MMVC16 My Reflections

                         MMVC16
              Reflecting on the webinars

The events took place from 5th to 7th August under the supervision of Dr. Nellie Deutsch.
It was an enriching experience. I could watch a lot of webinars dealing with different topics from teachers who love teaching to  self-development and free  CP online.

Here you can find the slides which I made for the final reflections, they will be updated but I wanted to share some interesting events which are worth seeing online and are worth discussing as educators are the ones who  work hard on creating the best learning environments- sometimes this can happen also in difficult situations.





I have also made a short video which I have shared with the other teachers who took part in the Virtual Conference - a lot of speakers  but  also a lot  of  teachers learning online and sharing ideas:

Culturally Responsive Teaching - an interesting webinar by Shelly Sanchez on 5th August 2016

6th  August  2016

                       CULTURALLY  RESPONSIVE  TEACHING



Source:  http://www.teachertube.com/video/culturally-responsive-teaching-96293



In one of the  posts  I wrote  about world refugee day  in  June I presented the great issue of young people and their families who were forced to leave their home country . I underlined  the importance of education  for  their children who needed more  help and support as they had to live in difficult situations and often they are considered  just refugees, people who have to wait years before they can start living a new life  -  http://educationalandissue.blogspot.it/2016/06/world-refugee-day-and-education.html.

A key issue was also teaching respect for the others and this is more and more important today  as millions of children are leaving home to search for better life in countries where there is no war.

                      Yesterday  I watched the interesting  webinar by   Shelly  Terrell  Sanchez about  Culturally  Responsive  Teaching that has to do with  education and the importance of  teaching young students and children who have migrated and  live in a new  country. Every Friday  Shelly presents  her webinars and provides lots of ideas and weblinks which are worth checking. I have become  addicted to her energy and the engaging presentations she is able to prepare: a must see for any educator who cares!!

The term " Culturally Responsive  Teaching" regards the teachers, the children, and students  who are  studying and learning with the new learners.
 In some ways we can say that educators need to focus on the students and their cultural backgrounds to share their ideas and  start  working together. This implies  acceptance, inclusion and respect and  these values need to be shared  while enriching the  other  students and the community.

Key ideas about this pedagogic approach can be found online:

 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Culturally_relevant_teaching

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/matthew-lynch-edd/culturally-responsive-pedagogy_b_1147364.html

I particularly liked the definition provided in the article by Matthew Lynch  where he  stated that " Culturally responsive pedagogy is a student-centered approach to teaching in which the students’ unique cultural strengths are identified and nurtured to promote student achievement and a sense of well-being about the student’s cultural place in the world."

Sometimes it is difficult to cope with the needs of the new learners and we have some students who cannot cope with the new school and the tasks but   I like the idea that educators need to design tasks that are focussed on the  learners and we must promote  their achievements and a sense of  well-being. A great problem is the language they can speak and how educators work with them to start and establish  relationships and  develop activities that aim at inclusion and learning and working in the new community. I have also faced this  problem with  students who came from non-European countries and integration was a great aim, sometimes the learners  could cope with  Italian but they needed support from the teachers  as their parents did not speak good Italian.
 For sure we will all have to work on this approach in the next  decades as more and more young immigrants are reaching  Europe and the USA and it is important to provide a good learning environment for them. Educators are important in this  learning  process as they can facilitate and design tasks that help these children or  teenagers who are studying in our  schools.

I searched online as  Shelly made me realize that in some ways we are dealing with this approach also in our  schools - I teach in Italy- and could find interesting  documents shared by  teachers and researchers. I found a lot of material from the Usa as I understand that the country has welcomed a lot of immigrants.

Culturally Responsive Teaching from Susan Convery Foltz

Now I will  reflect on what  Shelly told us in her great webinar: hopefully there are a lot of  links for  educators  which can  help them develop activities that respect the  needs  of their learners and teach values like inclusion to the other students, the importance of values like  working  together, sharing and learning from the others too. The social and emotional aspects are important as students may come from countries with great differences in relationship to the topics covered at school and also in relationship to their family  backgrounds.  It is also important to underline the problem of the language as families can have a lot of difficulties when communicating with educators.  Some children have also  experienced cruelties and violence and starting to live  a new life in a new land might also be  a stressfull  situation.

Useful weblinks I have checked online:

http://www.globalteachereducation.org/culturally-responsive-pedagogy

http://teachingrefugees.com/

http://www.preciouschildren.org/

http://www.tolerance.org/

I particularly liked  tolerance.org , a blog to learn about issues like  equity, justice and diversity: the topics seem to be related to the USA but we might find ideas about  the best ways to care when dealing with immigrants and children in our  schools.

Edutopia has a dedicated page to the topic and it provides  links to videos and webpages :
http://www.edutopia.org/blogs/tag/culturally-responsive-teaching


I could find some interesting videos to teach  tolerance :
http://www.tolerance.org/kit/one-survivor-remembers      about the history of a girl who survived the Holocaust


                                                                   For  ELT teachers 

We were suggested this  website :http://www.macmillanglobal.com/

This  is  the  slide which was  commented by  Shelly in her webinar: I cannot but say thanks for providing so many  interesting  ideas!!

Culturally Responsive Teaching from Shelly Sanchez Terrell

Shelly Terrell presented a webpage about the topic of  her  webinar and suggested some  tasks or activities to get learners and families of immigrants more engaged:

First tip : all families should be  reached  and teachers should connect with the children's parents so that they will learn and benefit from the new environment

Second tip: learning about  other  countries is  important  and  educators should work on  international or  global projects

Third tip: start a project where learners share their experience  and work with videos, webtools for presenting their  stories

Link to the  webpage:

http://www.shellyterrell.com/ells.html


This is an interesting collection she has been working on:

Refugees Immigrants, by shellterrell




For European  teachers- CPD online In September there will be a new MOOC course about " Cultural diversity" . It starts on 12 September  2016  and it finishes on 9 October.http://www.schooleducationgateway.eu/en/pub/teacher_academy/catalogue/detail.cfm?id=20861

More resources online
http://www.academia.edu/1231455/Educating_Diverse_Learners_through_Culturally_Responsive_Instruction
http://www.cultofpedagogy.com/culturally-responsive-teaching-strategies/
http://www.nea.org/home/16723.htm
Videos on Vimeohttps://vimeo.com/tag:culturally+responsive+teaching

I will try to learn more and maybe  start a project with classes next year and  teach about cultural differences and respect. 

ELT and Teaching Literature

An interesting webinar about  English and Literature with  Amos Paran

This month I had the opportunity of following an interesting webinar which was run by OUP.
The main speaker was Amos Paran who introduced interesting ideas about how to work in English and  introduce  Literature.

As I had appreciated him previously in a MOOC about  teaching reading in English lessons I was willing to learn more about  his ideas. I was not wrong as what  he presented were  good tips for working with any type of text while we can work in English with our  learners.

The approach to teaching  literature  has changed since I did it many years ago as now we work on the learners and their interests and how they are feeling. I must confess that I am going to use some of his  ideas and I hope I will put them into practice next year as I am likely to work more on literature with my students.

Some key  ideas about  teaching Literature :

-we do need to support our  learners who will be later  engaged in reading  longer texts

-tasks need to be  appropriate

-teachers should be passionate about literature

-it is important to design  learner-centred activities

- activities should be task-based and centred on the  meaning of the texts

- relevance to personal issues is important

When we want to develop  a reading project on extensive  reading we should let the students choose what they are interested in.

Students can later work on the homework and choose to make a video, a poster , write an article  or make an oral presentation .

I will write about extensive reading in my next post where I will describe the interesting MOOC which I did online thanks to Coursera and which I finished in July.

Among the many activities which he suggested we  have  discussions about the book/text,  creative writing and get the students  engaged. Reading clubs and reading circles are also a good way for practising the language.


I have collected some interesting links online in my padlet and they contain more tips and ideas about how to work on literature in ELT :

LINK TO THE PADLET ONLINE

https://padlet.com/Tizianateacher/iotbfo01c388

Created with Padlet

Here I am sharing a padlet about a novel - Pride and Prejudice-  which I created when I did a MOOC about  Jane Austen: modern tools can help us introduce the topic or we could ask our students to work online and make their own presentations.

Created with Padlet

Using new media and tools can enhance our students' skills too: today is Emily Bronte's birthday and when I checked on Twitter and found this hashtag: Tweet riguardo #Emily Bronte birthday


It is important to remember that today we have plenty of sources and also a guided discovery online can be the starting point for getting our students involved and learning about topics, issues and also poets and writers we would like them to learn more about.

Literature is not only reading a book alone or analyzing a stanza , reading literature can become an engaging discovery while our learners are using English and developing their reading and writing skills too.

PBL

                            LEARNING ABOUT  PBL

Thanks to a European  Mooc platform- http://www.schooleducationgateway.eu/it/pub/teacher_academy.htm  
I could do an interesting  course online in June and July this year. I had come across it by chance and  I realized that I should learn more about the best practices which are needed in today's classes.


This is my  learning  Diary : we were asked to write about it every week and to work on our project. We shared ideas and discussed as developing  PBL  requires a lot of planning and information about what we want to achieve.

We used  new tools and we learnt a lot as we shared ideas and information about  PBL.

At the end of the  Mooc I could get a certificate and the badges for doing all the  activities  in the four weeks.

Created with Padlet

The activities were engaging and really interesting and provided tips for anyone who is new to PBL.  Teachers from different parts of the world took part in the MOOC.  We worked on peer assessment and we could see and share  our projects.


You can find here the  Twitter hashtag for the four weeks where the tutors and the teachers involved in the MOOC could learn together Tweet riguardo #PBLcourse



What I have learnt :

-  PBL  requires  planning, thinking and  a group of  teachers who share ideas about the best ways for guiding and helping the students
- Students can learn a lot by working  together and by approaching  learning in a different way
- Learning can happen without  a  face-to-face approach  if we
rely on the students and their engagement.

A detailed guide about this online experience and more links can be found in my website :
 https://sites.google.com/site/thenewworldoflearning/pbl-a-mooc-2016

Professional Development online

Summer : it's   time to  relax  but  we can also recharge our batteries  and learn from the others.  

This summer I have been working on my  CPD and I have done some  MOOCs and  some interesting webinars.   Now  I am going to share some interesting online events which  are offered  for free, most of  them  are also run  during the  school year. You just need to  plan your  timetable and see what is on.


                           Friday  Webinars   by  Shelly  Terrell

Just 30 minutes of  great ideas, web links and tips for any teacher  who wants to  change  his or her way of working.
It is a must for everybody who wants to learn about  new tools and also to  make  learning an interesting adventure. 

In Italy   I usually watch the webinars at 10.00 p.m. now- regularly on Fridays; time changes when it is  wintertime, usually it is 12.00  p.m..

Shelly Terrell is  a great speaker who can get everybody engaged and teaches what can work in learning environments and how we  can better our  lessons.  



Free Friday Webinars, by shellyterrell


Today she shared her ideas about  the best way for getting back to school:  it was a great " manifesto"
for getting our students  more engaged starting on the first days spent at school. Some activities were suggested for younger students but I feel that she has  provided plenty of ideas about how to get connected with families and students when we start a new school year.

Back to School Survival Tips from Shelly Sanchez Terrell


Mobile learning was the topic of  last week's webinar: although it is difficult to cope with new technologies also in my country, I feel that " mobile learning" should not be considered a problem and we should use technology to create  learning environments in which  our students can learn, create and work on their presentations while they are collaborating online.

Learning to Go: Mobile Learning from Shelly Sanchez Terrell


                                                   CLASSROOM  20.COM  
The link to the webinar page is  found easily on the web : 

Classroom20.com


Every Saturday   there is a webinar which runs for one hour and the great presenter is  Peggy George who has worked  for this group of  teachers  who share their skills and knowledge in  modern  technology and education:  webinars are usually at 6 p.m. in Italy and you can receive a certificate of participation if you submit your form at the end of the webinar.
All the webinars can be found online  thanks to the recording which  are embedded and can also be found on Youtube :

http://live.classroom20.com/archive-and-resources

The new webinars will be in August after they had a  holiday break  in  July.

                                            Free opportunities for  learning online

Peggy George  made  a great presentation online  about  free online webinars : the video and the material can be accessed online :

https://learning2gether.net/2016/06/13/peggy-george-in-a-globinar-on-free-pd-resources-collated-in-livebinders/


The great  LiveBinder that Peggy  prepared for us is  a great source of web  links for anyone who wants to learn on line:

Click here to open this binder in a new window.

                                                              GLOBINARS

I have come across   Globinars   -http://globinars.blogspot.it/-  and I have found some interesting  webinars in English : one was  the above mentioned webinar  by Peggy George while  on Monday I watched an interesting one about  the FLIPPED CLASSROOM:

The access to the list of webinar is online : http://www.lpm.uni-sb.de/typo3/index.php?id=1258

The activities are all  managed by Juergen Wagner  who works in Germany :  https://twitter.com/wagjuer


Webinars are in German, in  Spanish, in English and in French. You can enroll and then you get  the web link for accessing the room of the webinar. Most of the webinars are  planned until next year.
If you register , you will have the links to the presentation and also the slides once they have recorded the webinar.

It is a great opportunity for  learners living all over the world, usually the time is  7-8 p.m. now.

                                                            AUGUST   2016   

From  5th to 7th  August a  VIRTUAL CONFERENCE ON LINE thanks to Nellie  Deutsch who has worked on different projects  dealing with teaching and  learning by using   modern technology:
the webinars are a source of interesting ideas - just follow this link to see what she has planned to do


https://docs.google.com/document/d/1MNsMz8M68eGdNK4UjYoRIyHjKtDkkyZ4pRv_JUIr0w8/edit?pref=2&pli=1



                                                       September   2016

            Edupassion:  a free conference online 
                                    3rd September 2016


Tweet riguardo #edupassions







Lots of interesting  ideas and  lots of people who are  working  in education and sharing what they have learnt and achieved........


I am looking forward to watching some  webinars  and see if I can implement my teaching.

#PrayForNice

14th July 2016

“Every individual matters. Every individual has a role to play. Every individual makes a difference.” 

Jane Goodall    



I cannot believe that it happened again. Too many innocent  people died in Nice on 14th July: on a day when  many  were celebrating in France.
I feel so sad for the many children who died. Why so many  tragedies ?
It is our   world which is out of control, our  world has become a place   where  violence seems to be prevailing. But I  do hope  we won't surrender.

I do feel that education plays an important role in teaching values like respect as we are different and belong to different cultures and religions but we  belong to the group of human beings and we should  respect how the others feel and  what they think .

Let's remember the dead and  pray for them and the world - a world which needs changes .  VIOLENCE IS NOT THE TOOL TO STOP CRUELTY IN THE WORLD.

So sad what has happened in France. #PrayForNice pic.twitter.com/gsOI05BfbF

— Deep Quotes (@MotivatinQuotes) 14 luglio 2016

WIESEL Never shall I forget

                    Remembering the  HOLOCAUST 
Never shall I forget that night, the first night in camp, that turned my life into one long night seven times sealed.

Never shall I forget that smoke.
Never shall I forget the small faces of the children whose bodies I saw transformed into smoke under a silent sky.
Never shall I forget those flames that consumed my faith for ever.
Never shall I forget the nocturnal silence that deprived me for all eternity of the desire to live.
Never shall I forget those moments that murdered my God and my soul and turned my dreams to ashes.

Never shall I forget those things, even were I condemned to live as long as God Himself.

Never.

E.Wiesel

Source of the image : https://pixabay.com/it/auschwitz-birkenau-540526/

On 2nd July 2016  Elie Wiesel died. We have listened to the sad story of his life while reading his books  and  could learn about how he lost his family because of the Nazis who hated the Jews. He wrote about the sad experience he had had because he was a survivor  and wanted us to remember and to think about the atrocities that happened and might happen today too.

In an interesting article on line we have been reminded that today many of those who survived the atrocities of the concentration camps are still alive but  they are getting older and we need to remember what happened to them after they leave this world.      http://time.com/4392413/elie-wiesel-holocaust-survivors-remaining/?xid=tcoshare


I cannot but agree with the ideas expressed in the article online :

“The loss of Elie Wiesel represents a loss not only to Jewish Nazi victims, whom Elie tirelessly advocated for over the course of his lifetime, but to humanity as a whole,”

Some speeches or ideas  can be found online to remind us of the man and his attitude to human beings and his past history: the XX century was the century  of the  Holocaust.

"No human race is superior; no religious faith is inferior. All collective judgments are wrong. Only racists make them. "



These words are  important for us now as in the name of  God and religion people are killed and suffer all over the  world.

I have been to Auschwitz and Buchenwald, I have learnt about what happened there and I am still wondering why and how this  happened. It is important for our students to study history and see how men can destroy other people's life if they do not respect them as human beings.

Wiesel was an great supporter of the ideas about the importance of remembering but he must have sufferred a lot as he shared his  thoughts about his little sister who was killed only in the last years of his life .
Remembering his sister

This is  a touching video  and shows us how  the man had sufferred when he was a young man and was left alone after his beloved had died:

He also visited Auschwichtz- from which we was able to escape death and could  tell us about his feelings when he was imprisoned there and what had  happened to his family:

In his work Night we can find the meaning of what had happened to him and the symbol of  the Night  has links with the inner thoughts of the man who had to see the death of many people he had met and those who disappeared from his life.

I think that we should continue  reading about the man and his works and as  teachers of foreign languages we can develop our students' critical thinking and thoughts.

It is a sad day to know that the man and  great Nobel peace  prize winner has died but we can still rely on the important message  which he has left us in his works. We can continue reading his texts and discuss them with our  students. It is a great lesson which we can teach and share  and will continue for us in the XXI century.

Introducing   Wiesel's work into our syllabus as  ESL teachers

An interesting guide about this text can be found online      https://www.cliffsnotes.com/literature/n/night/critical-essays/the-focus-on-night-as-a-symbol

Some ideas about  teaching  Night  can be found online :
 https://sites.google.com/a/seq.org/zwicker-sobrepena-english---drama/drama-i/home/as-i-english/night


For students of English with a good  level of English we could  read some pages from the book: here is an interesting link online for reading which is worth sharing

http://genius.com/Elie-wiesel-night-chapter-1-annotated

Read “Night (Chapter 1)” by Elie Wiesel on Genius