I had a 45 minute session on Thursday, January 26, at 11:20 - 12:05 in Chiang Mai Room 4. My session was titled Blends and Trends in the 21st Century Classroom. The fact of the matter was, I had prepared for a 60 minutes session. It required some creative Edward Scissors Hands type cutting of content and a Speed Racer approach of delivery. It was attended by over 50 educators from multiple countries. A Toon was played in the beginning to highlight the workshop's agenda. Next, I gave a brief introduction of myself as a teacher, but I emphazied my preferred terminology: Educational Rockstar. Moreover, I impressed this notion upon all the participants, they are Educational Rockstars too.
With the mood set, we posed the first question. What is the most important thing in the 21st Century Classroom? The participants discussed with each other and came up with some brilliant answers, then we converged on the unanimous decision the teacher is the most important feature of the 21st Classroom. Then we collectively compared the 20th vs 21st Centuries classrooms. We concluded this segment with a 2 minute video on the Role of the Teacher in 21st Century Classroom.
Afterwards, we dived into the Blends segment of the presentation. It was an opportunity to showcase some of the potent and practical free English Language resources offered by the US Dept. of State. The deal gets sweeter, because they are all free and easily accessible. Our first task was to look at Voice of America- Learning English website in the Photo of the Day section (VOA-Learning English Photo of the Day ). We sampled a few photos to demonstrate a Visual Literacy task. Subsequently, a professor from Tokyo was roused by the task and he planned to take it back to his University classroom in Japan as a lead-in activity.
Go, Go Speed Racer! As we shifted into higher gear, I highlighted the American English Youtube Channel. We took a few minutes to pour over the digram and catalog of resources for teachers and students available. The advantage of the AE Youtube channel is it well organized and it's not overloaded with resources. It is navigable and applicable for blending your classroom or doing some professional development in the English language teaching skills. Most of the participants got on their smartphones and went to the AE Youtube channel to experience it firsthand, by my prompting. It was time to put the resource in action.
The selected 2 minutes long video was from one of my fave series on AE, Grammar Andy. It is an animated instructional English grammar video with 11 episodes. Grammar Andy is ideal for blending in or out of the classroom. These short videos can be used as instructional or review tools. We watched Grammar Andy: The Past Progressive together (Grammar Andy: The Past Progressive ). It was meant as review tool to prep for our Past Progressive Freeze Game. The crowd split into 2 groups as they took turns acting out scenes, while the other group's back is turn. When I yell,"Freeze!" Group 1 stops mid-motion and group 2 turns around to ask questions in the past progressive what they were doing. It had all the elements of good game, the target language and grammar was applied with laughter, smiles, and excitement.
Oh no Speed Racer, we have about 12 minutes left. It was time to shift into high gear and show some Trends. Digital Books were introduced as way to gap the digital divide with younger generation of learners and still promote literacy skills. The group viewed My Fin is Fine (PT My Fin is Fine ) as a sample of applying synthetic phonics in a digital story format for the mobile generation. FrogAsia's E-bahan files were noted. Next, I discussed the world of online teaching and my experience with VIPKID, Uber like teaching platform. Time was running out, there was a break before the next session. I concluded with reminding them, they are Educational Rockstar. The session was dismissed on time, but the majority hung back as we watched the emotional 3 minute video on the importance of the teacher to solidify the main premise, the teacher (aka Educational Rockstar) remains the most important feature of the 21st Century classroom.
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| Briana's session |
