Explaining Social Media (a class activity for teens)

Some days ago, I saw this picture on Facebook.

I thought it might be funny, to use this picture in my class. So I created an activity for my teens students and I want to share it with you.

• 1) After watching the image the teacher gives Students some words, could be anything like: music, Adele, shoes, Nokia, books, etc.
• 2) In groups, students select five social media and think about presenting the word given in the social media selected
• 3) Students present their ideas in a piece of paper for proof reading and editing.
• 4) Once the ideas are checked, Students select only one and post the idea in the chosen social media

This activity may sound a bit basic, but could be a very interesting way for writing activity, it can also promote the use of social media in the class and explore their creativity.

 

Some completely useless things students often do well

This something I read in Lindsay Clandfield´s blog (Six things) which I absolutely recommend you to visit. In this post, you can read six skills he (and now me)  is convinced  students develop sitting in boring classes (not his, neither mine jajajajajajaja). As he says, they are not the ones we want them to develop in English, but they still are skills. So here they are

1 Twirling a pen between two forefingers and a thumb.

2 Leaning back on a chair just far enough to avoid falling over.

3 Drawing moustaches, devil’s horns and penises on photos in a book.

4 Opening the book to the wrong page every class.

5 Balancing a pen between the upper lip and nose.

6 Clicking pens quickly and noisily..

When I read them I couldn´t help remember myself during my long, boring chemistry classes (sorry Mrs Di Modugno) trying to break my own record of pen clicks during one minute!!!! This is something I still do in long meetings or during my “thinking time”, I know it´s annoying, but it sometimes helped me to kill the time and even to come up with an good idea to contribute with.

Now that I am the teacher, I sometimes see my students doing some of these during assemblies, classes or speeches and I tell to myself to be patient and not to take it personally, so I smile, try to change the activity, make a joke and go on.

Can you think about some other useless things your students do very well? I have one…

7. Use their desk as drums and perform a song using their hands and a ruler as a drum stick. 

If you have another, please post a comment….

 

Digital Natives

   I have to think about my new students, my lesson plans and the techniques I will use this year in the classroom. After selecting the contents and checking my students´lists I realize that one of the most important things to take into account is that all my students are DIGITAL NATIVES (Mark Presnky) .

But what is a Digital Native? Most of us have met them! They are exposed to an environment which is media rich, fast, dynamic, instant. They are engaged and motivated by the use of digital technology.

They can also access to a lot of multimedia sources. They are  multitask students who can pay attention to different things at the same time. They need to “see” or “listen” to understand what they are reading, they process the information by images or sounds instead of written text. They can interact to many and they feel comfortable if they are exposed “digitally” to thousands of other DN by the use of social media.

Another characteristic of the DN students is that they need an instant reward. They are used to instant access to information as well as instant gratification. For them, learning should be relevant, instantly useful and fun.

So, this year I not only have to think about lists, contents, songs and worksheet, but also how to keep on introducing digital activities in my daily classroom activities.