirement village, in all its riveting glory and excitement. Look at that! Google Earth can put you where your heart is.

Next I read this post:
http://adeleefl.blogspot.co.il/2016/10/its-fun-to-be-winners-especially-when.html
about Israeli kids participating in a Google contest to improve Google Translate. THANK G-D.....
although some of my best blogging material has been samples of hilariously translated school emails via Google Translate. Alas, I'll have to look elsewhere for an easy laugh.

Finally, I listened to this Southern Accented podcast cautiously encouraging tech-unsavvy teachers to first learn how to use Twitter and then, if ever, start using Twitter.
http://www.bamradionetwork.com/every-classroom-matters/4099-140-twitter-tips-for-educuators
I have Twitter. Outside of war-time, I never use it. However, in the spirit of showing these podcasters I am one of the capable ones, I went ahead and started following @TEFL and @classroomblog. Just for fun.

(For anyone who is wondering, it's Saturday night here in Israel, though Blogger is using US time to indicate when my post went up).

My name is Lisa and I'm just now starting my On-Line (Teaching in the 21st Century) course which, presumably, started a week ago. My friend Lucy asked me if I'm an on-time person or a last-minute person and I told her I really don't know. In truth, as my participation in this course will undoubtedly reveal, I tend to be a fly by the seat of my pants person. And so here I am, blogging for homework. Thank Gd I know how to blog. As disappointing as it is to imagine a generation of kids who have grown up on screens and who now require an interactive stimulating screen based type of education, I am certain it will be helpful to learn to integrate such teaching methods into the classroom. At a minimum it could mean the end of sloppy handwritten and dog-eaten homework. Until next time....
(For anyone who is wondering, it's Saturday night here in Israel, though Blogger is using US time to indicate when my post went up).