Deivis D. Pothin

Here’s the word cloud I created for my blog using wordle. For ideas on how to use it in the classroom, I recommend this site.

category: ICT in Education    

Today I received an email from Beatriz Fontana, my friend and former lecturer at Unisinos, telling me about a weblog project with her students. It’s interesting to notice how language learners interact through comments or hyperlinks, and the discourse used when talking about themselves or their own learning – lots of questions that would need a long post to write about – or a master’s dissertation, like I did. In the meantime, take a look at these weblogs published by some Brazilian language learners and leave a comment

AlexEnglish
Bartira Almeida
Shinigagne
Adriana Soares
Andreia Flores
Fran Gaspareto

category: CALL    

category: CALL, ICT in Education    

Since last week I’ve been using a new learner response system launched by Promethean called Active Expression. Used in conjunction with an interactive whiteboard, children can send their responses to the screen which can then be viewed and analyzed as soon as everyone has voted. Unlike the previous voting system, which children could only use to answer multiple questions, the innovation now is that users are able to choose text their answers, just like a mobile phone.

I’ve used it in a staff meeting where staff were able to carry out a self-assessment on the strengths and weaknesses in teaching Science. I’ve also used it several times during my Numeracy lessons – great for lesson starters and self-assessment at the end of it not to mention during the Spanish lessons. Children were very excited to used the voting devices to say what means of transportation they usually use to come to school.

The voting system has some technical hiccups that need to be sorted but nothing that discourage you to use it. The school where I work is part of a pilot project that should be finished by December.

To find out more about Learner Response Systems, check out the websites below:
1. Ollie Bray on Active Expression
2. Promethean Active Expression
3. REVEAL project

category: ICT in Education