Blogging in the new year

*this is a re-post from my new blog, techiestateofmind.blogspot.com*

Hey 2014, let's get blogging... A new year, a fresh perspective, a renewed vision. 

The past couple of years, as an ELL teacher, I had a pretty clear sense of my blogging focus: ed tech tools and resources that enhanced English language teaching and learning.  It was a specific topic, and I found my blogging rhythm (fairly) quickly.  This year, in my new position as a technology integration specialist, it's been harder for me to focus in on one specific theme for my blog....and as a result, I haven't quite established my blogging routine...yet. 

Over winter break, I had a chance to do some reflecting on my blog and the direction I'd like to take it in the new year.   I realized that there are basically three kinds of ed tech blog posts that I love to read, talk about, and write:

• content curation, reflection, and response
• successes and/or failures with an app, tool, or resource
• content generation, brainstorming, creative expression

So, I've decided to use those three categories as guides to help me focus my blogging in 2014.

And what better time to start...than the present.

http://sociallysorted.com.au/
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Canva-Image-.jpg

One of my favorite techie tools out there is a free graphic design website called Canva.  Although this site was not designed specifically for educators, I have loved using it to help me design and publish graphics for presentations, posters, websites, my blog, logos, and even my family holiday card.  I love graphic design, and have been on the look-out for an easy-to-use, free graphics resource.  It is currently in Beta and in order to use it, you sign up for an invite - I got mine in a day or two. 












Pros:
Canva currently provides templates for 11 different design platforms / sizes:

• Business card
• Invitation
• Poster
• Photo collage
• Card 
• Social media
• Facebook cover image
• Blog graphic
• Presentation
• Document
• Christmas card

Once you choose a design type, you have over 1,000,000 images to choose from to build your design.  Most are free - those that aren't free cost $1.00.

You can customize your design by changing the color, text, size, layout, combination, and alignment of the different images.

You can share your design directly to Twitter and Facebook, you can email a link to it, or you can download it to your computer to print or share.

You can give your friends instant access to Canva once you sign up - sharing really is caring when you find an awesome resource.

Cons:

At this point, the only con I've discovered while using Canva is that it doesn't yet have an EDU version to make sure the graphics are filtered for student use.  Even so, I love it as a tool for my own teaching and graphic design, and highly recommend that you give Canva a try!

What are your blogging resolutions for 2014?  

How do you structure and focus your blog?  

Have you tried out Canva or another, similar tool?  

I'd love to hear from you - please share your comments below!

Academic Vocabulary and Haiku Deck

What is 'Academic Vocabulary'?

Academic Vocabulary Frayer Example

Why should academic vocabulary be explicitly taught?

• to build students' background knowledge on a concept (not just for English learners)
• because some academic words have multiple meanings, depending on the context (ex: table, root, line...)
• to prepare students to read, hear or speak about a new concept
• because understanding important words related to a new concept can help students make connections to prior learning and/or the world around them

Here's some of the research behind academic vocabulary:

Source: Pennsylvania Department of Education,
"Effective Practices for Teaching Academic Vocabulary"

Marzano's Six Steps to Effective Vocabulary Instruction:

Source:
http://www.teachthought.com/teaching/vocabulary-instructiona-strategies-marzanos-6-step-process/

How can technology be used to facilitate and enhance academic vocabulary teaching and learning?

In my experience, a number of edtech apps and resources become powerful tools when partnered with Marzano's Six Steps (listed above).  

One of my new favorites that I'd like to highlight for you is Haiku Deck - a free iPad app that allows you to create powerful presentations using a few words and Creative Commons images.

My first experience using Haiku Deck with my English learners was when I created an illustrated WW2 vocabulary game to use with a group of 6th graders.  Each slide contains a vocabulary word and related image, and students went head-to-head in an around the world-type game to see who could be the first to provide the correct definition for a given word.  They loved it, and will be creating their own vocabulary games using Haiku Deck for a review next week.

Created with Haiku Deck, the free presentation app for iPad


My second experience with Haiku Deck was structured around homophones and the Frayer Model for vocabulary development.  A 4th grade teacher and I met this past week to plan for a new unit, and we realized how powerful it would be to have students extend and share their learning of homophones by creating Haiku Decks with Frayer Model squares for each slide.

Here's a sample Frayer Model:

And here's how we turned it into a Haiku Deck:



Created with Haiku Deck, the free presentation app for iPad

Check out the tutorial I made for this lesson on Sophia.org for the screencasted explanation of my Haiku Deck: Homophone Vocabulary: http://www.sophia.org/vocabulary-and-haiku-deck-tutorial

We are really looking forward to having our students create and share their own homophone vocabulary Haiku Decks this week!

How have you used Haiku Deck?

What are some other effective apps / resources you use to teach academic vocabulary?

Please share your ideas, comments and questions in the comments below!

Khan Academy

A big part of my job is collaborating and co-teaching with mainstream classroom teachers, so I always try to keep an eye out for technology that could be helpful for English learners (as well as other learners) in content area classes, such as math, science, social studies and language arts.

I happened to turn on the TV for a few minutes this afternoon and I caught a good portion of 60 Minutes, which was featuring Khan Academy - an edtech site that hosts thousands of free educational videos on (what seems like) any subject you may be interested in learning. I have used Khan Academy a several times with elementary and adult ed math classes, and have had positive results.


I see Khan Academy fitting into math and science instruction with English learners for a few main reasons:

1. Students can learn at their own pace - they can stop, rewind, or fast forward to hear and see the information as many times as they need to really understand the concept.
   
2. The videos provide modeling of both the new concept, as well as of the processing language necessary to explain and describe the new concept.
3. Students can practice various concepts with practice problems, and are offered a corresponding video to watch if they get stuck on a problem. A personal tutor...just a click away.
   
4. Teachers can track students' progress on Khan Academy by creating a free account and then creating a class list (students log in using a Google Apps account, and then add the teacher as a Coach). Once a student begins working on a set of practice problems, data about the # of problems right/wrong, as well as a record of the type of problems attempted are all accessible by the teacher/coach. This allows teachers to closely monitor progress and confer with students in a meaningful, specific and individualized way.

This year will be the first year I'll have students add me as a coach so I can track their progress. I'm pretty excited to see how well it works and will definitely report back!

For the record, the categories of topics covered by Khan Academy videos are (as of right now):

• math
• science
• computer science
• finance & econ
• humanities
  
• test prep

Have you used Khan Academy or some other screencasted video lessons? If so, which ones, and would you recommend them to other teachers?

Thanks for reading and happy Labor Day weekend! Hope the start of the school year goes smoothly for everyone!

--Andrea