Using Blogs And Podcasts To Teach

The use of blogs and podcasts is very useful in the classroom. By using these tools, not only the teacher has the opportunity to keep in contact with the students, but also the students have the possibility to be up-to-date about the class assignments and to practice some skills. Another relevant feature from blogs and podcasts is that they help to keep a track of students' performance. Thus, the teacher will assign extra exercises and guide students by providing them feedback about the mistakes the make.

using interactive videos in your class

Using interactive videos to teach a topic is a good idea. This video is an example of using eye-catching images, specially cartoons which students can identify very easily and which can be meaningful for them. This is a good way to chill out students when facing a task, because they are familiar with this cartoons and they make them laugh. Depending on the age of your students, you can use already known pictures. However, these kind of programs such as south park or even the Simpsons, are very interesting for several kids, teenagers and adults. Nevertheless, it is necessary to check the content, vocabulary and the relationship the video has with the topic you are teaching. Moreover, if you want to choose these images to teach your own class, you can always apply them through a PPT presentation and make them interactive materials for your lesson. What can you tell me about which videos have you played to teach English to your students? Did you use these kind of cartoons to teach a topic?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5Lxrh2Jys6Y

LEARNING LANGUAGES THROUGH TECHNOLOGY

Learning Languages through Technology is a book edited by Elizabeth Hanson-Smith and Sarah Rilling. In this web page, it is recall the influence of the technology in a class setting. It mentions that nowadays with the big impact that technology has, it is a good tool to instruct and reinforce knowledge. On the page, there are some advices to use technology for administrative and teaching duties, where The teacher uses the computer for administrative or organizational functions such as planning a lesson, creating exams, arranging meetings, and sending or receiving messages with information about the lesson. It also mentions that the use of technology may be blended, with students face-to-face doing the activities or distance through a full online class interaction. This is a very interesting page, where people can learn more about simple tasks to use the technology and when to apply it.

http://www.tesol.org/s_tesol/zs_sec_document.asp?CID=280&DID=7708