Very Talented Co-Workers

Day 273 - Very Talented Co-Workers
Originally uploaded by carlaarena

Jazz it up Event. My friends at work, besides being great teachers, are amazingly talented. They sang for a full auditorium of EFL adult students, entertained them, engaged them and told them a bit about the history of jazz. Amazing guys!
I am proud to work with them.
www.youtube.com/watch?v=LArGvQO2HK8

Do you or your co-workers have any special talents? How could you show it to us?

Cool Tool of the Week - DeepZoomPix

http://bit.ly/BBd8Y

Microsoft is testing an online tool called DeepZoomPix, which gives us an interesting overview to our photo albums. I chose to connect it to my Flickr account and grabbed some of my food photos. Here's the result. Pretty neat way of visualizing images.

Which of your pictures would you choose to test DeepZoomPix? Would love to see them, and I invite my friends Luiz Claudio, Rick Monteiro, Dani Lyra, Ronaldo Júnior, and André Netto to test it.

Blogging with Students in 5 Tips

Much has been said, written and commented about blogging for pedagogical purposes. However, never has it been enough. There's always more reading, more experimenting that can take blogging with students to another level. That's exactly what a group of new educator-bloggers has been discussing in an online session, Webtools4Educators. So, if I were to give any piece of advice, I'd stick to some ideas that have been part of my own blogging experience:

1. Be personal. Write a post that inspires you first and then one that compels others to interact with you, your ideas, your thoughts. Here's one fantastic example of what I mean. Luiz Claudio is one of the participants of our educators' online session, and I challenged the group to blog for interaction. Here's his post that makes us get back in time, retrieve dormant memories and feel like sharing with others. So, when were your first bitten by the music bug?
   
   
2. Challenge the mind and the senses of your audience by adding an element of surprise, unpredictability. Vary the way you post even if you've found your tone. If you blog with your guts, chances are you will stimulate others to interact with you, to express themselves. There's no formula, just a million different ways to awaken people's gregarious tendencies. One example? This post my student wrote about being a clown doctor. It was totally out of the common sense of what pre-intermediate adult students learning English would share about their lives.
   
   
3. Promote intercultural exchanges. Blogging is about getting from the inside to the outside, pouring words out, letting yourself be carried away. Many times it has been said how blogging gives the chance for students to connect to a real audience. However, more than a real audience, I'd add the idea of a real mixed multicultural colorful audience. Find online partners that are willing to commit to your blogging projects with your students. It makes a whole difference to learn about the world having your perspective as the starting point and spinning the globe with other cultural-enriching views of the world. I just love this blogging interaction I had with a group of students in Russia and some of my former students joining the conversation. And, certainly, one of my most dear international exchanges was with a dear friend. Different groups of ours interacted on a blog for one year and a half. Not only did the students write, interact, reflect, had fun, but we, the educators-facilitators guiding the blogging experience were the ones who probably gained the most from those exchanges.
   
   
4. Create passionate users. Ones that blog with passion - heart and soul.
   
   
5. And closing the blogging cycle, be personal by becoming a great storyteller. That's what blogging is about - a story told, another retold, conversations blooming everywhere.
   
   

5+1 . If you let me close with this +1 bonus tip, read these two stimulating posts that inspire us to give blogging a try with our students:

http://bit.ly/KubWL
http://bit.ly/vmx4p

And thanks Sue Waters for once again inspiring me to go beyond, to reflect and add a bit to this online community that helps me become a better person and professional every single day.

Thanks to the wonderful group of educators who have been inspiring me every single day since our online session started 5 weeks ago.

Empathizers, Educators

I must confess that I tend to go against the new buzz, trendy book, film, fashion. Seems even a bit paradoxical as I work with Ed Tech and am always tuned to the latest developments in my professional area. However, I try to give books, films some time after the excitement of their release to see if it is really worth it exploring the new concept mentioned, the new aesthetic idea...

Well, all that because of the book "A Whole New Mind". It was very much commented when it was out in the bookstores. I thought I should get it, but only now I'm delving into its ideas. Perfect timing! Wonderful read for any professional.

One concept that is worth exploring in any workplace. The idea that we need more "empathizers". That's exactly what educators should be working on. What are our abilities as educators that cannot be outsorced? How can we be meaningful in this conceptual age that arises?

Will keep thinking about that...

Facilitating Online 2009

Last year I tried, but was so full of projects, commitments that I could not really follow it. Now, I'll give my best. Though I have even more to do in terms of work, I think that the Online Session Facilitating Online is such a wonderful learning, networking opportunity that I can't help it, but to sign up again. And if I fail, I'll persist and keep insisting on taking it again, and again.

Well, a bit about me. I work as an EFL educator at a Binational Center in Brasilia, Brazil. I'm an EdTech Supervisor and am lucky to work with a wonderful EdTech team. I'm involved in teacher training, which I just love. I'm also in charge of the eLearning at Casa Thomas Jefferson. eLearning is an area my school has been investing on, and I'm learning tons. However, what really helped me get started in all this online world of explorations, networking and moderation was being part of the Community of Practice, the Webheads. These guys are my big source of inspiration and passion. Without them, I'd still be tied to my restricted physical educational space. More about me and the projects I'm involved in at BrazilBridges.

I do hope to learn tons from this online endeavor, the Facilitating Online 2009. I still have to figure out how I can effectively organize my time. Any suggestions are more than welcome!

7th Casa Thomas Jefferson TEFL - Driving Development

This year our school seminar has meant interconnectedness for me. I've connected to some people I follow in Twitter and some of my followers in Twitter were really kind to contact me. What a blast as it shows exactly what Erika and I were trying to present, Digital Magic in Professional Development. We could exemplify exactly what we've been preaching for a while about professional development as a lifelong, sustainable, collective, networked endeavor, not institutionally-bond. It's all about connecting to people, the ones you share and get so much from, the ones who email you, the ones who interact with you from a distance.

I couldn't be happier to see one some my bosses and colleagues presenting about exciting digital resources. I couldn't be more encouraged to keep moving forward in the tireless job of trying to inspire others. If when Erika and I presented some years ago we've had sessions with 2/3 participants, now we have our rooms full of excited with sparkling eyes educators who want change, challenge, who want to understand how and where to get started in cyberworld.

I couldn't feel more comforted every time I see the dedication of the group of Ed Tech dreamers, inspiring team I am lucky enough to work with. We've been doing our best to inspire our colleagues. The CTJ Electronic Village, a format of rotating sessions inspired by TESOL's Electronic Village, proved that the power of our collaboration and organization is translated into a successful tech-endeavor.

http://brazilbridges.pbworks.com/ctj_electronic_village

I couldn't feel more self-assured that with small steps - without giving up - can take us and others far...



Some of the wonderful presentations of our 7th CTJ TEFL can be found on our School Website.

The Kind of Needed Digital Literacy

Much has been discussed about the kind of literacies educators and students need to master nowadays and for the future. Shelly Blake-Plock in her post "Talking 21st Century Skills Blues" pins it and goes to the central aspects we need to be aware of to survive in this digital world.


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Education - Change.org: Talking 21st Century Skills Blues via kwout

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Images4Education in Classroom2.0 Live

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Images4Education and EVO-Special Guest: Carla Arena - via kwout

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Yesterday I had the big pleasure to be with the girls, Peggy George, Lorna Constantini, Kim Caise and Steven Hargadon in a live session of Classroom2.0. A nice crowd probably hungry at lunch time wanted to know more about the Electronic Village Online and the session we moderated in Jan/Feb 2009, Images4Education. Incredibly exciting to see how more and more educators are understanding the power and need for sustainable professional development. Not one that starts and finishes, but an ongoing effort, non-linear with thrilling connective opportunities. Technology provides us with the power of linking to educators, ideas, cultures around the world with a search of international best practices for our classrooms. Tempting even for very busy educational professionals!

Note: I just learned about http://gl.am with the girls and loved it! It shares our links in a more visual way.

Classroom 2.0 LIVE Resources for June 13, 2009-Images4Education and EVO on gl·am - Link Group Service via kwout

I'd like to thank to all who could be there with us, asking and sharing. I always learn from that.

Web 2.0 Cool Tools Presentation

On June 5th, I was gladly to surprise to see a nice little crowd in the Auditorium of the Binational Center I work for. I presented a Potpourri of cool tools for the classroom for the Braz-TESOL regional chapter. A very motivated audience of friends and new faces who are willing to take that step further, get started. My advice was just set one single small tech goal for next semester. Chances are that if they succeed in their microstrategy, they will succeed in bigger, more daring endeavors. That's exactly what I still do every semester, setting a tech goal. For this semester I decided to take a different blogging approach, making the bridge between parents and my juvenile class with a blog called Crescer Digital. I must say that I'm very pleased with the feedback of parents, their engagement in their kids' learning and the sense of accomplishment we are all feeling!

Small steps take us far...

How about choosing one tool to explore next semester with your students?

A Potpourri Of Web Tools

View more Microsoft Word documents from carlaarena.

Cool Tool of the Week - My Studiyo - Creating Online Activities

Just tested My Studyio because a tweet from @GrahamStanley and @NikPeachey. What a great surprise as tomorrow I´ll be presenting about cool tools for the classroom for a group of Brazilian educators. I liked My Studyio because it´s user-friendly and very easy to register. You can have multiple choice questions with an attractive layout adding images, youtube videos and texts. The final result is an embeddable quiz that you can put anywhere on the Net, or even send to students.

Also, I can picture my students creating quizzes and posting them to the others to take the quizzes. By doing that, they will learn a new skill and practice the language structures they are focusing on. Oh, by the way, the fact that you can embed the quiz in Orkut is a plus for Brazilian students who are totally hooked to this social network.