Week 4

A picture is worth a thoudand words.  That was when words had a high value.  Now a picture is worth a hundred thousand words.  Why is the spending time with your computer so enticing? Because there are lots and lots of pictures on the computer, or, in the computer, as the young children say.  In our school we have a mobile projector of high quality, so I hoping already next week to start using it.  Sometimes even just showing a picture for three minutes at the beginning of class will be very helpful, but certainly some lessons are based on powerpoint pictures.
I like the University of Tennessee website a lot because it is very well organized, practical and extensive.  Sribd.com has some fun things for kids.  Certainly here in the north of Israel on the top of a mountain, connecting our students to the uses of english for educational purposes and the internet is critical.  This is also something which I want to address with them from the standpoint of an educator.  I know that a person can spend hours online and forget to read a book, speak to a friend or wash the dirty dishes in the sink.  Internet is one of the focal reasons they need English, and we will also devote time to discussing the internet.
I am looking forward to using pictures in the classroom to really bring students in to using language. Oh, and don't worry, words still have a high value, the highest value.

Relevant more now

Yes, I am following Scott McLeod's blog, it is called 'dangerously irrelevant' and there is a link to it on a previous entry.  I find McLeod's approach extremely relevant even though it must be considered by some as very unconventional.  I think if our goal is a healthy and vibrant learning environment and developing healthy and engaged students is a real goal of ours, as educators, then we must really think about what are goal is in the classroom.  McLeod is pretty clear than we must prefer to nurture learners over memorizers.  He brings in his Nov. 5th entry a link to an article at wired.com called "In this classroom knowledge is overrrated."  The subject is a classroom in Harlem, New York where learning in groups and student-driven learning is chosen and implemented in favor of frontal teaching lessons.  I think we need to continue to follow McLeod.