What online resources have you used to improve your teaching, and how do you usually find them?
When I’m out of ideas or simply can’t think of the best way to present a new unit I turn to Google, type in name of a unit plus activities and usually what I read in first 3 or 4 web sites gets my imagination going. The websites that have proven to be quite useful are http://www.hajdeda.org.rs/ or http://www.zvrk.rs/. However, I must say that there is an obvious shortage of educational web sites in Serbian. I often find great ideas that could be applied to mother tongue classes but I need to further work on them by translating which is not always so simple because for example there could be a rhyme that needs to be preserved or a certain pattern that needs to be followed etc. What I lack the most are interactive websites. In one class there could be students of up to three different levels of knowledge and it is hard to work with such a diverse group because you’ll have three students that are finishing the tasks pretty fast and three that will take half an hour and another three that will need a whole class. The third group usually needs a teacher by their side and in these sorts of situations I wish I had a website that the first two groups can explore and do bunch of very fun tests and activities that will be just as amusing to them as they would be educational. What happens in my class is I constantly need to come to all three groups and check how they did and comment on their work so I’m usually a bit torn apart. It would be great if I had a “virtual assistant” in a form of an interactive website that could take half of my load without lowering the quality of what is going on in the classroom.
When I’m out of ideas or simply can’t think of the best way to present a new unit I turn to Google, type in name of a unit plus activities and usually what I read in first 3 or 4 web sites gets my imagination going. The websites that have proven to be quite useful are http://www.hajdeda.org.rs/ or http://www.zvrk.rs/. However, I must say that there is an obvious shortage of educational web sites in Serbian. I often find great ideas that could be applied to mother tongue classes but I need to further work on them by translating which is not always so simple because for example there could be a rhyme that needs to be preserved or a certain pattern that needs to be followed etc. What I lack the most are interactive websites. In one class there could be students of up to three different levels of knowledge and it is hard to work with such a diverse group because you’ll have three students that are finishing the tasks pretty fast and three that will take half an hour and another three that will need a whole class. The third group usually needs a teacher by their side and in these sorts of situations I wish I had a website that the first two groups can explore and do bunch of very fun tests and activities that will be just as amusing to them as they would be educational. What happens in my class is I constantly need to come to all three groups and check how they did and comment on their work so I’m usually a bit torn apart. It would be great if I had a “virtual assistant” in a form of an interactive website that could take half of my load without lowering the quality of what is going on in the classroom.
Interactive websites are indeed useful, but your dilemma in not finding them may in fact be a good thing. The problem with these websites is that they tend not to activate the higher levels of thinking that take place when students are collaborating with each other and constructing knowledge. I would suggest real social media sites such as Ning and collaborative interactions would be better for language students. Interactive websites tend to be far to restrictive when it comes to exploration and creativity.
ReplyDeleteI agree with you about the level of thinking involved when using these sorts of websites. However, this would be just one of the things I wish I could use to fill the time advanced groups of students occasionally encounter. And another perspective is that they can, well actually have to work on this together considering I only have one computer in my classroom so collaboration won't be left out, no worries:)
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