Teachers Are Using Blogs and Wikis

35% Have students and/or instructor-run blogs  22% Are involved in creating or maintaining Wikis.

From trying out both,so far, I have gotten a lot more out of the blog than the wiki. It makes me wonder why more Teachers are using blogs than wikis? What has your experience been with Blogs or with Wikis?  

Source: degreesearch.org via Alicia on Pinterest

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Work Vocabulary

Exercises and Games

catch on	(v.) become popular; understand
come up with	(v.) to think of; to produce.
an idea / a plan / a suggestion etc.
cut back on	(v.) reduce
figure out	(v.) find the solution to (a problem or question) or understand the meaning of
find out	(v.) get to know or become aware of, usually accidentally
get ahead	(v.) succeed
give up	(v.) stop maintaining or insisting on
go under	(v.) go bankrupt or out of business
hand in	(v.) submit work or school work
lay off	(v.) dismiss, usually for economic reasons
pass over	(v.) bypass (as for a promotion)
set up	(v.) make ready or suitable or equip in advance for a particular purpose or for some use, event, etc
stick with	(v.) not change something / stay near someone / not be forgotten / continue with something difficult or unpleasant
take off	(v.) leave; remove clothes
get away	escape potentially unpleasant consequences
get back to	respond to a contact / respond when you know the answer / start doing something again after an interruption
get by	come to terms or deal successfully with
get into	become involved or interested / become involved in something bad or criminal / be accepted or admitted / become or be accepted as a member / start a habit or way of acting or behaving / be small enough to wear something / criticise
goof off	waste time doing nothing important
got behind	to lag or linger behind
opportunity in disguise	an opportunity that is not readily seen as so
come around	change one's position or opinion
have butterflies in stomach	to be nervous
so to speak	in a manner of speaking

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Mysteries Vocabulary

Practice and Games

devoted	dedicated
document	record in detail
evidence	information and facts that help prove something
incident	a single distinct event
witness	someone who sees an event and reports what happened
authority	an expert whose views are taken as definitive
out of the ordinary	adj. unusual or striking.
can't tell apart	can't distinguish
run into	meet by chance
premises	land and the buildings that are on it
whereabouts	the general location where something is
outskirts	outlying areas (as of a city or town)
stranded	left behind or in a helpless situation
sought	looked for
vanish	disappear suddenly
adopt	take into one's family
seemingly	apparently
twist of fate	unplanned events that has a big impact on the future
inexplicable	incapable of being explained or accounted for
intuition	instinctive knowing (without the use of rational processes)
malfunction	a failure to function normally
observe	observe with care or pay close attention to
previous	Earlier; happening before
routinely	regularly, frequently, typically
speculate	Form a theory or conjecture about a subject without firm evidence.
trigger	an act that sets in motion some course of events

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Story Pyramid Instructions

The story pyramid doesn't have to be written in complete sentences.  Instead,
try to think of the most descriptive, most important words to describe each element of your book.
Book Title
Author/Illustrator

1- Write the name of the main character
• 2- two words describing the main character
• 3- three words describing the setting
• 4- four words stating the story’s problem
• 5- five words describing the first important event in the story.
• 6- six words describing a second important event.
• 7- seven words describing a third important event.
• 8- eight words describing the solution to the problem.

--------------------------------------------
BERTA
THE FIRM
JOHN GRISHAM

1 Mitchell
2 Intelligent Ambicious
3 Firm corruption joining
4 Murder associates taxes FBI
5 Extrench dead boat lawyer investigation 
6 Authorities contact Character explain illegal activity 
7 Trick Girl Photos blackmail quiet kill secrecy
8 Wife silence approach police help husband against criminals

ELENA
Book Title: The Grapes of Wrath
Author: John Steinbeck

1 Joad
2 American family
3 The dust bowl
4 Find a better life
5 Moved to California for work
6 Sadness and suffering on the road
7 They are betrayed by chiefs and society
8 Laws that encourage a better lifestyle for everyone.

DAVID
Round the world in Eighty Days
Jules Verne

1- Fogg
• 2- Calm, habits
• 3- London, India, America
• 4- Bet, travel, robbery, confusion
• 5- Robbery, London, bet, travel, world
• 6- India, Passepartout, save, Aouda, widow, priests.
• 7- America, Train, Indians, Shots, Fogg, rescue, Passepartout
• 8- Steamer, Liverpool, one, day, early, win, bet, marriage.


JOSE D.
Book Title: Tales of Mistery and Imagination

Author: Edgar Allan Poe

1. Roderick

2. Sick Anxious

3. Old Dark Mysterious

4. Ghosts in the house

5. Friend come to the house

6. Stange things happen in his room

7. A ghost try to enter the room

8. The friend escape from the house very fast

BEGOñA
THE HOUSE OF STAIRS

1.- Bell
2.- terribly evil
3.- England, thirtyes decade
4.- human relations among neighbors
5.- a murder in strange circumstances
6.- the loving relationship between two woman
7.- Second protagonist able to kill for money
8.- second protagonist goes to prission rejected by all

MARIA JOSE

The Body
Stephen KING

1. Gordon
2. Unwanted child
3. a dangerous forest
4. Desapereance of a boy
5. Adventure of four american teenagers
6. Looking for a young boy disappeared
7. Four friends facing dangers on their way
8. Four friends discovering how cruel the world is

                               

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Motivate Students to Use Class Blog - Part 2

6. Reccomend Online Resources for Learning
I highlight lists of Blogs and Websites with useful resources for my students.  There are so many sites out there it makes it difficult to find the ones that are truly useful.  My students ask for recommendations, so this way I can have somewhere to refer them to and it's always there not lost in an email. To get students more involved in this process for my advanced classes I ask them to find and recommend useful websites. I am pleasantly surprised at the great resources they recommend.

7. Post Unit Vocabulary
Posting the vocabulary online is another way of getting them to review it.  One good thing of posting it online is that I post the pronunciation and they are able to hear it as many times as they need to. I also embed Quizlet into my posts with the pertinent vocabulary. We play the games in class and my students use them to review for tests on their own. My scores for vocabulary have gone up since I began using this.

8. Post Unit Grammar
Sometimes our book does not give an in depth explanation of how to use the grammar we are studying. Also some students may need more help understanding these concepts.  I sometimes post my grammar lesson straight from my class or find other resources online that give a good explanation and link to it. Some of my students like to get extra grammar exercises, so I provide links for these too. Some of my students don't look at the blog until it gets close to test time. They tell me it's a great resource for them to review for tests.

9. Connect to Book Resources Online

If the publisher has taken the time to create resources for the units in the textbook make it easy for your students to find them and encourage them to use them. Some of the resources are boring, but some are games and are a great way to help students with the material your are studying.

10. Humor 

I post pictures of bad translations I find. I encourage my students to send me same and then we talk about them in class.

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Motivate Students to Use Class Blog Part 1

To motivate my students to use the class blogg the most important thing I do is to make sure that whatever activity I do on the blog is helping them improve their English. In the end this is their main motivation. This keeps me on my toes to be more efficient with how I use my blog in my classes.  Here are some of the ways that I have been using it.

1. Uploading their Writing
Uploading their writing on the blog has various benefits.  One is that overtime students can see the progress they are making in their writing. It works like a writing portfolio.  The other thing is that students like seeing their work published.  At first I was posting all the writing in one post with the students names on it (omitting the last names), but then I began creating individual posts for each writing and labeling it with the student name and the writing assignment.  This motivated them to turn in their assignments otherwise their page was empty. I choose one or two writing assignments on the blog to go over in class. This puts pressure on them to do their best on their assignment and to implement the feedback I give them.

2. Respond to Reading
I post real news stories on themes we are covering in class and ask students to comment on these.  I also ask students to post their Response to Literature writing.  Each student has been reading a novel (leveled) and have been creating poems, character bios and more and they post these to the blog.

3. Encourage Classmate Feedback
Getting feedback on their writing from their teacher is important for English learning students. However, it is also helpful for them to look at their classmates writing critically and catch some of the mistakes they might be making themselves.  Peer feedback is also important for the writer, as long as you set some guidelines as to what is appropriate feedback.  I recommend that my students find two things to complement the writer and one comment that they can grow on. Advice them not to make comments personal and to keep them constructive.  I assign partners to comment on each other and rotate partners so that they are getting feedback from different people.

4. Get them Thinking
In our textbook we are practicing phrases for giving their opinion, so I'm thinking of posing thought provoking questions and have students comment on these using the phrases we have been practicing in class.

5. Videos and Powerpoints that Illustrate
One of the great advantages of a blog is to be able to post videos.  I recently posted videos that illustrated stormy weather vocabulary like moonsoon, hurricane and tornado.  Since these are not natural occurrences in the country my students live they were not really familiar with these. This was a great way to illustrate it for them. Before I created my blog I had created a PowerPoint to illustrate textile nouns and adjectives I then emailed it to all my students.  Now that I have my blog I can just post it and we can easily refer to it.

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Unexplained Phenomena - Language of Speculation

What is the difference between:
a fact - something that can be observed or measured and
a theory - a possible explanation that has not been proven

Watch the video and see which are facts and which are theories in these mysteries. What language of speculation are they using.
 Remember speculative words and phrases are often used such as:
may                             might              could
It seems/appears...       It´s possible...
We suspect...               We think/believe

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