As the description suggests, this blog is a support tool for the CI 473 Course, English cohort at UIUC. I. Raúl A. Mora, am the instructor of record for this course in the spring semester, 2010.
This blog serves as the tool for one of the course assignments. Following is my description of the assignment on social bookmarking:
One of the new skills required from teachers in this new millennium is the ability to teach information search skills and critical thinking, especially in regards to what is available on the Web. For this assignment, every student in this class must find and review one website related to your content area. The goal is to have a bank of websites everybody can benefit from. You will write a review (of about 200-300 words) for the website you chose.
My rationale for this assignment is simple: There is a plethora of websites for teachers, featuring information on lesson plans, activities, concepts, materials, etc. Novice teachers are using the Internet and search engines more and more as a complementary, sometimes the main, resource for their daily teaching. However, Google cannot tell us what constitutes a trustworthy resource. There is where our expertise of the subject and our knowledge as teachers kicks in. This assignment has a bigger scope than just getting a grade. I have several goals for this activity:
(1) To have an extended network of high-quality websites that they can use with their students as soon as Student Teaching and beyond that.
(2) To improve on their information search skills so that, in turn, they can share that knowledge with students.
(3) To be able to have a tangible reference list that they can share with other teachers in years to come
(4) To learn to participate actively in an online community of practice.
I believe in helping my students develop the necessary tools for their success. I also believe that the development and enhancement of technological skills is a necessity to work with students who keep becoming technology savvy every day. I hope that this blog and the social bookmarking assignment to which this blog is linked will serve that purpose.
Authorstream.com is a great, free resource for teachers. This website gives teacher made PowerPoint presentations covering varying concepts for various grade levels. The presentations are accessible as is, online, as well as, downloadable for personalization and editing based on individual classroom needs. The website is very teacher friendly. Teac hers can search a specific topic they are teaching in a unit and sort through presentations already developed to determine the one best for their lesson, limiting the amount of time they spend creating presentation “from scratch.” The website also provides presentation transcripts. This text form of the presentation can be used as notes for the teacher, used to develop guided notes for students with special needs, as notes for a student that was absent, etc. There are also comments from other teachers on how they used the presentation or problem dilemmas they faced. This is a quick and easy resource that allows teachers to use technology in the classroom and I highly recommend it.
ReplyDeleteWebenglishteacher.com is a great, free website primarily for middle and high school English teachers with many resources on pretty much every subject. It offers many lesson plans dealing with reading, writing, and researching. It themes a certain subject as its main page but on the side bar is tons of different categories. The main page I have recently previewed was a plethora of ideas on how to introduce biographies. It gives teachers tons of ideas on how to present, teach, and write biographies. This is extremely helpful for teachers who may not be knowledgeable on a certain subject. On the side bar of this website are many other subjects that all English teachers will be teaching at one point. Some of these include book reports, grammar, journalism, drama, and poetry. The great thing about these topics being addressed is that all of the lesson ideas and plans are posted by real English teachers who have used these assignments in their own classrooms. Each tab offers at least ten different ideas for how to teach and interact with students during certain lessons. Some even post reviews on how a certain lesson went which is extremely helpful. Even though this website is very simple it is always going to be useful to have a resource to reference to when a teacher gets stuck coming up with new ideas or strategies. All teachers are going to need help during some period of their career. If we all get together and think creatively, like many have done on webenglishteacher.com, our jobs will become a little less stressful.
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