the project

Here is the presentation of the project I have created with my partners during the learning lab. It has been interesting and quite easy, I must say. We have agreed on the theme, Christmas, since it seems a relevant one and we have worked on it using Google docs, which is a great tool for collaborative work. I will surely test it with my students, I can’t wait to do it actually!

What’s a teacher in the Digital Age?

“Any teacher that can be replaced by a computer, deserves to be.”  David Thornburg

I found the quotation on a blog and you can find the post here. It is worth reading because it is a really interesting post and a meditation about the role of a teacher in our technological world. It would be easy to reply using another quotation by David Thornburg

“If you bring in these technologies and don’t think ahead to how they’ll be used to promote learning and the acquisition of skills, then the only thing that will change in school is the electric bill,”

because I think the point lies exactly there.  Teachers  have to develop their students’ skills and make them independent in their study. Technology is essential to this extent because it presents many different tools and platforms which help the kids do a lot of things, from note-taking to writing and reading activities, to online experiments and that’s when the teacher’s role becomes important. A teacher should guide them and give them the chance of choosing what is more suitable for each of them. During traditional classroom activites, it is not that easy to help mixed-abilities students but thanks to technology we can make them find out what is best for them. It is when I use ICT tools that I see my students really involved because they can accomplish their tasks in the way which is better for them, according to their intelligence and talent. And it is through such tools that it has become easier for me to find out their intelligence and talents. But it is not easy! On the contrary it is quite a hard job: always looking for tools, test them, trying to understand how they can really be effective and of course preparing activities which can go with the curriculum.

My new blog :)

And here is another blog

This is not my first blog, but it is the first I have created for myself. I mean, the first blog I created was for my younger students to help them practise English, the second one was for older students to stimulate them to study literature, the third one was for my colleagues to help them learn how to use some tools and this is the first which is for me only
Thanks to eTwinning and to the learning lab about exploiting Web 2.0 I have the chance to write here … what? Well, I don’t know yet but I will surely find something to discuss about and share with others.
As for the topic of the lab, I have watched the videos on the lab site and I am sure we cannot ignore the importance of Web 2.0, above all if we considered how much our students are involved in the virtual world which surrounds us. And the same is true for us as this video by David Truss so well shows.

Wow, I have just written my first post! Feel like Julie Powell

 

Hello eTwinners!

Another adventure with eTwinning. A teacher “could not but be gay, in such a jocund company” and experienced, and motivated, and stimulating, and nice, and collaborative;  the company, of course