I came across this really cool website that gives great teaching ideas for every academic concentration. I took a look at some of the English, Writing, Reading, and Language Arts ones and they were great! I think it could make for a great tool for first time teachers. Coming up with a lesson plan for everyday is going to be difficult sometimes. This website can help you get a jump start and be ready for those days when you are really stuck. Just by reading a few of them, it got my creative side to come out and before I knew it, I had a ton of ideas ready to go again!
http://www.teachersfirst.com/matrix.cfm
Sunday, February 26, 2012
What's in a Wordels?
I really enjoyed this lesson plan! It could really help students understand their own writing. I know that in my writings I use certain words a lot and by using worldel as a tool, it showed me which words I need to try to use less. Tying this into a lesson or just using it as a tool to introduce before writing a big paper would be a great idea! After the wordel has been made, I would take the top fifteen to twenty words and find a few words in the thesaurus to replace them. It would not only be good for the paper, but also for a future reference. This is the type of lesson plan that can be used not just once, but over and over again. Hopefully the students would take advantage of this tool and use it outside of the lesson too!
Friday, February 17, 2012
Tired of the same old powerpoints?
In pretty much every class I have attended, powerpoints are used for lectures. Slide after slide with bullet-ed posts can gt pretty boring. Occasionally, teachers will use a fun transition, background, or if they are feeling really adventurous they can use a sound effect. Technology allows us more options now, so why stick to the same old boring powerpoint program. Prezi is an online program that allows you to make power points that are fun! instead of multiple slide, it is just one slide that moves through a maze of spots throughout the main image. You create the path it takes into different locations on the page. It rotates in all different directions, has animations, videos, music, and all kinds of different things that can turn a boring old slideshow into something fun and exciting to follow. The best part is that it is completely free. You might not get all the options it has for free, but you get most of them. And teachers and college students get the advanced free version on Prezi. I had a lot of fun exploring the website with all the examples they had available and I even tried making my own! I might even make my next presentation using Prezi. Definitely check it out and spice up your presentations!
Sunday, February 5, 2012
Are you Listening?
Audio books are not a new concept, but they are definitely becoming more and more popular. I remeber one time in 6th grade we were reading The Cay. It was a difficult book at the time for the whole class to read. Our teacher played it on audio tape for us while we followed along. It helped most of the students to keep up with the reading, even though we were not technically reading. That was my first experience with audio books.
I haven't really used audio books since, but I know many people who do. I think they are of great use in the car during a long drive. However, now people are starting to use them in place of the actual text, especially in high school. They are given the book, but simply download it from the internet and listen to it instead. I've even heard cases of college students using ausio books. Some books can be rather expensive, not so much the small books we get for an Litrerature class. But those small books start to add up; for example, I had to get ten books for my one class. Each one may have only cost anywhere from ten to fifteen dollars but that adds up. Audio books can be much cheaper, if not completely free. I got the actual book anyway just because that is what I prefer, but a lot of people who have to get books for other English classes are just down loading the audio version! I like to have the text, especially if it is for a class. That way I can takes notes in it or highlight important lines. I think audio books should be for reading for pleasure, not academic work.
Do you think students get the same experience from listening to a book verses reading it?
I haven't really used audio books since, but I know many people who do. I think they are of great use in the car during a long drive. However, now people are starting to use them in place of the actual text, especially in high school. They are given the book, but simply download it from the internet and listen to it instead. I've even heard cases of college students using ausio books. Some books can be rather expensive, not so much the small books we get for an Litrerature class. But those small books start to add up; for example, I had to get ten books for my one class. Each one may have only cost anywhere from ten to fifteen dollars but that adds up. Audio books can be much cheaper, if not completely free. I got the actual book anyway just because that is what I prefer, but a lot of people who have to get books for other English classes are just down loading the audio version! I like to have the text, especially if it is for a class. That way I can takes notes in it or highlight important lines. I think audio books should be for reading for pleasure, not academic work.
Do you think students get the same experience from listening to a book verses reading it?
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