The TWAIN blog

A session I attended during the Tech Forum was on ESL/ELL resources. I admit, I have not made myself aware of ESL/ELL resources due to the populations I have mostly worked with in previous districts. I was really looking forward to learning about tools for this population in our schools.

The presentation was done by representatives from two districts: Carrollton-Farmer’s Branch ISD and Austin ISD. The first presenter was Arturo Guajardo from Austin ISD. His wiki has lots of great resources on it and he said he would post more notes there for this topic later.

Tools they use: Ipods for connecting kids to streaming video, audio, and images. They even created lab “iSafes” that hold 7 iPods, 7 cords, and 7 headphone sets in a safe. They drilled their own holes and used a cord-squid to make it a portable station a teacher can lock down at their desk. Very cool.

Arturo showed a variety of strategies used with ESL/ELL learners and he focused on three top ones: Background Knowledge, Academic Language, and Sense of Self.

Background Knowledge is important for learners to add knowledge onto what they already know – layering their knowledge. He referenced using United Streaming, Archive.org, Safari Montage, etc. type resources to find videos for students about their culture and background. Let them create a media project of their own background. Use these resources to build a connection between the past history and future learning.

More FREE resources:
ITunes language learning podcasts – more and more each day.

Librivox – You can download FREE audio books in public domain along with the text. Great for letting kids see the words and hear them read at their own pace on iPod. More and more classic books making their way to public domain.

StoryNory – Free Audio stories told by Natasha (a british woman). Said it was funny to hear ELL students learning to speak in a british dialect. Great stories read in a clear voice on the site.

Lit2Go – Part of the state of Florida’s Educational Technology Clearinghouse – this site offers MP3 stories and poems along with text files so you can follow along.

Breaking News English – is a site dedicated to English lessons on breaking news and current events.

Voice of America’s News site has a page also dedicated to lessons for English learners on news and current events.

Other sites include free tools where they students can create projects:

VoiceThread – students can upload images and share voice audio and video commentary.

A fun idea shown was to have students take pictures to make visual definitions of words. An example of the word “encroach” had a students walking on grass behind a sign that said “stay off the grass”.

Jumpcut – free online video editor.

Gcast for hosting podcasts made in Audacity or even by telephone. You create or edit your audio in Audacity/Garage Band and then upload to Gcast which also make feed code.

Kerpoof – comic creator online and can toggle between languages.

Picnik – a site for uploading and editing photos but you can add some fun things on to the pics as well. Recommend getting a Picnik and Flickr account to tie together.

Great information:
“ELLs will learn new content and language when they have a positive sense of self.” Build community within the class to show that none of them are alone in their learning.

A friend in the room suggested I look into Edmodo which is a microblogging site (like Twitter) but just for educators and students.

Arturo also showed Kathy Cassidy’s 1st Grade class blog which is a REAL example of a teacher using Web2.0 tools and global connections on her site: http://classblogmeister.com/blog.php?blogger_id=1337

Someone else mentioned that Inspiration has a new web version that is free called MyWebSpiration.com. I recommend Bubbl.us or Gliffy.com. All are used for visual concept-mapping. All are also free too.

Carrolton-Farmer’s Branch ISD’s web resource site shows how they are implementing an iPod and podcasting program district-wide. All teachers receive a video iPod. The great thing about their presentation was that they showed how they are doing it and point us to the resources on the website. Again, this is another PC-based district using iPods and Apple tools in their Windows environment. Great resources for first-time podcasters: http://cfbstaff.cfbisd.edu/beyond4walls/

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