While each group makes their presentations to me, the rest of you will work independently on our 2 areas of focus for grammar. One area of focus is verb tenses and the other area of focus is comparison.
While we do our tutorials today you will work independently on various grammar activities. You can work on anything on Logolab or even Livemocha. Here are a few other links for your independent practice.
For more practice with If statements, conditionals, and modals. You can do the exercises without reading the explanations but the explanations are very clear. For each link there are many exercises to keep you busy.
Today we are going to explore new internet technologies. We are going to do a listening test using 4-5 different videos. Then you are going to try out the different technologies with your partner. At the end you will report to the class what you discovered. All videos come from the fantastic site Common Craft.
Stage 1
RSS In Plain English
Indicate if the following sentences are True or False. Write DK if you don’t know even after the 2nd listen.
Going to each of your favorite websites to see if there is new content is a waste of time
There are 3 steps to take to begin to use RSS readers
According to the video Google Reader is the best reader available
You must pay for a subscription to use a reader
Connecting your reader and your favorite websites is called subscribing
Normally the icon for an RSS feed is orange
After you click on the orange RSS icon the website is automatically added to your reader
You can also add a website to your reader by clicking on Add Subscription in your reader and copying and pasting the home page URL of the site into the window
Social Bookmarking In Plain English
Indicate if the following sentences are True or False. Write DK if you don’t know even after the 2nd listen.
Adding bookmarks to our favorites in a web browser is an inefficient way to save websites because you can only see them from one computer
Delicious uses a browser instead of a website to save your bookmarks
You don’t have to pay to use delicious.com
You don’t have to add tags to a website in order to save it as a favorite
You can add more than one tag to each of your favorite websites
Having more than one hundred saved websites on delicious.com makes finding the one you want difficult
The whole world can see the websites you saved and the tags you used
According to the video saving websites like this helps all internet users find and use relevant material
Photo Sharing In Plain English
Indicate if the following sentences are True or False. Write DK if you don’t know even after the 2nd listen.
Because people value their photos so much, photos should be stored online to prevent their accidental loss due to events like fires
A computer failure would also destroy your online photo collection
Storing photos in albums that sit on bookshelves makes it hard to retrieve the exact photos you are looking for
After you upload your photos to Flickr you should delete them from your own computer
Flickr allows you to add tags to photos so it is easy to find the photos you are searching for
You must make your photos available to the public in order to use Flickr
When your photos are public even strangers can make comments about your photos
According to the video making photos social can motivate you to take more photos
Wikis In Plain English
Indicate if the following sentences are True or False. Write DK if you don’t know even after the 2nd listen.
A barrage of emails means you receive so many that it is overwhelming
A wiki is an example of a type of website
The 2 most important buttons on a wiki are “save” and “print”
When you click “edit” on a wiki, the wiki turns into a document that you can make changes to
The process of using a wiki is edit, write, and print
Mary creates the list “We Need” in order to show what items she will bring on their camping trip
I will be your teacher until the end of June. We will improve our English by learning about blogs, practicing how to add and modify elements in a blog, and creating a final project in the form of a blog that will have to be presented to the class. Consider the final project the 21st century equivalent of your poster day type projects. We will use the blogging platform called WordPress.
Your grade in class will be 50% class work and 50% final project.
Class Work
attendance, participation, effort, contributions to class discussions, comments on each others blogs for class activities, one vocabulary test at the end on blogging terms.
Final Project
Completed blog on a topic of your choice. There will be precise requirements for the blog. Each week we will learn new parts to a blog and then you will be required to add those elements to your final project. The final class you will be required to make a 5 minute presentation of your topic and blog to the class.
Whether you are new to blogging or an experienced blogger, we will go through all the steps necessary to set up, create, and maintain a blog. Use this site as a reference as it contains a lot of useful materials and links.
You are going to learn about blogs, blogging, and you will make your own WordPress.com blog. At the end of class today you may keep it, delete it, or take what you learn today and make your own new blog. The choice is up to you. Each activity is is listed as a separate blog entry. Please do not work ahead. We will do each activity together. Let’s get started.
Sit with a partner. Each of you had spent the last 3 months away from school training for your future job. Take 3 minutes to tell your partner what you have been doing this past 3 months. When I give you the signal, change roles and the other partner will describe their last 3 months. Person A will tell the class what person B has been doing and vice versa. Listen carefully and take notes if you need to while sitting with your partner. Class introductions should be short 6-8 sentences. After the introduction we’ll have a sort period for questions and comments.
Review the video. The video said there are big differences between news in the 20th and 21st century. What are some of those differences? Make a T chart on the board and fill it in with students.
Watch the video again, this time students read the transcription as it plays. Fill in more information on the T chart.
Review the idiomatic expressions used in the video.
“a two way street”
“using the word news loosely”
“the fuss is not about how blogs work”
Questions or comments before we look at vocabulary?
While you visit the following blogs, identify the vocabulary words on your vocabulary sheet. Think about where you find them on a blog and what do they do.
You can also go to this online dictionary on the wordpress.com site to see the definitions. Try to put it in your own words. Use what you saw on the blogs and what the dictionary said to create a definition.
