In my previous post, I talked about a concept which I first heard about in Khan's lecture at TED "flipping the classroom". The idea of recording videos of lectures and devoting classroom time for practice activities seems to be VERY INTERESTING.Created by Knewton and Column Five MediaThen, I thought, how could we flip our English classes? In my context, in language institutes, we normally start our classes presenting a new topic (vocabulary or grammar) and then move on to exercises (written and oral) to help students consolidate knowlegde by using it. I guess a way of flipping our classrooms would be to record mini lessons presenting the topic beforehand and then practice, practice, practice in class. My question is: would students watch the video at home? I've just talked to 3 Brazilian teenagers at home (my son and 2 cousins) and I made them the same question: If you had to watch a video for homework, would you watch it?Boys- Maybe not.But if your teacher told you to watch a video in order to be able to do some exercises the following class, would you watch the video?Boys - We would, we would be afraid of not being able to do the exercises the following class but many of our classmates wouldn't. They would ask the teacher to explain again.And if you had access to lots of video lectures before tests, do you think it would help you study?Boys- Sure, if we had problems we would be able to watch the video lecture again and again.Well, I think the idea is fantastic, however, I don't know how well Brazilian learners would adapt to it. The problem is that our students have been accustomed to the traditional format for too long and end up having a passive attitude to learning.Is it worth a try? I truly think so. If I'm brave enough, maybe next semester, I'll post about a flipped experience in an English Class.This is a video from Students who have tried the Flipped Classroom

For the last 5 years in January, I've had the pleasure to learn and share at the Electronic Village Online Conference which is offered freely to teachers worldwide. It is the perfect example of how learning takes place nowadays. Teachers from different parts of the planet, get together to help each other learn. And best of all, FOR FREE. This year, you can choose from 14 possible sessions.The courses take place online during 5 weeks from 09 Jan. to 12 Feb.My suggestion? Well, there are wonderful courses being offered but one is very dear to me.DIGITAL TOOLS WITH PURPOSE IN THE CLASSROOM.Electronic Village Online / Digital_Tools2012 via kwoutRegistration starts TODAY Jan. 2nd.The online courses start on Jan. 9th.TO JOIN our group: go to http://evosessions.pbworks.com/w/page/48526238/Digital_Tools2012 and follow the instructions.

A selection of sites and posts for EFL, ESL teachers.http://www.scoop.it/t/picks-of-jan-2012

A selection of articles and blog post for EFL / ESL teachers.http://www.scoop.it/t/picks-of-jan-2012

There are several things I like about backpacking,but most of all I love being in contact with other backpackers and listening to their stories.Our adventure this year was to the north of Argentina. My husband had been talking about visiting this part of the country for 4 years and this year it worked out. Once more, we traveled with our kids ( now not kids anymore ), each  with a backpack (thanks Marcinha for lending us your backpack).We started our adventure by car. We woke up very early in the morning and went by Piracicaba to pick my daughter up. Our plane left Brazil from the International Airport of Guarulhos. The first delay from a series, the flight from SP to Buenos Aires with Aerolineas was ok, apart from the snack they serve. It's not that it's bad but the thing is they never vary the snack, it's always the same thing, a ham and cheese sandwich , alfajor and a candy. We got a connection from B.A. to Cordoba and guess what, the same sandwich again.We got to Cordoba at night and what a night! Nearly 40 degrees Celsius, BOILING. As you can imagine, not a perfect night for some rest and sleep. We met some interesting people there, two from Brazil and a group from Israel. The center of Cordoba is very beautiful with interesting historical buildings to visit. I've been told there are lots of beautiful places to visit nearby if you have more time. Well, not our case, the following day after walking around the city for the day, we got a "coche cama" bus to travel north to San Miguel de Tucuman.Once we got to Tucuman, there was endless RAIN. Rain, rain, rain. We walked around the city centre which is quite nice but decided to got to Cafayate on the same day, to try to escape from the rain. The trip towards Cafayate is breathtaking. The bus goes up a green mountain in an endless zig zag. Cafayate was a wonderful surprise. We had planned to stay for 2 nights but ended up staying 3. The hostel (Rusty-k) was the best one I've stayed so far, extremely clean and with a wonderful backyard covered with vines. We enjoyed the atmosphere with very pleasant dinners my husband cooked. What to visit? We chose to visit a vineyard about 8 kms from the town where they produce the great wine YACOCHUYA. Although they have no wine tasting, it's worth the visit. The view is stupendous. We went by taxi but decided to come back on foot to enjoy the scene. Well, the first 5 kms was just fine, but the last 3 ...  We got back to town, exhausted and my tennis shoes came apart. I had to buy new tennis shoes .The next day was dedicated to trekking at the "Quebrada de las Conchas" , a wonderful area full of mountains and red rocks. Good points about Cafayate, beautiful and pleasant city centre, we found a great restaurant which serves typical food (Los Hornitos) such as fantastic empanadas, great places to visit, delicious wine and perfect weather.I was definitely sorry to leave Cafayate but it was time to move again. We traveled further north to Salta, which would be a stopover towards places such as Humahuaca, Tilcara and Purmamarca. The trip from Cafayate to Salta should definitely be done during the day due to the BEAUTIFUL, unrivalled scenery. Saltawas another place I enjoyed. The city centre comes to life in the evening when the historical buildings are illuminated by different coloured lights. The main square is THE PLACE where everyone wants to spend hours just strolling and observing people go by.We then travelled to Humahuaca. The village is interesting , however, I was expecting more from the pictures we had seen. The highlight there was a very pleasant lunch we had at the oldest restaurant in the village, "Pinocho", where we had a delicious meal and the pleasure to listen to a group of musicians playing music and reciting poetry.At Humahuaca we bought a bus ticket to Purmamarca to spend the day. We got to the bus station on time, however, we were told the buses were being kept outside the village blocked by a strike and we had to find a way to get to the bus on our own. There we went, running to grab a taxi. Once there, to our surprise the bus hadn't waited for us but fortunately there was another bus which would pass close to the entrance of Purmamarca. The bus left us about 4 kms from the village and once again, luckily a taxi stopped next to us and asked if we wanted to go to Purmamarca. Lucky me!Purmamarca is in the region of the colourful mountains. The village is surrounded by mountains on all four sides and everywhere you look different shades of brown, red, yellow, green and grey come to life. The more we stayed in Purmamarca the more we regretted not staying longer, the main square is a great place to feel the atmosphere, there is a wide variety of hotels and hostels, the "mercado de artesanias" is varied and the weather is great. We wanted to go to Salinas Grandes but didn't have enough time so we just enjoyed the village and explored its surroundings.The last stop was Salta, where we would catch our plane back to Brazil. The hostel where we stayed is very well located close to the bus station and just a few blocks from the main square which was my favourite spot. We bought some more wine to bring home, a few souvenirs and got ready to leave. Not to break the habit, the flight from Salta to Buenos Aires (Aerolineas Argentinas) was 2 hours and a half late which made us nervous as our connection back to São Paulo was the last flight to Brazil that day. When we got to Buenos Aires, they had already boarded the passengers and were calling our names. We ran, ran and ran but managed to catch our flight. However, once we got to São Paulo we saw that our backpacks hadn't been  as fast as our feet, they had been left behind in Argentina and only got home a day later.

Meeting Shelly Terrell last week was one of those moments I cherish which can come true thanks to the internet.I've been following Shelly's tweets and blog posts for some years now. We had exchanged messages, retweeted each other, left comments after blog posts , discovered common interests but had never had the chance to meet f2f. Well, Shelly is everywhere really, twitter, facebook, webinars, blog posts; if you are into edtech, you probably know who I'm talking about. This is why I told her "You don't need to be introduced, Shelly". lolThe chance to meet her was possible thanks to another dear member of my PLN, Márcia Lima, one of the owners of B. A. English School in Goiânia, who invited Shelly to come for lectures in Brazil. Shelly spent the last week offering different workshops to Márcia's staff and two outside teachers had the pleasure to join them: Raquel Oliveira and I. :)I only managed to get to Goiânia on Thursday afternoon; Shelly was talking about "Using Youtube videos in class". I have to admit my first impression was of surprise: She's as short as I am! hahahahahaha .Short women, great minds. :)In the three days we spent together, I can't thank enough for the so many things I learned. She learned a couple of things too, some words in Portuguese, acerola, baianada, and how not to have açaí with your boyfriend (your teeth become purple LOL).Meeting Shelly on PhotoPeach

Learned two things this morning and wanted to share with Life Feast readers.First, I watched a video made by Carla Arena where first she uses her webcam video to introduce what she's going to show and then shares her desktop. I already had Jing installed in my laptop , however, not the Pro version which allows you to record your webcam video and also publish it easily in Youtube. http://www.techsmith.com/jing.htmlimage originally from Shelly Terrell's blog Second, while reading a post by Shelly Terrell , I learned you can add wordclouds to images and make the background transparent. Idecided to try it out. It took me some time to find the place where to click, for this reason I decided to make a tutorial showing it step by step. Another great tip she gave is to use ~ between words of the same sentence. Ex: in this image she has the question How~do~schools~involve~parents? http://www.wordle.net/ + PowerpointThis is the tutorial I made.

Next week, I'm starting my classes for 2012 and we always want to start the new year with fresh ideas.I've put together a LIVEBINDER with fantastic resources picked throughout the web. Warmers and Ice breakers 2012These are someactivities I learned from Shelly Terrell last week:Alphabet Race: 2 lines of students, teacher says a topic (Ex: verbs, emotions, animals) and the first student from each line says a word in that category starting with the letter A, then the second with the letter B. As soon as each student says a word they should run to the end of the line. When the first student once again comes to the beginning of the line, that group wins.30 Second Debate: 2 lines of students facing each other, teacher suggests a topic, line A has to talk about his opinion in 30 seconds. The teacher blows a whistle at the end of the 30 seconds and student B has to refute the argument. Ex: If student is FOR, student B has to be AGAINST it. The teacher can keep changing the topics. Yes, and ..... or Yes, but: 2 lines of students sitting down or standing. Student A starts the conversation with a sentence, then student B continues starting with "Yes, and ...." , then Student B continues with "Yes, and ....."  . The same can be done with the prompt "Yes, but ....." . Watch a video demonstration. Show and Tell: Teacher asks students to select a picture from their cell phones and put the device in a bag. The teacher then, shows the device and the image to the class and students try to guess who the cell phone belongs too. Then, the owner of the phone talks about the photo chosen.Chain story: Groups of 3 or 4. Students have to create a chain story and use their mobiles to record it. Then they have to send it to the teacher.Guess the picture: Students go round the school with their cell phones and take a close-up  picture of any thing at the school. Then, after returning to class, the teacher collects the phones and passes the phones around the class for students to guess what object it is and where it is located.

Drawing and recording your voice is not an easy task. What I've discovered is that once you start drawing, and your focus shifts to the image, there are few barriers to speaking.The tool I'd like to share today is EDUCREATIONS . I haven't explored it to its full potential but what I've seen so far is good enough. The free tool allows you use your mouse or your finger (ipad) to draw stick figures while you record your voice. You can also upload an image and draw and record your voice at the same time. Once finished, look at the right side below the twitter and facebook buttons for the URL and the embed code which allows you publish the recording.This is a tutorial I've created showing how to make your Draw + Speak recording.These are some example recordings made by EVO participants:

HELLOSLIDE is a site I heard about very recently and was meaning to try out. The site allows you to add voice to your presentations, but NOT YOUR VOICE. What you do is: you upload your presentation in PDF, type the text which you would like to hear with each slide, save and play. It's as simple as that. The good thing is that you don't need to worry about your voice or recording, you can edit it later if you need to, and then easily share it by grabbing the URL or the embed code.This was my first trial:I've also made a tutorial if you need help.http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KTFrZWNqxdsHOW CAN WE USE IT WITH STUDENTS?You can use the site to prepare presentations of lesson topics using ppts you already have . Then all you'd need to do is to save it as pdf and then upload it to the site.You can create stories introducing vocabulary.You can have students create their own stories and then present it in class.