Correctly Citing Pictures

I use pictures a lot while teaching English. I use them for vocabulary, as writing or speaking prompts and often just for fun. I'm an avid PowerPoint user for vocabulary review, but recently, one of my coworkers was talking about having the students create their own dictionary definitions online using images, videos, audio, and text.  We talked a lot about copyright, but realizing that neither of us knew much about it, we decided to work it out later.  This most recent lesson in how to use Creative Commons has been immeasurably useful. To give you an example

This week, my reading class has been practicing inference, and I like to bring in real world images to practice on before moving to the much drier textbook. Here's an example of an image I might use:

Photo Attribution:
Original image: "Funny Church Signs"
http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2048/2404126159_6303673c95_m.jpg
by: Mel Silvers


Released under an Attribution-Non-Commercial-Share Alike License
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0/


As you may have noticed, I have included the copyright information for the picture.  In the past, I haven't done this very often mainly because I worried about how much time it would take and wasn't sure how to do it properly.  However, Creative Commons makes it super simple.  To give you another example of an image I might use, below is a picture taken in Nara, Japan. Even though most of my students can't speak Japanese, they can guess the meaning from the picture, and I have them write what the sign might be saying.  

 



I don't have to include copyright information because its from the Flickr page I share with my husband. 

Learning Styles

Recently, learning styles have taken greater precedence in education. The foundational belief is that each student has different learning styles, and that teachers should try to tailor their lessons to engage these styles.

As for me, I’m a linguistic, kinesthetic learner. I like logical systematic ways of learning that focus on reading and logic. I study best while moving around. I love music; however, it was not listed as one of my intelligences as I’m not “good” at music.

The most effective strategies have varied based on the country in which I was teaching. Different nationalities definitely have different learning styles. For example, Middle Eastern students love talking. In contrast, Asian students like strong, clear rules.

That said, I understand that it is difficult, and indeed disruptive to the flow of a lesson, to incorporate every learning style into every lesson. Instead, I try to vary my lessons every day.
I have lessons where students
-sit the whole class
-move around the whole class
- look at pictures
- draw pictures
-watch videos
- talk
- listen
- vote on what they want to study
- have me dictate what they will study
- listen to the lecture
- give the lecture
- critique the lecture
- collaborate
- work alone
- correct another student
- and so forth and so on.

I’ve found increasingly that I need to be flexible with my lesson designs. If I’ve planned an exciting lesson, but the students are overwhelmed with work, I’ll often have them do low-key simple exercises instead. In contrast, if we’re working out of the book and students are falling asleep, I’ll switch to a game.

In short, I feel that learning styles are one tool in a teacher’s bag of tricks. While it’s important to know students’ learning styles, these “tests” are not always accurate. Instead, a good teacher should recognize that students have different learning styles, try to incorporate them into the class in different ways, and be willing to change to suit the mood of the class.

Second Life

I thought Second Life was awful. Then I got pink hair!!!

Is Internet access a basic human right?

I just read an brilliant article on ISTE. The basic premise is that if Internet is a human right, as argued by many in light of the Internet blackout in Egypt, then we shouldn't restrict school children's access.  I'm not entirely sure that Internet is a human right. I'd agree that people have the right to freedom of speech, but Internet doesn't guarantee that.  I also feel that we censure the books in the school library, so I see nothing wrong with limiting the Internet either.  Thoughts?

Freerice.com

Freerice.com is a website which gives away 10 grains of rice for every trivia question you answer correctly.  The topics range from foreign language to the periodic table to world geography.  My knowledge of world geography is embarrassing, so I spent two hours last night brushing up on geography and donating rice to hungry people.  Everyone wins!! The website may seem like a hoax, but once you realize how little 10 grains of rice is, you can see that the site probably makes more money off ads than they give away in rice.  Either way, I'm having fun, learning, and feeling better about myself.  The website does a good job of teaching you as well.  It gets progressively harder with each correct answer, and when you get a question wrong, it cycles it back into your questions until you get it right.  It took me about 30 tries to recognize Slovenia, but I think I've got it now.  For the rest of you wordies, you should also check out knoword.org.  Happy learning!!

Netvibes Update

Before this assignment, I’d used Google Reader intermittently, but still preferred to go to individual websites to get my news. I’ve since realized that an RSS feed is a much more efficient way to keep track of information, but I still miss the pictures on the websites.  That said, the feed is keeping me from being overwhelmed by the sheer number of sites I’m keeping track of.  After adding the five required feeds, I added six other feeds.  I tried to add Minnesota’s education radio feed, but so far there haven’t been any new stories.

 For this assignment, I tried to choose a variety of different websites.  Freetech4teachers and blogs.learnnc.org/instructify/, for example, are essentially lists of freeware services with ideas about how to integrate them into the classroom. While they’re useful, I also wanted more philosophical blogs like teachpaperles.blogspot.com, which advocates for a completely paperless classroom. This has been my favorite feed thus far because it forces teachers to think creatively.  I also chose web20classroom.blogspot.com and edtechpower.blogspot.com/because I liked the writers. The writer for web20 has got very strong opinions about education, which force me to reflect on my own beliefs about teaching. In contrast, one of the top posts on edtechpower was “On being different” which discussed the writers experiences being a female teacher at an all-boys school.  She said she often felt like an ambassador for her gender similar to how I feel like a representative for America to my students. Finally, I added a link to the British Council's website, www.teachingenglish.org.uk/rss.xml.  I have an affinity for them after working at a former British Council.  They also have great videos for learning English.

One thing I noticed straight away was that some sites, for example the newsfeeds, were updated much more frequently than others.  Rather than getting overwhelmed by those feeds, I moved them over to a different page.  I also noticed that many blogs had multiple writers which gave them many different voices and ideas, while other blogs were more personal and centered around one teacher’s experiences.  I commented on a few blogs, which I blogged about earlier.

I’ve already learned so much from following these sites.  I learned about Qwiki (a new narrated, illustrated Wikipedia), Voicethread (just google it; it’s awesome), new teaching laws in various states, the Educon conference, LiveMocha (where language learners meet to exchange languages) and much much more!! In addition, I’ve seen many real life examples of web 2.0 being integrated into classrooms. It’s wonderful to see that so many other teachers are interested in the same things that I am.  I’ve also been able to pass along the information that I’ve learned to other teachers, such as on MACUL Space where I told another teacher about epals.com.  

In short, while it can be overwhelming at times, Netvibes, or any other RSS feed, is a great way to keep up-to-date.  In fact, our school has been looking for a way to document our professional development. I've suggested setting up a Netvibes site for our school so that teachers can easily show what they're reading and how they've used it in their classrooms.  So far, enthusiasm's been low, but hopefully once everyone sees how well this cuts down on paperwork, they'll be more excited. Wish me luck!!

This is my Netvibes page: