Catchy tips for intelligent teachers!!!

Catchy tips for intelligent teachers

By: Danny Bajaña

Each of us has different talents and developed affinities that allow us learn and remember things easier than others. That’s why we tend to acquire and express what we learn in different ways.
The way students show what they have learned can help us reflect on it to apply new techniques in our class. Teachers’ challenge is to catch students’ attention, and one way to do it is including activities and explanations that cover all the intelligences.

• Try to look all your learners while talking
• When asking about what Ss. have learned, include feelings, opinions and descriptions
• Restate what students say, so they are sure they explained right their ideas
• These tips will help keep students’ attention and increase their participation

What can work in your class?

Using Virtual Courses (Plattforms)

Do you know what a virtual platform is? Have you ever used virtual courses with your students?. Well, a virtual course is a webpage that allows you to create assignments, forums, chatting, uploading files, creating tests, and others. Nowadays many schools and universities around the world have implemented virtual courses in their curriculums and according to educational experts, this have become into a powerful and successful tool for teaching.
Not going too far, this year in my school, teachers started to work with virtual courses and they found interesting results. At the beginning there was some rejection for using them from teachers as well as students. Teachers said it was time-consuming and difficult to create things or upload documents while students said it was boring. But, this changed when teachers as well as students , little by little were getting used to use the platform and found out that is easy and fast to use it once you are familiar with the options and links it includes , you don’t use paper , you can check your grade and receive feedback while your are at home, you can work on many projects and save it in a personal platform database and others.
So, if you haven’t worked with virtual courses and you have the opportunity to implement it with your students, don’t think too much and tried it, you and your students would love it.

by Hugo Velasco

Vacations are all the way around different now

Generally speaking in Ecuador vacations are considered for students from all ages either for spare time or for traveling to get out of the school system and routine. I remember spending every single vacation doing all kind of activities but I actually never took advantage of those days, maybe learning something useful besides playing football soccer and swimming, typical sports in Ecuador. Maybe this was due to the lack of available information and variety of options. When I say useful I mean like learning how to use better the technology, taking advantage of its programs for future purposes and learning how to play no traditional sports or do innovative activities that can lead the student or even baby to a higher level of sociality, intelligence and interaction with others.

Nowadays institutions offer professional services to those parents and students interested in investing their money and time in the country during vacations. From the fact institutions receive children from 2 months until 5 years old, implementing updated methodologies and exercises to exploit the children’s skills and abilities according to their ages of course( Early stimulation, Brain Gym, cooking, dancing, music, cheerleading and more). Likewise they open their doors to older children, from 6 to 15 years old implementing different but appropriate strategies to provide a learning regarding technology and healthy entertainment such as sports like Personal defense, modeling and on the other hand Multimedia and 2D animation workshop, Emotional intelligence workshop.

From 14 years old onward there are more activities focused on higher skills and objectives as well such as Tennis like sports and web pages design, Fireworks 8, Flash 8( elemental), Introduction to HTML and much more. Moreover it’s worth mentioning all this activities( physical and Mental) are chosen and combined by the students with their parent’s contentment. The cost varies but it’s worth it to satisfy the need of making a good choice and do not waste precious time that if is spent wisely will bring about positive changes in the future.
For more Information about institutions offering this contact to: www.logosacademy.edu.ec or www. cees.edu.ec

By Jorge Jimenez G.

Christmas Animated Postcards

If you have access to internet, this website http://www.northpole.com/Mailroom/Postcards/PCIntro.html%20 is perfect for you! I know you will find it useful for a writing lesson. Students can email a Christmas animated postcard to their parents or friends, adding their own messages. It is a fun activity, students will enjoy it! I will include this project in my planning for December. But before starting I’ll need to follow SIX STEPS.
STEP 1: I will tell my students a little bit about Christmas and talk about the Christmas animated postcard project. STEP 2: I will ask my students to create a web and remind them that in the center of the web they will have to put the name of the person they want to send the postcard. STEP 3: they will write their ideas for the postcard in the web and later create a paragraph with those ideas. STEP 4: I will ask my students to exchange papers to revise their work and I will edit their work. STEP 5: I will ask my students to find out the email address of their father or mother; to send the postcard. (Check with their parents to be sure it's OK.) STEP 6: if your students have access to internet, they will be able to type the letter and send it online. But if your students don’t have access, they can type the letter in Word; you can paste it and send it later.

By Maria de Lourdes Lopez Pereira

Standards towards technology classes

By Hugo Velasco Castro
Guayaquil-Ecuador

If you want to use technology or if you are already using them ; keep doing it but, are you setting standards for your classes?


No matter what tools you are using in order to implement technology in the classroom, it is very important to set standards when using technology in your classrooms and some of them are: to develop technology skills that support learning, personal productivity, decision making, and daily life.

In order to accomplished these goals; our students could use a variety of media and technology resources for directed and independent learning activities. For example in my classes using internet has given my students opportunities to use educational software , E-books , demos to practice activities on-line and others to support learning. However, it is very important to teach our students how to use these resources effectively so they could have choices for their own learning and help them being autonomous learners.

So, If you haven’t; start thinking of standards as your assistant for achieving goals when implementing technology in your classes.

What about Science Fair?

By: Lorena Baquerizo, Guayaquil-Ecuador
In our local schools´ annual planning we will always find a day or two for the special science fair which will be held in the school´s patio and which decoration should be outstanding so it looks attractive for our visitors from other schools. Its content is 100% scientist and is explained by the students, some of them in Spanish and some others in English, among the subjects involved we usually have: chemistry, anatomy, math, social studies, statistics, physical education, and others.
Planning and making it real a science fair takes all the stakeholders we can imagine: media, sponsors, institution authorities, coordinators, secretaries, teachers, students, parents, sponsors, and janitors. The whole school community gets involved into this macro activity. My question is: Why do we have science fair? What do we want our students to learn or be able to do that day? What do we want our parents to see?
This is how a traditional science fair may look like: Stands with cardboards full of letters written with markers, hanging on the walls, small tables full of souvenirs ready to deliver to the listeners. Kids, most of the time with costumes, give a text known my heart, looking at the poster to help him remember the next word in his speech. Does this sound familiar?
And this is I consider a science fair should look like: Kids in different places with no more than tools, materials and instruments to do their experiment, nothing too prepared but just students own work in class based on a specific subject, not repeating a text but explaining it and able to answer a questions if a person in the public asks.
I know traditions make culture, but we need to be sure first that whatever we do, even if it has a long trajectory, needs to have clear objective and clear goals to reach. So our school events are productive and worthy of all praise.

Many…..many ideas to use digital cameras in the classroom…

Digital cameras can be used more than one way in classrooms….if you start thinking in some of them….you can count them with the fingers of your hands….but have you considered these ideas?
Usually we have these general ideas to use digital cameras, for: PowerPoint Presentations, Open House, Web pages, Bulletin boards, Journal writing, School Newspapers, Document Classroom Projects, etc.

But to not get students boring we have always to go beyonfd that so here I present you a different kind of interesting activities for kids and teenagers:

Yearbook snapshots:
- It is really interesting to post pictures around the school of students who receive special awards.
- Photograph examples of superior student projects to give other students ideas.
- To make calendars for the administration and staff.

Student of the Week posters for each class. Post them outside the classroom for all to see.
Take pictures the Set-Up for various projects and use pictures as a review for a quiz, or a quiz itself.

Take pictures of each childs' eyes only. Have children try to match up their classmates by only their eyes. It demonstrates how distinctive and unique we really are. Oral discussion can then follow.

"A Typical Day In The Life Of A Student At ."

- The students kept the camera for a day, take as many pictures as they wanted, and as a group created a booklet of that day.
- You can gain great insight into their thought processes doing a project like this.
- Publish photos for many projects.

And also here are some different ideas for different subjects…

Social Studies

- Take pictures of each student's face and incorporate that image into a computerized "Wanted" poster for the westward movement unit. Kids could add in (via text) the varmint's favorite book, etc. They could also be fancy and add in handlebar mustaches, black hats, etc. to make themselves look more sinister.
- Social studies students can use digital photos to design front covers for their reports. Photo essay projects of the old buildings and historic sights in your town.

Science

- Students can research more about leaves, rocks, or something from your garden. Those who study the ecosystems can use the camera to relate to nature. For example, in the fall, students take pictures to reflect different themes (color in nature, changing seasons, etc).
- Document growth of a classroom plant or pet. Use lab pictures with a question/answer session before the lab featuring the question "What will we do next?"
- Use digital photo for leaf identification and lab equipment identification. Take a picture of each lab group. Then print the pictures onto floppy labels with the names of the students, the period and their group number.

Language Arts

- Journal Writing. Classroom newspapers. Autobiographies. Students can insert photos in a biographical poem. A great way to start off the year and get to know your students.
- Demonstrate vocabulary, emotions, compare/contrast. Use a photo as a prompt for narrative or descriptive writing. Students take pictures of each other and write biographies of their friends

Elementary Ideas

- Have students insert their photo into a paint document and make themselves a character from a book or cartoon. They erase all but their face and paint the rest of the body with appropriate background and props for this person. Kids love this. Take pictures of students in various activities. The students dictate appropriate text for the picture then create books that they can "read".
- Use student pictures as gifts at Christmas, and Mother's day. Pictures made on the 1st day can be given to each student on the last day of school with a letter from you about how much they have grown and how much you enjoyed having them in your class. Make picture frames out of jar tops hot glue magnets to the back for the refrigerator. When you grow plants you can document the growth with snapshots. If you have different races you can do graphs. How many have ___color hair, how many wear glasses etc.