Web 2.0 resources in the EFL classroom.

We have learned in ECO I  what web 2.0 resources are, and I think it is worth  including them in the EFL classroom when it's possible. The main reason for doing that is motivation. Since some sources like VOKI or WORDLE  are highly appealing to the eyes of students it is important that teachers can exploit the benefits they offer. Nowdays, technology plays an important role in almost all aspects of our students lives, so teachers should profit from this, making use of  some new resources like the ones I mentioned before to make the teaching and learning process more enjoyable and motivating. One of my classmates, Aldana Viano included Voki in one of her lessons. I saw it and it seemed that her students were really interested in this tool.They learned and had fun at the same time sharing their works with the whole group. This is an advantage that web 2.0 tools offer us to make teaching and learning more effective.
All we need is to learn how to exploit these advantages to profit from them.

Reflection time.

    I have admitted that I am a digital immigrant : / but now I have to say that technology should be integrated in all the classrooms. Since we are immersed in the information age and technology is present in almost every part of our lives, we, as teachers of the digital natives, need to be updated with all this new things. As Piaget says in the quotation, we must teach the new generation in a different way, so as to help them to move on, to innovate, to be original. I accept that it's difficult to me to adapt to the new technologies I´m not used to, but I´m willing to learn. This year in ECO II, I learned many things. Little things that might sound unimportant for a digital native but for me they mean a step ahead in my learning process.

Prezi . . . or Powerpoint? that is the question

   I always considered that prezi was an original tool. However, I always chose Powerpoint  because I was used to it and I thought that prezi might confuse people sometimes. But now that I´ve been trying to use prezi, experimenting with it , I realized that it gives you other opportunities in the classroom. If you decide to use a prezi presentation in your lesson take advantage of its benefits: the zooming ,for instance, let you incorporate big images. Since it is not linear, your students can play with it, making it more interesting. You can also add videos and music, as two of my classmates did for a pw, and it was really amazing! They did an excellent job exploring this new tool.
  So, it is worth giving it a try.

Finally,I would like to share an article that I found interesting:

http://prezi.com/rfsnedhqmhqa/thoughts-on-using-prezi-as-a-teaching-tool

How technology has changed the life of our digital natives...

I recently saw it when my seven-years old nephew asked his father to buy him a computer for his birthday to play some videogames and chat with his classmates.

pecha-kucha

             

Useful for our future pecha-kucha presentations for Phonetics IV.
It seems rather difficult because it demands a lot of time of rehearsal but it is good to make interesting and engaging presentations. The timing helps you decide what information to include, which must be concrete and clear. I think it will help me a lot to improve my fluency. So, let´s do it!

Make a Presentation Like Steve Jobs

                                           

Useful tips to take into account when making any kind of presentations =)

More on Google Docs...

      I thought face to face interaction was the only way to work succesfully in groups. But now that I have started my teaching practice and I don't have too much time to do groupwork, I realized that if it hadn't been for Google Docs, I don't know how we could have done all the works we had to do for this week.
We were very busy these days, that's why we used this new tool for everything: ECO I, ECO II, Literatura and Phonetics!  And it worked quite well...!  =)