GeoTrio: another tool for your PLN

GeoTrio lets you create a virtual tour of just about anyplace on a map. You type in addresses or locations and easily create multiple “stops” that show the Google Street View snapshots of the area. You can also upload your own images.

But that’s not all.

What really makes GeoTrio stand out is the ability to easily make an audio recording for each stop on the map.

In many ways its similar to Tripline, which you can read about on The Best Sites Where Students Can Plan Virtual Trips (I’m adding GeoTrio to that list, too). Tripline is “slicker” and lets you grab images off the Web. However, it does not have the ability to provide audio narration.

via larryferlazzo.edublogs.org

Assignment for students:

Use this to plan a trip to someplace you've always wanted to visit or create a presentation to show your online friends about your home town or some place special to you.

Other: teaching, presentation, marketing, even site development tool

Posted via email from Meanderings

Review: Educating Emergent Bilinguals

reviewed by Lynn Zimmerman — January 04, 2011

Title: Educating Emergent Bilinguals: Policies, Programs, and Practices for English Language Learners
Author(s): Ofelia Garcia and Jo Anne Kleifgen
Publisher: Teachers College Press, New York
ISBN: 0807751138, Pages: 192, Year: 2010
Search for book at Amazon.com 

For Garcia and Kleifgen the question: What’s in a name? is more than an existential question. In their book, Educating Emergent Bilinguals: Policies, Programs, and Practices for English Language Learners, they assert that how the question is answered not only gives a different meaning to the experience of people who are labeled in various ways as learners of English, but also has profound implications for educational policies and practices that impact them. Rather than using the “deficit model” of naming which has been the norm in the education of non-English speaking learners, Garcia and Kleifgen suggest calling them “emergent bilinguals.” This critical act of “re-naming” shifts the focus to the knowledge that they have and to the possibilities of bilingualism instead of focusing on their lack of English and the narrow goal of learning English.

Cool websites to teach writing

For technology resources teaching, Jennifer Verschoor's blog,  My Technological Journey, is hard to beat.

Words – so innocent and powerless as they are, as standing in a dictionary, how potent for good and evil they become in the hands of one who knows how to combine them.... Nathaniel Hawthorne 

As a language teacher I really find it difficult to motivate my students to start writing in class. The Internet is a resource that complements the dynamics of my class. It is easy to access, up-to-date and immediate source of authentic materials. Since I started introducing technology and using a wiki with Middle school my classes have definitely changed. Please check below the cool sites we have been using this year.

• Writing Fun A MUST for teachers.  This website motivated my students to enhance their writing skills.

• The Writing Site Check this website with a great variety of tech integration ideas.

• iWrite Provides several examples for students to learn how to write effectively.

• Writing Fix Practice Prompt Recommendations.

• Writing Exemplars I make my students search for writing samples created by other students worldwide.

• Interactive Scoring Another website that provides writing samples to use with your students.

via jenverschoor.wordpress.com

Studying on their own or in a self-paced study group, students become their own teachers, although (as a college writing teacher) I've seen enough misguided "feral" and self-administered feedback to recognize the pitfalls. Teaching yourself writing does not eliminate the need for 3rd party feedback.

In my mind, this is a central problem to developing an effective self paced writing program. If you write on your own, outside a group and without a writing buddy, what are your best strategies for getting feedback on your writing? What options are available? 

Posted via email from Academentia

10 Digital Writing Opportunities You Probably Know and 10 You Probably Don't

Image via Wikipedia

How can technology best and most effectively support the writing process and improve outcomes? ESL or emerging writers can use the10 literacy/writing tools the linked list below to practice writing. Likewise teachers should be aware of them. Many are basic yet still powerful tools to support writing in the classroom. They are in no particular order.

In addition, the list includes 10 alternative tools that either offer a different perspective on digital writing or are a little known tool with huge potential in the classroom.


Not everything is free nor is it online – but the lists should be a source of ideas for self-paced writers looking for writing projects as well as for teachers developing lesson plans for non-fiction or narrative lessons.
 

10 Digital Writing Opportunities You Probably Know and 10 You Probably Don't
 

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