Bookr

Here's the link for my Bookr: A Stray Cat.

Bookr is a very cute and easy-to-use online tool and I made a storybook myself by using it! It's a really cool experience!

I think the objective I can use for Bookr is to help the students learning some specific knowledge, like how to use past tense or to learn some grammar things. By using the Bookr, I use a lot of past tense in order to teach the students how to use the past tense and at the same time make my instruction interesting and attention-grabbing.

The type of story I would have my students create is the story that has a clear storyline and not very abstract. Like I would like my students to telling a story about their Spring Break or to create a fairytale using past tense.

I would not use this tool as my main teaching material, because I found that Bookr's picture search is not that fully developed and I cannot find many nice pictures. I would use it as a "dessert" for my teaching and to give students some different learning experience.

pics

photo by Seantoyer
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Twitter: to talk to the world

  I've read these two articles: Twitter: expanding our class- shrinking the world, and Twimpact: Twitter's impact on my week.

  The first article mainly talked about the teacher used twitter as a media to connect to the world and had his  students to get to know the Greece culture and got an opportunity to communicate and interact with other students who are also studying western culture and they were at that time studying Greece as well. The teacher had his students to have an interaction with those students and being the judges of those students' presentations. I think this kind of twitter-caused class activity is very interesting. At first it helps students to memorize the knowledge well and at the same time make the students realize that they were not alone and  other students in different school are aslo learning the same knowledge they are learning. Also the twitter also promote the interaction within students and students would follow the world events on twitter. I think especially for the language learners and culture learners, it is crucial for them to get to know the language and culture by various ways and really make the students get interested in what they are learning. Using Twitter not only could broaden the horizon of the students' world but could have them more engaged in what they were learning.

  I might use Twitter in my class in order to give my students' a twitter discussion and set a topic and make them discuss and do researches online. Also just like the Twitter: expanding our class- shrinking the world said, I can connect to the world and Skype to students or teachers in other parts of the world and talk to them or chatting with them in order to give my students a more directive and objective impression of what we are currently learning and what other culture is or learn with each other and then get mutual benefits.

  The second article mainly talked about his Twitter experience which is very impressive. He could use Twitter to communicate with many educators, read a lot of articles, get in touch with many friends and learn language. This article reminds me that I also have a Twitter and I used this Twitter to learn English, like I can learn to how to express myself better in English and I must say that the Twitter is a good way to learn language because the language on it is very practical, daily used and authentic. 

  However, as a teacher one thing we should keep in mind is that there are just so many information on the  Twitter, and it is our responsibility to remind our students to pay attention to the Internet safe while learning through the Twitter. Also Twittering may become very time-wasting if the students don't have the self-discipline to control themselves from work procrastinating to browsing other websites.