Holocaust

Celebrating and remembering the Holocaust is part of our activities  at school .We have been doing it ever since we started celebrating 27th January. Teams of teachers and school are involved in projects, readings and celebrations.

The #Holocaust began with words, but with education and knowledge we can counter hate speech and help prevent genocide.

27 January is International #HolocaustRemembrance Day

ℹ️ https://t.co/41dxzOZfJT pic.twitter.com/KUERXdcvRX

— UNESCO (@UNESCO) 27 gennaio 2019

I have taken my students to visit  some concentration camps : in Germany and also in Poland. We have a lesson  based on the places and the documents which we saw. I saw my students crying and I am aware that what they experiences there will always be part of them.

I have also met a man who was a child  at the time of the Holocaust and he lived in France. He talked to us and  we could learn more about the conditions of the people who lived in the regions occupied by  the Nazis.
Hopefully,people cared and he was saved.   His mother  and his family died as they were taken to  concentration camps but a good  soul  looked after him and the other  children. They  had lessons and tried to forget that their families  were not with them anymore.

These are school  projects which  I took part in, but every year we do work on texts, readings and  videos about the ones who survived and also to remember the ones who died because of the atrocies which took place in the concentration camps.

This year I worked on a text, Memento by S.Spender, it is  a poem that reminds  us that we should never forget. The power of images can help us see  what  the soldiers saw when they arrived in Auschwitz.

We have also watched the first part of the film  Shindler's list  and we have seen some videos where some people  remember what happened to them.

Here I have collected some interesting documents which I might use with my students. They tell us about the importance of listening, meeting  the last survivors and also  teaching about the importance of respect. We live in a society where  the young and also the old  forget or they do not seem to be interested in the past.

 Without the past and the lessons from the past human beings  risk making  the same mistakes.
This is the reason why everybody should remember what happened in Europe  in the dark age of Nazism.

Let's remember

London

Today at City Hall, we remembered the millions of lives lost and affected by the Holocaust, along with the victims and survivors of all genocides around the world. As we reflect on the past, we must pledge to work together and live up to the promise: never again. pic.twitter.com/OzFl0qmGc7

— Sadiq Khan (@SadiqKhan) 21 gennaio 2019

Italy

 Today at school and also in other places we are working on remembering  what happened in Auschwitz. Many have died while others cannot live any  longer.  They are too old to remind us that we cannot forget.


I watched  GIULIANA  SEGRE who is now sitting in the Italian Parliament  and was sent to concentration camps , she had  left  from Milan in Italy. She started to talk about  Auschwitz when she was 60 and she is continuing doing it now.

She said that we do need to  remember what happened in the many places where   many people were  killed.

Thank you to this great woman who is  talking to us, among men who are denying what  she had experienced and are working to build  barriers while we should open  our mind to the world.

#blogging 28 Using QR codes for sharing materials

I am doing a course  about  QR Codes and it is part of an EVO SESSION for this year- EVO19
I am learning how to create them: you just need an extension in Chrome - it is called Quick QR Code Generator.
You right-click on the webpage you want to share and then you generate the code, you download the code and embed it in your blog/website.


Here is the QR Code for my second blog where I write posts about  the use of  technlogy or my experiences online as an educator:

Here you can see the QR Code for a post which I have just written for the students  I am teaching for CAMBRIDGE ENGLISH EXAMS: it is about writing an essay

Why using QR Codes?  It is simple and you can create materials online, share weblinks and get your learners engaged. Students can work with their smartphones and you can share a lot of documents and materials.

I am going to continue learning about  QR Codes and will post about it in the next days.

#blogging 28 Safety online

Safe Internet  Day is on 5th February  this year:
This #SID2019, "we are millions, united with one mission: to make the #internet a place where everyone is empowered to use #technology responsibly, respectfully, critically and creatively."

Get ready for #SaferInternetDay, coming on 5 February!
Together for a better internet! pic.twitter.com/kaMhZkQFuX

— Safer Internet Day (@safeinternetday) 17 gennaio 2019

In many schools educators will work on this issue.  Last year  I could learn more about the resources which we can find and use with our  learners.

Educators are used to technology and to  what might happen online but it doesn't mean that students do know much about the risks of the web. While we use our smarphone or our tablet we risk getting trapped and sometimes  we give information about us, which we shouldn't share.  Oversharing can be dangerous and we need to provide tools to help and equip learners to defend themselves.

I created this simple website where I collected resources and data for students and families , in Italian and also in  English to help my students and people who are not familiar with the new technologies.
It was a task for a course online: I learnt a lot while surfing the web.
This is the link to my website :


https://sites.google.com/view/digital-safetycitizenship-and-/home?authuser=0

I really like to find resources online and I do like this  website: Common Sense Education. Usually they run special webinars and provide  helpful resources for students and families too.

https://www.commonsensemedia.org/

Their video library can help educators to present issues in class :

https://www.commonsense.org/education/video/digital-citizenship


I have used one video they have presented in one of my classes: it was useful to brainstorm the students' ideas about the way they post online. Some do not care, they do not know anything about
their finger print.

If you search online you will find more documents and ideas to start introducing  digital safety in  your  classes: one issue which is becoming a great problem in our schools and also online is  Cyberbullying.

The video is a new one  and it can be used to get the students into the habit of thinking about their mates and how they can make them feel unhappy when they do not respect their privacy .

I will search the web and I will find some more videos to introduce the topic of safety online among the classes I am teaching in February. I suggest educators should do this in their classes and also when doing English.  Our students will benefit from it.

#blogging 28 Teaching the Holocaust - reading the Diary by Anne Frank

https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:AnneFrank1940_crop.jpg

 Since I started using Twitter I have come across many resources for educators.

They have been  sharing many documents and materials online :now  I have many accounts online where I can find  lessons and tips. I have  collected many links and pdfs for my  lessons as I feel that teaching implies learning by using authentic materials and also  documents related to the past.
Usually students are more engaged and like to learn about events that are challenging and they love discussing about them.

In one of my posts of this year  I wrote about  a book which I had read and which  had been written by a holocaust survivor.
I have read many books about the life of people who were killed in the  dark age of  Nazism.
Like  Deborah Batiste  I have loved reading  Anne Frank's Diary. In an interesting post she shared why some people had an impact on her life :
https://sharemylesson.com/blog/choices-we-make-what-i-learned-anne-frank-and-my-english-teacher

I have met  Anne  Frank by reading her  pages and also my teacher  taught me about her.
I have never visited her house in Amsterdam but today many young students go to Amsterdam and visit the Museum -  https://www.annefrank.org/en/


Any time I teach the Holocaust I cannot but photocopy some pages taken from the Diary and comment in class about what is being  read: the book can be read online
thanks to   the Internet Archive:






For learners with a pre-intermediate level of English I choose some adapted texts with text and audio:

https://english-e-reader.net/book/the-diary-of-a-young-girl-anne-frank

I also ask my students to see films in Italian and in English to learn more about the teenager who wrote about her wish to live in a better world and dreamed of a better world.

Sometimes books we have read can change our life but I also feel it is up to educators to teach about the Holocaust and  help the  young to reflect.  Anne Frank is still living among us and she is  helping us teach about the value of  respect. Something we do need to focus on in a society which seems to have forgotten what happened to many people who died in the concentration camps.


Films
Anne Frank ( the whole story)

#blogging 28 Teaching in difficult situations

Tonight I was online and doing a webinar run by National Geographic. It was about the use of videos in teaching languages.

The presenter, John  Hughes, made us think about how using images and videos in ELT can enhance the students' critical thinking skills.
He presented this video about a  teacher  working with  250 students in Africa

It was surprising how  the teacher coped with so many students and how they were working with her: poor children who were learning together.

I am going to share the document with other educators and  ask my students to work on the video by using English.

I really feel that some  educators are  modern heroes as they are struggling as teachers but they are also winners.

#blogging 28 Why it is important to collaborate and teach about blogging

😊😊😊😊😊😊😊

This week I am going to work longer hours at school so I won't be able to follow most of the blogs I like.
I would like to add  that I need to work to prepare a presentation which I am going to share in April with other eduacators and the topic is blogging and  e-portfolios. I am therefore bookmarking some  useful blogs and websites that can help me.  I am also working on this  challange as I would like to help some teachers in my school who need to start writing about their earning  experiences next summer and also this spring.
I will continue my  search online and I hope that  I will be able to find more tips online to share with my friends and  the other teachers I am meeting in two months.

First of all, you need to know that  if you do not  like technology it takes a lot of time to work on a blog:

https://www.theblogstarter.com/

https://www.wpbeginner.com/beginners-guide/how-to-choose-the-best-blogging-platform/

I will try to focus on the main features of a good blog and I will prepare some slides online to add content. It will not be easy but I do hope they will learn and start blogging.

#blogging 28 Reflecting on setting Analytics

I did try to get access to  Google Analytics but I have found some difficulties: first of all I am not  an  expert in programming and I need to learn more. Just need to check more how it works… which seems to be hard now.

Google Analytics is useful for websites of businesses, you know who is searching you online and what they have been monitoring , which pages, but for me it is not so important as  I use blogs for my professional development. I must say that I am not as famous as Shelly Terrrell and other  great  bloggers I am following online.

My account with Blogger  enables me know who is visiting my blogs and what they are using, it is enough for me as I usually share my blog links when I am working online.

I will continue my work online to check some blogs which might interest me. I would like to know from the Others how they managed with  Google Analytics.  Maybe I have it in my account and this is just what I am showing you.

# Blogging 28 Writing about what I am interested in

In an interesting  post about  blogging  Kathleen Morris shared a list of ideas and topics :
 https://www.theedublogger.com/50-prompts-educators/

I cannot but  say that what she wrote about is something I am familiar with. I love writing and  from time to time  I love reflecting on what is  happening around me or what I have learnt.  An event, a book or also writing about my teaching experience are the main topics  of my posts. Sometimes I read about  events online and then I create some materials for my students.

Meeting the man Sam who survived  Auschwitz

 

Some years ago I read an interesting book by a holocaust  survivor- his name was  Sam- and  I wrote to him. I got his reply thanks to the  publisher that sometimes  sent  his replies.  Sam was an old man and he was the last survivor working on the ramp at  Auschwitz.
He wrote a book  Survivor: Auschwitz, The Death March and My Fight for  Freedom .

He had to suffer and saw many people die but  he wanted the young people to learn about his  life and what he had seen  in the  concentration camps: after reading his book I felt that I should write to him. 

Here is what he wrote to me : I shared it with my students. I will always read it in class to tell my students that  the Holocaust existed.

 

Dear Tiziana,

Thank you for your message. I am always very pleased to hear about classes and projects like yours. My hopes for the world are that we can all live in peace. The first thing we need to do is to have respect for ourselves and for others, if we can not start with ourselves there is no hope for the bigger picture. This is the message I would like you to give to your students – they must respect themselves and others, and respect the fact that people are different. I would also ask that they try to help others less fortunate than themselves. We all live on the same planet, we are all brothers and sisters and I always say to people they must have respect and tolerance for their fellow humans. This is why people need to visit Auschwitz and must understand what the Nazi’s did. Your students need to understand that any society could become like Nazi Germany if we allow it to happen again and many new places like Auschwitz could easily open for business anywhere in the world. This is why the big lesson is respect and tolerance of our differences.

I am optimistic. I think the world is now a better place because of Hitler. I think that most people are good and have learnt the lessons of Hitler and his Nazi party. My dear mother, father, brothers and sisters and all the other millions of mothers, fathers, brothers and sisters all died so the world could learn the lesson of respect and tolerance for one-another. This has been a very high price to pay.

Thank you very much for telling your students about my book. Please say hello to them from me.

Best wishes,

Sam.

I will always  remember  Sam and his  life experience as  he had to teach us the big  lesson of  teaching  tolerance.

Some years later, after reading the book and visiting  Auschwitz I wrote my ebook for a teaching unit about the Holocaust.

I used the words shared by  Sam in his letter to me and some videos where other  people  describe the atrocities they experienced while they were  kept in the  concentration  camps.

My ebook is free and I use it with my classes when I teach  the topic  " Holocaust":

 http://fliphtml5.com/qdlj/mfuc/basic

Biography online
http://www.andrewlownie.co.uk/authors/sam-pivnik


I would like other teachers to share their  ideas about the events or topics they work  on with their students in class. 

Opportunities for Professional Development

If you are a teacher of  English or  a teacher who loves learning online you will like   EVO 2019.

EVO means  Electronic  Village Online  and  it is  an opportunity  for learning online for free.

It starts in  January and it lasts  5 weeks. If interested you should enrol on a course.

Here is the wiki where you can learn  more about the sessions

 http://evosessions.pbworks.com/w/page/10708567/2019_CfP_Info

It is my fourth year with EVO and I am going to be  among  the  learners who will work together online.



I will also choose to offer some  support in   ICT4ELT Session: I hope you will join me in the Googleclassroom where educators will share their ideas about the use of  web tools and teaching English  online.


Ready to start?

#Blogging 28 Week 1

This week has been a  busy one for me so I am just checking some blogs which have been shared by other  educators.
Link to the  task  https://www.theedublogger.com/january-2019/

I have found some interesting ones online

baileylarissa.edublogs.org

Larissa has  shared her  class blogs and they are really inspiring for me as I have not started this activity in my classes.

Amber Moore's Blog is fabulous : https://learningmoore.edublogs.org/2019/01/05/differentiated-projects-for-diverse-learners/

She shared her nice projects with her students and I really loved the way she presented them. I also posted my comments on the post and  could get more information about her  activities.

I am going to read more about these  educators and their ideas.
Meanwhile I am  getting started to go back to school and  work online.

Education and its future

I am a bit worried about how education is changing as  education needs  motivated teachers and  a lot of investments.

In Italy we are trying to empower teachers and working on bettering the system but we still have to face a lot of problems.
First of all, teachers work hard  but they do not get much recognition among families. Secondly, teachers do not  get much money. Thirdly, the age of educators is getting higher and it is not easy for them to teach the millenians.  We need to focus on new skills but we still work in schools like the ones where  Dickens worked.  Internet is a problem in some areas because of the poor quality of technology, we are trying to use tablets and to work as connected educators. Differentation is the key word, but it is difficult to cope with so many needs.

Currently we are facing challanges,we are asked to work on skills,  digital skills,competences and developing  critical thinking skills. Sometimes you feel it is hard, but I am aware that we do need to focus on the future of the  younger  generations and I keep on working  and developing as  an educator.

In Europe we are focussing on life-long learning for  people, this means that not only is education important but we do need to work on the mobility of learners, educators and also people who are  working and need to become more  qualified. Job shadowing and  training in Europe while learning a new language  are very important.
I cannot but say that thanks to many European projects like Comenius in the past and now  Erasmus Plus we are working on changing the way we work and teach our learners.

Last December there was an important  event in Brussels- the Global Education  Meeting and it was about the  the global education targets and commitments in the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development.

More documents are online on the dedicated website by UNESCO
https://en.unesco.org/themes/education/globaleducationmeeting2018

The priority is to provide  inclusive quality education and lifelong  opportunities for all- you can
 see  it in the  brochure online.

Literacy, climate change and migration are part of this plan and I am aware that Europe will play an important role as the great problems which  people have to face in  Africa and also poorer countries are problems which we are familiar with.

What is worrying is the blindness of many people and politicians who seem to think that  investing on education is a waste of money.

As life-long learning is  one of the main objectives of  Education 2030 we do need to equip educators and  help them work well with children and  students by widening the cultural horizon  of the ones who cannot learn and study now.

I am involved in helping with some  financial support students living in poor areas in Africa and Asia. Too many children need to walk long hours before they reach their schools, often they must leave schools as they need to work and help their families. They do not even have enough food and they wish they could study.
In Italy we have  many students who drop out of school without  taking a secondary school certificate. The high rate of unemployment among the young is one the most important social issues in a country where women, the young and the poor  people  are  hopeless, too many compared to other  European countries.

Perhaps we should all try to promote the ideas of the Agenda for Sustainable  Development.
What will happen in Europe with the elections  of the new politicians sitting in the European Parliament  in spring?
Who cares? The old people need to care for the younger generations but it seems that education is not among the main priorities for countries like Italy with struggling learners and  a lot of people out of work and not qualified.

I am wondering about the other countries and would like to know if other educators are facing  similar problems.

The future for the young can become positive  only if we care and invest on all the learners, regardless of their ages, sex and also origins.
   

#Blogging 28 Some interesting blogs which you shoud check online

It is time to rethink about what  I am used  to doing while I am online. I took a course about blogging but I had never thought about  the way we can present our ideas  in a blog before.
This challenge is helping me to focus on the importance of blogging in education and also as a self-reflection. I am checking online some nice blogs and I am getting some ideas about how I can improve mine.

 I am just reshaping the layout of my blog and I need to learn more about new challenges.

Kathleen Morris has provided us with some tips for working better in

this month. Here is the document that she shared with us : it is helping me to focus on what I should do.

I am a fan of  Elt and technology so I have chosen to add information about other blogs I have come across by adding them to mine.

I really like  Shelly  Terrell and her ideas so  I like to check this blog where she posts her  ideas together with other  English Language Teachers:

 https://blog.esllibrary.com/

I have started following  other blogs too:

https://eltgeek.wordpress.com/

This blog by Olga Sergeeva is really cool as it is written by a teacher whose mother tongue is not English but she has  worked in the EVO Sessions where I am also  working  this year.  I followed her two sessions about  Teaching  Listening and  I was really engaged.


https://eltgeek.wordpress.com/2018/08/12/evo-related-posts-contents/


An interesting blog is the one by Susan  Oxnevad: the writer is an expert in new technologies and I have seen her great work online while  using   Thinglink

http://d97cooltools.blogspot.com/


She has created some  pages for important tools like  using  Google apps

http://d97cooltools.blogspot.com/p/google-docs.html#.XC_1zlxKg2w


Finally an interesting educator is sharing his ideas in his blog and website : Steve Wick

 https://rechargelearning.blogspot.com/


He has shared his best sources in his  website

https://sites.google.com/view/wickedtech/home?authuser=0



In Italy I follow  a lot of interesting educators too:

Gianfranco  Marini    https://gianfrancomarini.blogspot.com/

He is used to creating short videos to show how to use new webtools.

This one is a special blog which  has been created by some Italian teachers . They share ideas and information about new tools  and I have learnt a lot online thanks to them :

https://insegnantiduepuntozero.wordpress.com/



My blogs are  some  learning diaries  where I reflect on what is happening in my experience as an educator. I have written in many blogs and you can  find them in the main page about me.

Why blogging?  Because you can learn more about  who you are and the  world of education in which we are involved.

Today we have a lot of blogs with videos and  that's the main reason why I try to follow so many educators.

I can also learn while doing some listening in English!   👍👍

A new Challenge #blogging28

I got an email in December, it was from Edublogger and Kathleen Morris who is an educator involved in promoting blogging among educators and also students.
I have been using Edublogger for some blogs  where I  am sharing materials and also some Learning diaries for my Moocs.

Last year I did the course online which she ran  Better Blogging with Students  - it was a great course!
http://betterblogging.edublogs.org/2018/01/11/start-here-introduction-to-course/?fbclid=IwAR2bOKc56-zym28xeZgoydt7FVY4vsnOivYK2E-a9_h-_UyRqmT2PB2MAu8

I did the course online  and I really appreciated it- for two months I was engaged onine. I shared some posts and also the blog I was working on with students.

INFORMATION ABOUT THE COURSE


I am here ready to work on this  challenge as I would like to learn more and share ideas with other educators.

I am ready to start and be a life-long-learner. I will add posts about my learning experience online and the courses which I am going to  do in the next months.

I will also post my comments on the other educators' blogs. I am just bookmarking them.

I am using this blog where I started blogging some years ago: it was my learning activity online as I was doing a Mooc about education. I never stopped writing it.

I will continue my journey online among other educators!

Thanks to  Kathleen Morris!

NEW YEAR 'S RESOLUTIONS

Happy New Year!

The day has just begun……………… I am still struggling  as I got a bad cold but  I do hope to feel better and to start working again in the next days.


I will continue my   CPD and learn also from  social networks:

This photo from our collections shows men of the Black Watch (Royal Highlanders) 15th (Scottish) Division celebrating New Year's Day, 1917. © IWM (Q 4642) pic.twitter.com/06EhNY54g5

— Imperial War Museums (@I_W_M) 1 gennaio 2019

I will be more engaged in saving  our planet: I will share more resources with other educators and learn with my classes.


You can make protecting the environment your New Year's resolution with these six easy steps #OceanRescue #PassOnPlastic https://t.co/HAb3LO0JtB

— Sky Ocean Rescue (@SkyOceanRescue) 1 gennaio 2019

 I am going to  do many things in the new year, but first of all I would like to be less stressed as I do need to cope with students and a teacher needs to be open, ready to listen and involved in what is happening in the classroom.


The words  which should  characterize my being as an educator should be

 "  don't rush"    and        " feel well".