Why using mind maps?
The answer is simple: we can learn better and students can be supported by us while learning. This is true for any subject we might learn but it is also more important for struggling students.
You can find the tutorial online and in just a few minutes you can develop your own map. You just need to have an account and after registering you can begin developing your own maps.
I have been asked to make some presentations of some grammar rules in English and I think I might use it in my classes. It's simple, it's free and it helps teachers but also students to create their own mind maps.
When you create a map, you can share it online or work with collaborators online once you have given them the link.
When you finish , you can embed it and this is useful for teachers who are working online and write in blogs or wikis.
The next step will be to use it in literature and to create mindmaps for my students who are struggling with studying authors and texts in English. I am aware that reading and studying literature in English can be difficult but we do need to cope with it.
I have also used mind maps for writing my first ebook so getting to learn more about this tool has in some way provided me with new useful ones.
Internet is just a great source of web tools and I will also try many more to see which is the most useful one. Wisemapping can be helpful for everybody.
I started blogging because I was asked to do it. I was working online and doing some Moocs with Coursera some years ago and we shared our ideas online. I started my first two blogs and I am still writing online.
While learning online I realized that I could blog with my students of English. Blogging is a good way for enabling them to use the language in a meaningful way.
I hope I will use a blog with my students next year. The idea is not new but I do need to rely on students who are willing to read and to work also online. I need to work hard on the content and to find activities that help them reflect online.
You can find some tips here in this interesting interview which was shared online ; the teacher is more engaged and her students too. It must be great to work in a school with such young learners.!
Teaching Shakespare The Play " Romeo and Juliet"
This term I have been teaching Shakespeare's plays and I have done some work on Romeo and Juliet with my third-year students in a secondary school in Italy.
When teaching adolescents I am used to teaching about literature and language. We have seen the film in class, we have learnt about the plot and we have worked on the play.
We have analyzed the balcony scene and the first kiss between Romeo and Juliet. The choice of the writers of the book we have been using is about the sonnet:
We have compared the Italian sonnet with the English one and we have focussed on the themes which are love and also the tragedy of love as the two lovers will never know why they will not meet again.
With the younger students we will work on lexis and idioms related to love; some help can be found online- the focus is on idioms but also on teaching :
Activities and tips from educators about teaching Valentine's Day
Thanks to Shelly Terrell and other educators we have many resources: in most cases the activities are interactive and engaging. New technologies can enhance our teaching. It is a pity I do not have many interactive whiteboards in class and my students have only smartphones to use in class. If we had tablets and they had been trained how to use some tools we might create interesting projects about Shakespeare and also love in his famous tragedy.
These are Shelly Terrell's useful slides with lots of tips and information about which tools we might use:
Recently I have discovered a new website for students where they can read and watch videos and this is free!
They have just released this reading about this topic- spotlightenglish.com is the website:
27th January 2017- Remembering the Holocaust turn back on
This idiom " turn back on somebody" can be the beginning of this post as today we are remembering what we cannot forget about our past history: it is part of Europe''s past but it is also the history of the XX century. When we think about what happened in Europe in the 1930s and 1940s we cannot but not say that it was the worst event in the history of human beings. Two World Wars marked the century but the atrocities which happened in the concentration camps like Buchenwald and Auschwitz cannot be explained and we feel that we cannot understand why it occured.
Auschwitz is still there, open to visitors to remind them that we must not forget the ones who lost their life because of the cruelty of nazism and racism. 27th January 1945 marks the beginning of the destruction of a regime but many more atrocities have happened since then and more are happening now. We do need to open our eyes and NEVER FORGET. It happened and it can happen again. Europe saw the deaths of innocents, people who were not supporting Hitler and the millions of Jews who thought they might escape or thought that the man next door would not tell the police that you were not German.
This week we took our students to the cinema and we saw the film " Alone in Berlin" based on the book by Hans Fallada. Our school - like many in Italy - is invited to do some activities about the day on which we are reminded of Auschwitz.We decided to see this film- all our classes went to the cinema.
The film was released last year and it presented the story of two German people who decided to fight against the Nazis regime in Germany after their son had died at war.
The man and the woman started writing postcards where they invited people to be against the dictator and after successfully sending 200 postcards they were arrested.
The story narrated by Fallada was based on the true story of Otto and Elise Hampel who were put in prison and later beheaded. Their messages to the German people were simple: don't cooperate with the regime , you must not support the Nazis.
After many years we must continue this battle: those who died need to be remembered. We can say that we do need to see films that remind us that this happened in Germany, in the heart of Europe.
The trailer of the film can be used in class for presenting the issue and work with the students to discuss the Holocaust . It is important to see that Germany was under a dictator but that there were also people who became aware of the oddity of the regime.
On the Internet we can find a lot of information and materials for discussion about the importance of learning from the past. A good film or a good book can really make a difference.
A simple tool like Instagrok or documents online will help us develop our students' critical thinking skills.
Language Teachers can work with Teachers of History to get into the history of the 1930s and 1940s and they will develop tasks which are meaningful and useful for their learners.
In December I missed the webinar where Shelly Terrell presented her ideas about teaching LISTENING SKILLS in English, but I am going to watch the video if she uploads it on the Youtube.
The presenter shared her great slides and I am uploading them to start my research online about the resources which we can find and can help us develop our learners.
When studying online and learning more about changes in education I had the chance to do a course about Digital Coaching. It was an American Mooc course but it was about the way teachers can work better if the coach works on them by supporting them. What most of the teachers had to discuss about was in relationship to the need to implement the digital skills among teachers and thanks to this professional development more students could better their skills in the 21st century school.
What I am doing now is working on different levels of competences but aim at building a better teacher who is now learning.
I am not a coach, I wish I had a good coach who could work with me in my school but I can manage.
In our schools we have digital coaches or people who are starting to support us. It is hard for some but I consider myself a teacher who has developed in the field of new technologies and thanks to my social network I am learning online and thanks to the other. Sharing is Caring : this is our Motto!!
Here are some interesting documents which I have found online and deal with important issue that every educator and coach should be familiar with: they have to do with designing and new ways of working where technology is supporting teachers and learners.
