Lights! Camera! Action!

Recently, there's been a lot of firsts for me.  I joined twitter, started tweeting. I started a blog and started blogging.  This week my first was creating a digital story!  Yes.  It's hard to believe, but it really was my first.

At first, I was really worried about putting a "movie" together.  I had a hard time choosing what kind of movie to make.  It was difficult partly because I had to post it on Youtube.  I had reservations about putting my personal pictures and pictures of my family members out in public.  I had to put much thought into deciding on the topic.  I started a movie about my favorite  person, my niece, then decided I didn't want that.  So, I started one on my friends but didn't want that either.  Finally, I ended up doing one on donuts.  It was about something I liked. It was personal. It was fun! It was a perfect topic!

Although I was worried about putting my digital story together when I began, I found that it was quite easy with imovie.  I was able to upload pictures from my personal photo collection and download images from the internet to make my movie interesting.  It was simple as drag and drop.

The next part was adding music and narration. This was when the challenge began.  Timing the music, ordering the pictures, deciding on the length of each picture was based on my preference and style. So, adjusting and watching, and adjusting and watching was a lot of work. The tricky part was to fit all the pictures to music in the way I wanted it.  I wanted to do it in a certain way, and that really took up a lot of time. The little things that had to be done after the initial set up, such as, altering and realigning and shortening and lengthening and cutting here and adding there, was a lot of tedious work.  The task was not hard.  It was just time consuming.  

When I was finally finished with my production, I was quite pleased and it was fun to watch something I had created.  I wasn't so inspired as I was making the movie.  However, when I saw the finished product, I was motivated to continue making more and thought of other ways to make and incorporate digital stories in my teaching.

Here is my first digital story.  Please take a look!~ And if there's anyone out there that thinks they can't do it, remember, I did it and so can you!~

I love donuts!

Tweet!~ Tweet!~

It's all new to me, this tweeting thing.~ What is tweeting?  Why do people do it?  What is there to talk about all the time?  And why does the world need to know everything about you?  These were some of my thoughts before I joined.  Well, now that I finally signed up and started using it, I got some answers!  

First of all, I thought tweeting was just for teenagers who wanted to be cool.  Or, for the outrageous celebrities who just needed to say... stuff.  However, when I started looking closely into it, reading posts and participating in some of the twitter chats, I changed my mind...~

After signing up for twitter I started following several organizations and people that I knew. I read through their tweets and realized tweeting is not all about ranting and sharing your negative view on things.  Reading the tweets of some of my colleagues and other professional organizations, I realized, twitter is a place where people share their thoughts, their feelings, inform others and share what they know. I learned that in most cases, people just want to be heard, say what's on their mind, and connect with other like minded people. I found this out when I read through some of the ELL tweets and joined the #ellchat. 
  
When I joined the chat, I didn't really know what to do or expect.  So, I just told them it was my first time joining a chat.  They were all so very nice and welcoming.  As the chat got rolling, others signed in and introduced themselves. For this particular chat, there was a moderator who posed questions.  Of course, this being my first chat, I sat back and read all the comments and answers being posted.  Although most of the conversation was directed to high school level teachers, I felt like I was part of the community of ELL teachers all over America. Actually, there were few teachers from overseas that joined, so, I felt like I was part of the ELL community all over the world!~  I think it was then I realized, twitter connects people!~ For teachers who are teaching in other countries or are in jobs where they don't have other colleagues who are in the same situation can totally connect with others around the world and get ideas as well as support by connecting with twitter! I found that I can look up just about anything and there is someone out there with whom I can connect with.  It's a great way to reach out and become a part of a community! I'm probably never going to meet these people, however, I have become "friends" and I am connected to them.

What I appreciated about the twitter chat was, I could join a group, be a part of it however long I want and leave without any obligations or apologies.  It's casual.  It's relaxing.  It's interesting. And I'm learning.  

Although I feel like I don't have very much to tweet, I am trying to get myself to tweet more. It's challenging for me to create a habit of tweeting but I am trying.  And so far, joining twitter and participating in the chats have been a rewarding experience!  I will continue to push myself to put my ideas, my thoughts and maybe even some of my feelings out there!~ Follow me on twitter @sarahlim828!  

These are some of the twitter organizations and people I enjoyed following.

#educationweek is an educational newspaper.  It has many links to articles, blogs, video clips etc. regarding education.  I found this to be very informative.  I can keep up with the latest news.

#spiraleducation is developed by a former 3rd grade teacher who believes in the spiral education from preschool to PHD programs.  She posts her thought on education, traditional teaching, new methodologies and much more.  It's interesting to read some of her thoughts.

#FingertipsEnglish focuses on ELL learners.  It's full of information on how to address certain topics with second language students, new technology that can help language learning and methods to improve vocabulary and grammar.  This mainly focuses on technology support for language learners.

#Seattleseahawks is a great way for me to follow my favorite football team!~  Because I live in Chicago, I often miss the Seahawks games and updates.  Twitter is a great way to follow them and keep update on my favorite quarterback and team!~

Be Active In Your Learning!

One of the great things about being a teacher is that I get summers off, so I can travel and learn about different places around the world!~  
For many years now, I have had the privilege to do some volunteer work overseas. These opportunities have allowed me to visiting many different schools in various countries.  I have seen classrooms of different sorts.  And this has helped me to see some differences and similarities in our teaching practices.  As we look at the idea of Active Learning, I can't help but think how this would look so different depending on where you are and what you have.

In many countries around the world, teaching is still very teacher directed.  It is a one way learning experience where the teacher stands up and lectures to the students.  Most of the time, the students don't say a single word.  They sit listen and write down what is written on the board.  And most certainly they do not talk to one another during a lesson.  The students sit in rows, face forward, and listen.

Many of these classrooms do not have access to computers.  The number of students in a class is usually very high and have vast ranges of ability levels.  In classrooms like this, perhaps Active Learning just means to pay attention and write down note from the board.  Being an active learner in this context, might mean you don't interrupt your teacher during the lecture and listen quietly. Perhaps, in these places, Active Learning is to provide adequate materials to work in school.  However, if you live where I live and teach where I teach, Active Learning would look quite different.

Schools in America have so many resources!  Books, supplies, computers, ipads, and Smartboards, we have it all.  With so much to offer, perhaps teaching in the old traditional way is not the best solution.  With all the resources available, I do believe the way teachers teach can change.   In a culture where students are accessing ipads on a one to one basis, the teaching has to implement more technology to create an opportunity to be more active in their learning.  So, rather than having students all sit in rows and having them listen to a lecture, teachers need to create opportunities to explore and discover for themselves as they find answers.  Using technology to facilitate the students' learning, by expressing creativity and cultivating personal reflections, will allow students to be more involved as they take on the hands on approach to learning.  They will be able to apply their receptive learning to express their understanding.  When students are active in their learning, they are not memorizing facts.  Rather it is expanding the information by applying it to your understanding and expressing it in a matter they understand.  It is individualized.  It is unique.  And it challenges the students to take what they have learned and apply to their learning.  
Also, when students are engaged in active learning, students are sharing and collaborating with peers.  Students learn from one another and this helps the  students learn and retain more.

One of the challenging aspect for teachers in Active Learning is the facilitating factor.  There may be questions and even fear at first, as to how much do I allow the students to be in control of their learning.  Or even what that looks like.  Teacher directed teaching could seem so much easier.  Other concerns could be that the teachers themselves are not that knowledgeable with technology to faciliate, so that can create uneasiness.

Active Learning may not necessarily look the same in all schools.  But, if you are a teacher, and you are lucky enough to teach, then you need to encourage students and facilitate a learning environment so they can be active in their learning! 

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First day of school!~

I am a happy little teacher, working in a happy little classroom with happy little children.  I belong a happy little district and I work with students who do not speak English as their primary language at home.  Of course being a happy little teacher, I'm always looking out for every opportunity to better myself.  So, when this class became available, I decided to sign up!  Because I've always worked in a little classroom, I never had a chance to use the Smartboard or use the cool techie stuff!~  This was my chance to learn and grow!
I had great dreams to become tech savvy.  I hoped I would soar and shine in this class.  But after attending the first class, I'm thinking I bit off more than I can chew!  Yikes!  What am I going to do?!?

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I'm feeling a little lost and scared on the first day of school...