I had students in my ninth-grade mainstream English class complete it a couple of days early this year, and thought I’d share the results here. It might provide some additional ideas on questions you might want to include in your own survey — if you choose to do one. I also included other examples in the “last day” post.
One of our administrators, Jim Peterson, was commenting on the importance of year-end student evaluations yesterday. He framed it like this:
“After the first couple of years of teaching, many teachers don’t get observed much in the classroom by administrators or other mentors. However, teachers get observed by students for hundreds of hours each year. Why not take advantage of their experience and ask them for their feedback?”
Jim offers these simple questions as suggestions:
1. What did you find about the class or the teacher’s method of instruction (way of teaching) that helped you?
2. List 2-3 suggestions to improve the class or to help students more
3. Other comments
Here are the results of the evaluation done by my students:
1. In this class, I feel I learned…..1/3 said “some”; 2/3 said “a lot” no one said “a little”
2. I tried my best in this class…. 1/2 said “a lot of the time” 1/2 said “all the time” no one said “some of the time”
3. My favorite unit was…. Jamaica was the clear winner
4. My least favorite unit…Nelson Mandela was the clear “winner”
5. As a teacher, I think Mr. Ferlazzo is… 1/3 said “okay”; 1/3 said “good”; 1/3 said “excellent”; (no one said “bad”)
6. Did you feel that Mr. Ferlazzo was concerned about what was happening in your life? .. 2/3 said “yes; 1/3rd said “no”
7. Mr. Ferlazzo is patient..1/4 said “some of the time”; 1/2 said “a lot of the time”; 1/4 said “all of the time”
8. Did you like this class? all said “yes” except for one “no”
9. What was your favorite activity in this class? “Working in groups” was the clear winner with “Practice Reading” in second place (Practice Reading is the fifteen minutes at the beginning of each class when students can read a book of their own choosing).
The last two questions were where students could write in what they wanted:
10. What could you (the student) have done to make this class a better learning experience? “read & write more”; “be a better listener”; “participate more” were some responses
11. What could Mr. Ferlazzo have done to make this class a better learning experience? “It’s perfect” “Be cooler” “You did good” “lower voice when doing read aloud” were a few responses
It’s a nice introduction to edtech for teachers beginning to explore its use (there’s also good stuff there for experienced teachers, too). Good work, Richard!
Cisco says “… it will support current FlipShare customers and partners during a transition plan” — whatever that means.
Smartphones that can take video have killed Flip, but that really isn’t going to help many of us who have students who still can’t afford Smartphones….
I should be getting several Flip video cameras in time to try them out with my summer school class of Beginning English Language Learners. In preparation, I went looking for some resources that might help me get prepared for using them.
The first section deals with the mechanics of using them, while the second relates to ideas on how to use them in the classroom.
Here are my picks for The Best Sources For Advice On Using Flip Video Cameras:
Since I’m fairly incompetent technologically, I found some good sites that provide step-by-step instructions:
Classroom 2.0 has a good discussion on its Forum about using Flips. I believe you can access it without being a member but, if not, it’s free and easy to join.
For newer readers of my blog, I just wanted to write a post mentioning that my website has a ton of math activities for both English Language Learners and native English speakers.
You can find them in two places:
* My Math page, which has links to all math resources.
* The Math section on my English Themes page, which is just for English Language Learners and shares links that combine math with language development.
Carla Arena and Ronaldo Lima, Jr., EFL teachers in Brazil who have participated in our International Sister Classes Project, are having their students use the web to help refine their English skills and to help others learn some Portuguese words. I hope you’ll help them.
They are using VoiceThread to have students explain and demonstrate — in English — different Portuguese words. They are then inviting visitors to repeat those words on the VoiceThread, and then promise to provide subsequent feedback to speakers — again on the VoiceThread (thought that kind of feedback might be problematic if they get a lot of people participating).
Go to the Portuguese Challenge and try it out. This is a great idea that any language class can do, too.
Anybody can listen to it. If you want to record, though, you have to have previously registered with VoiceThread, or register then (it’s free).
The Center has made materials from the Webinar available on their website. To be truthful, I don’t think most teachers of ELL’s will find anything particularly new or useful in them that they can use in the classroom. However, two of their documents have a fair amount of up-to-date data on ELL’s — more recent than I’ve seen elsewhere.
I learned about this next site from David Deubelbeiss at EFL Classroom 2.0. As I’ve mentioned many times before, if you’re teaching English Language Learners you should definitely join EFL Classroom 2.0. It’s free and easy to do so.
David described the site best so I’m just going to quote from what he wrote:
My own books is a fantastic site for fostering reading skills and thus, English language acquisition. It was created by Anne Pemberton, a retired Special Ed. teacher and she has done a marvelous job.
Students simply chose a story they want to read. Then, they put in their own name and BINGO! The story is all about them! You can print or read on the screen with pictures to support comprehension. Really cool and I suggest students print these out and share their stories. A great way to create a classroom , personalized library!
July 4th is Independence Day in the United States. Most schools aren’t in session during this time, but since I’ll be teaching English Language Learners during summer school, I thought developing a short “The Best…” list would be useful to my students, other teachers, and me.
Here are my choices for The Best Websites For Learning About The Fourth of July (and are accessible to English Language Learners). They are not listed in any particular order of preference:
Heads Up English has an accessible description of the holiday and provides audio support for the text.
Topics Online Magazine (for English Language Learners) shares descriptions about how other countries celebrate their own Independence Days. It would be a great resource for students to write a Compare/Contrast essay using a Venn Diagram.
How Stuff Works has two resources that could be modified by teachers to make them accessible to English Language Learners. One is a feature on Independence Day and the other is on How Fireworks Work.
Here is a lengthy excerpt, though I’d encourage you to read or listen to it in its entirety:
This is why we must join the war against poverty (Yes, sir) and believe in the dignity of all work. What makes a job menial? I’m tired of this stuff about menial labor. What makes it menial is that we don’t pay folk anything. (Yes, sir) Give somebody a job and pay them some money so they can live and educate their children and buy a home and have the basic necessities of life. And no matter what the job is it takes on dignity.
I submit to you when I took off on that plane this morning, I saw men go out there in their overalls. (Yes, sir, Every time) I saw them working on things here and there, and saw some more going out there to put the breakfast on there so that we could eat on our way to Atlanta. (Make it plain) And I said to myself that these people who constitute the ground crew are just as significant as the pilot, because this plane couldn’t move if you didn’t have the ground crew. (Amen) I submit to you that in Hugh Spaulding or Grady Hospital, (Preach it) the woman or the man who goes in there to sweep the floor is just as significant as the doctor, (Yes) because if he doesn’t get that dust off the floor germs will begin to circulate. And those same germs can do injury and harm to the human being. I submit to you this morning (Yes) that there is dignity in all work (Have mercy) when we learn to pay people decent wages. Whoever cooks in your house, whoever sweeps the floor in your house is just as significant as anybody who lives in that house. (Amen) And everybody that we call a maid is serving God in a significant way. (Preach it) And I love the maids, I love the people who have been ignored, and I want to see them get the kind of wages that they need. And their job is no longer a menial job, (No, sir) for you come to see its worth and its dignity.
Are we really taking this thing seriously? “All men are created equal.” (Amen) And that means that every man who lives in a slum today (Preach it) is just as significant as John D., Nelson, or any other Rockefeller. Every man who lives in the slum is just as significant as Henry Ford. All men are created equal, and they are endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights, rights that can’t be separated from you. [clap] Go down and tell them, (No) “You may take my life, but you can’t take my right to life. You may take liberty from me, but you can’t take my right to liberty. You may take from me the desire, you may take from me the propensity to pursue happiness, but you can’t take from me my right to pursue happiness.” (Yes) “We hold these truths to be self-evident that all men are created equal and endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable Rights and among these are Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness.” (Yes, sir)
Now there’s another thing that we must never forget. If we are going to make the American dream a reality, (Yes) we are challenged to work in an action program to get rid of the last vestiges of segregation and discrimination. This problem isn’t going to solve itself, however much [word inaudible] people tell us this. However much the Uncle Toms and Nervous Nellies in the Negro communities tell us this, this problem isn’t just going to work itself out. (No, sir) History is the long story of the fact (Yes) that privileged groups seldom give up their privileges without strong resistance, and they seldom do it voluntarily. And so if the American dream is to be a reality, we must work to make it a reality and realize the urgency of the moment.
Google Squared is the newest search feature offered by Google. It “opened for business” today. It returns results in an interesting grid pattern. I had thought it might have some potential as a useful tool for English Language Learners but, at least in its present form, I was less than impressed.
I’ve written several posts recently about TED Talks, and thought I’d pull together a short list of resources that would be helpful to other teachers (and me) as we consider how to use them most effectively in our classes.
I’m going to start off with a quote from their website explaining what these “things” are:
“TED stands for Technology, Entertainment, Design. It started out (in 1984) as a conference bringing together people from those three worlds. Since then its scope has become ever broader.
The annual conference now brings together the world’s most fascinating thinkers and doers, who are challenged to give the talk of their lives (in 18 minutes).
This site makes the best talks and performances from TED and partners available to the world, for free. More than 400 TEDTalks are now available, with more added each week. All of the talks feature closed captions in English, and many feature subtitles in various languages. These videos are released under a Creative Commons license, so they can be freely shared and reposted.”
Here are my choices for The Best Teacher Resources For “TED Talks”:
The number one place to go is a wiki created by Jackie Gerstein that is called Teaching With Ted. It shares videos along with lesson ideas connected to each one.
Jeff Mummert has just today published an incredible post titled TED Talks Demystified For Teachers. In it, he highlights the videos that he thinks are particularly useful and divides them by subject area.
Links to a Google doc that lists all of the Ted Talks, including links and descriptions, has been circulating on Twitter for weeks. It’s not clear, though, who created such a helpful document. If it was you, let me know!
Tim Longhurst uncovered The TED Commandments – rules every speaker needs to know. They’re the list of ten presentation rules that are given to each TED speaker, and they’re good to keep in mind for any type of public speaking.
Pop! Tech looks very similar to TED Talks. It brings in “big thinkers” to give short presentations.
The major drawback, however, is that, unlike TED Talks, Pop! Tech uses Vimeo to host their videos, which means that most school content filters will block access. There are certainly ways to use them in schools, but it will take more work than the TED Talks, which host their videos on their own site and is usually unblocked. It definitely does have some great stuff, though, and is worth a periodic visit.
Ignite are a series of talks, available online, that are somewhat similar to TED Talks. Presenters get 20 slides and five minutes to make their point. It’s somewhat similar to Pecha Kucha presentations. The topics don’t appear to generally be as wide-ranging as TED Talks, and seem to be more “geeky,” but some look pretty interesting.
Big Think has over 600 engaging interviews with “thought leaders.” In many ways, it’s similar to TED Talks. One nice advantage is that they host the talks on their site, so it should get through school content filters.
PostRank, which uses an “engagement index” to measure the popularity of web content, has done an interesting analysis of all TED Talks.
PostRanks says they were inspired by a TED Talk titled “Lies, damned lies and statistics (about TEDTalks).” That’s a short and entertaining presentation on TED Talks statistics that has some helpful ideas on making any kind of presentation.
In addition, Sebastian Wernicke, the speaker in that talk, has created a fun online application called tedPAD. Using the data he has compiled, you have the option of creating your own tongue-in-cheek “phenomenal” or “really bad” TED Talks.
Years ago I went to a couple of conferences that had incredibly talented people “take notes” about what was happening at the conference. They did it by rapidly drawing/summarizing the important points on huge pieces of paper taped on the wall. I found it quite mesmerizing, and would often just watch what they were doing instead of who was speaking (in the same way that I sometimes just watch the amazing interpreters for the deaf at entertainment events).
I was able to find some absolutely amazing video examples of this method that made some academic talks incredibly accessible, including one from Daniel Pink talking about his book, Drive. I’ve written a lot about Pink and his research on motivation.
FORA.tv has quite a collection of video-recorded talks from “big-thinkers.”
ESL TED Talks is a blog created by Douglas Evans that has lessons he’s created for English Language Learners using TED Talks. He’s clearly put a lot of work into them, and they could be very useful. They focus almost entirely on comprehension, so a teacher would definitely want to supplement them with strategies to stimulate discussion on the topics of the Talks themselves, and how students could content the content to their own lives. Thanks to Sam Malone for the tip.
ideaCity, also known as ‘Canada’s Premiere Meeting of the Minds’, is an eclectic gathering of artists, adventurers, authors, cosmologists, doctors, designers, entertainers, filmmakers, inventors, magicians, musicians, scientists and technologists. Fifty of the planet’s brightest minds converge on Toronto each June to speak to a highly engaged audience.
Here are two other TED-like sites:
The GEL Conference describes itself this way: “Short for “Good Experience Live”, Gel is a conference and community exploring good experience in all its forms – in art, business, technology, society, and life.” They have a nice collection of video presentations from their conferences.
99 Percent says this about itself: “The annual 99% Conference, held each Spring, brings together 400+ creative thinkers and doers for two days to hear talks from creative luminaries and exchange best practices on making ideas happen.”
Edge (which I originally learned about from David Deubelbeiss) brings together “big thinkers” to both talk about “big” issues and also write about them. Their videos are intriguing, though the presentation style is just “talking heads.” I found their Question Center far more intriguing, where they annually pose a question and then get tons of key players from around the world to answer it. For example, this year’s question was “What scientific concept would improve everybody’s toolkit?”
TED Talks, the famous site/meeting that invites notable thinkers and doers to speak and then shares their talks online, has just created a new feature called TED Conversations. You can read more about how they describe it here. In many ways, it’s just another social network that it appears like every organization is starting these days. However, the key difference is that it appears that at least some TED speakers are participating in the conversations. If that continues on a serious level, then TED Conversations is going to become very popular, very quickly, and be very useful.
TED Talks has just announced the launching of “TED-ED.” They are planning to collect videos — shorter than the typical TED Talks ones — that “anyone” can create. They are taking applications from people who want to participate in the planning of this initiative, and you can see a short video about their plans here.It could have a lot of potential.
“What are some must-see TED talks?” was a question raised at Quora. It includes the vote total based on responses, as well as a tabulation of likes and dislikes on YouTube. The results are intriguing.
The University of Cambridge organizes an on-going series of short presentations called “Cambridge Ideas,” which seem to be very similar to TED Talks. They have their collection both on YouTube and on their own University website.
Here’s one of the talks — it’s on vanishing languages in the world:
Harvard Thinks Big is an annual event (started last year) where invited faculty members present ten minute talks. They just posted this year’s presentations on YouTube.
“60 Second Lectures” are pretty neat…60 second lectures offered annually by University of Pennsylvania faculty. The first link leads you to this year’s presentations, and this link will lead you to archive, where you can see the video and access a written transcript of lectures from previous years.
TEDx Global Music Project is a video collection of musical performances at TED-affiliated conferences around the world.
TED and The Huffington Post are launching a year-end collaboration around 18 groundbreaking ideas that premiered on TED.com in 2011 and may very well reshape the world in 2012. For 18 days, The Huffington Post will count down these big ideas from TED in a list curated by Chris Anderson, with essays from each speaker exploring the idea they came to TED (or a TEDx) to share with the world.
Ophan is the newest addition to The Best Visually Engaging News Sites. It shows a slow-moving and multi-colored moving “stream” of news items (the headlines and the beginning of the story) which you can click on to go to the primary source. If you register and sign-in it provides a personalization feature which helps the application “learn” what kinds of stories you’re interested in. Soon, it will also have a similar streaming feature for queries you type in a search box.
My English Language Learner students have found many of the sites on that “The Best..” list pretty accessible — much more so than I would have thought. It’ll be interesting to see what they think of Orphan.
Read The Words lets you convert any text – from a document, blog, or website – into audio with your choice from a variety of voices. You can then embed the voice player into your site. Unfortunately, it only lets you record something for no longer than 30 seconds for free — you have to be a paid member for anything longer.
Hypercities is a neat “mashup” of what various cities have looked like over the past several hundred years. By using a “slider,” you can choose a year, and then various images of that city from that time are shown. It’s pretty ingenious, and certainly the basics are accessible to English Language Learners.
Just a reminder to share your reflections on the past school year — either by writing them in the comments section of my post Reflections On The School Year — Share Your Own! or by leaving a link to a similar post that you might have written on your own blog.
I’ll be publishing them on June 11th, the last day of our school, so you have about a week left to get them in…
This list shares a few resources that can help teachers (and others) who are either presently writing their own blogs or want to start doing so in the future.
So, now, here are my choices for The Best Sources Of Advice For Teachers (And Others!) On How To Be Better Bloggers:
He explains his strategy behind posting a lot. It’s worth reading his entire piece, but here’s an excerpt describing his understanding of what he says is an academic theory called “The Equal-Odds Rule.”
If you want to make excellent stuff, you need to make a lot of stuff.
If you want to make a lot of stuff, you’ll make a lot of cr-p.
If you want to make excellent stuff, you need to make a lot of cr-p.
And my personal opinion here -
And that’s okay, because you get judged by your best work, not your bad work.
Ronnie Burt at Edublogs has just published what might be the very best guide for helping teachers begin to blog (and for helping veterans get even better) — The ultimate guide to getting started with blogging!
ThinkQuest holds a yearly competition for student-created educational websites. Some great ones are submitted. They just announced the 2009 Winners, and they’re worth a visit.
You can also visit their library, which contains 7,000 sites, including past winners and those that didn’t get an award.
A majority are accessible to English Language Learners and are on a variety of subjects. I have many links to them on my website.
