thingsforteachers:

• you’ll have times when your objectives as a teacher will conflict with your teacher’s curriculum; as a student teacher, it’s a privilege to work with his/her students. it would be best to compromise or adapt to the teacher’s objectives. who knows, as you work on changing you’ll realize the…

teachingliteracy:

Free Apps for Kids

These are some of the great free apps we will be trying this year to get them creating their own stories, listening to stories, increasing their reading skills, and improving their English proficiency. These are available on the iPod Touch and iPad as well but may not be free on those platforms.

• Talking Tom- Kids talk to Tom and he repeats everything said with a funny voice, pet him to make him purr, pour a glass of milk for him, and poke his head, belly or feet, grab his tail. The best part is that within seconds what the students say to Tom is recorded as an avi video which can be uploaded to YouTube and Facebook or sent by email. This app really gets young learners speaking English!
• StoryKit- Create an electronic storybook by drawing on the screen, uploading images, recording sound effects and voice, laying out the elements of the story (text boxes, images, and sound clips) freely by dragging them or pinching to resize, reordering pages, and uploading to the StoryKit web server. Email a link to the story. The application includes four public domain children’s books to rewrite and rearrange into a new story.
• Fotobabble- Quickly create and easily share talking photos in 3 steps (Snap or select or a photo, speak into the microphone to record audio, share with friends via email, Facebook or Twitter).
• StoryCorps-Listen to the weekly story; share stories via email, Facebook, and Twitter; get tips for recording stories on mobile devices; create and email a list of questions for an interview with StoryCorps.
• Read Me Stories- Children’s books- A new talking picture book everyday teaches children new concepts, new words and how to say them. Free limited time trial. Keeps track of favorite books to read again and purchase from Amazon.com.
• K12 Timed Reading Practice Lite- 25 short, engaging stories for K-4 readers, variety of fiction and non-fiction, 10 Flesh-Kincade reading levels, view recommendations for moving up or down in reading difficulty based on recorded Words per Minute scores, and track one reader’s stories read, words per minute, percent above or below average reading rates, and what’s next on the reading list.
• Library Of Congress – Virtual Tour for iPhone, iPod touch, and iPad- Includes highlights of exhibitions and architectural features, with photos, audio by curators and other experts, links to more detailed online exhibitions, and even a video about the history of Thomas Jefferson’s Library.
• Puppet Animation Lite- Kids animate uploaded images or sample puppets; animate them by choosing swing, elastic, or scaling; save as an animated gif to send via email or Twitter.
• Kids Apps: 13 in 1- 13 different applications ranging from math games, over 600 flash cards, interactive tracing drills, ABCs, counting, vocabulary, number and letter tracing, Math Whiz quiz, music instruments vocabulary, house words and pictures, and more.
• Animoto- Upload images, choose a soundtrack from the library, and click a button to make a 30-second video. Sync your videos with your Animoto.com account, download videos for offline viewing, and make longer ones with an All-Access Pass.
• Chicktionary Lite- The chickens head bobs and clucks when kids use one of their letters to make a word. The “beak sneak” option fills in one letter from each of the words not yet found. Has 12 levels.
• Tales2Go- Free for 30 days. Instant, on-demand and unlimited access to over 1,200 stories from leading audio publishers and storytellers.

(via thingsforteachers)

Edward Louis Bernays (November 22, 1891 – March 9, 1995), was an American pioneer in the field of public relations and propaganda along with Ivy Lee, referred to in his obituary as “the father of public relations”.^[1] Combining the ideas of Gustave Le Bon and Wilfred Trotter on crowd psychology with the psychoanalytical ideas of his uncle, Dr. Sigmund Freud, Bernays was one of the first to attempt to manipulate public opinion using the subconscious.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edward_Bernays

“So-called reality TV shoes send dangerous messages to viewers that reinforce misguided notions about the importance of competition in the American marketplace.  In additions, they add fuel to the idea that style matters more than substance and that education is increasingly irrelevant in the pursuit of success.” 

Create a whole word for your students to give context to a novel/short story/poetry unit.  Using music, images, books, food, etc. give context to the world you are studying.

Books recommended by Julia

Great resources and lesson plans for teachers on the MEDIA.