Week No 10 - Research Tools

Hi everyone

In this short post I will talk about my experience with research tools, I will also compare between Wikipedia and Google scholar, the sites that I tried during this week task.

During the past 3 years as a student and even earlier, whenever I wanted to look for info on the internet I went straight to Google to see what type of knowledge I can use. Google was my default search engine since everybody used it and ranks the search results according specific criteria, but also according the rank of popularity and traffic into site.  

1. Google Scholar – as I mentioned before, Google tends to rank the search results according popularity and sometimes according relevancy, which can cause us (students) to massive waste of time. Google Scholar, on the other hand give us the access to search and learn from full version academic researches that are prioritized according to Google. In Google scholar each article/ research/ document as the details of: date of publis, where it was published, name of the writer plus how often and how recently it has been cited in other academic literature and other sources. Google scholar provides searches for articles, books, abstracts from academic publishers, professional societies, online repositories, universities and other web sites. Another benefit in Google scholar is that some of the sources that you will find on Google scholar are also available to download

 2. Wikipedia was my favorite online encyclopedia as a kid, Wikipedia is so popular since it is the first online social encyclopedia that is free and easy to use. I thins that Wikipedia became so big and succeeded where all the others failed (ex: Encarta) since it is social nonprofit encyclopedia and everyone can write/ edit wikis. Since it is public and everybody can share their knowledge, it is also the reason the Wikipedia doesn’t consider as a reliable academic source.

How Wikipedia works?  It allows a group of people to write and edit together parts of text –   ערך.These parts of text can be can be edited by other users who entered the wiki. Meaning:  every user on Wikipedia can edit any wiki (after approval of admin). Ex: I'm selling beauty product in my EBay store, I wanted to promote my product so I wrote a wiki about facial treatment and add the link of this product as an example in the references of the wiki.

Week number 6

Hi folks

In this short post I will share my experience with new 5 different tools/ sites that I tried during the past week

1. speaking – debating

I think that debating activity will work better with high school students rather than junior high students, though some of my 7^th graders are well capable to express their ideas and thought. As a teenager my first debating activity was in the scouts, at the memorial day of the holocaust, when I was 10^th grader. So I totally understand the importance of debating skills, the site - top 100 debates provides a lot of good subjects and 

ideas to debate and argue and I believe I will use it when I will work with junior high students.

2. Using voice chat - Google talk / Skype/ Messenger

I'm well familiar with Skype and I'm using it on a daily basis with my VA.  I think that most of students are also using it to communicate with their friends out of school, though watsapp is their favorite option. There are several advantages in skype beside of voice chat, it is also possible to share screens, files and content, and to communicate via video, VOIP (regular call) or chat. It is completely free and everyone can use it. At the moment I'm chatting and talking with different saleswomen from Alibaba.com it is super easy and comfortable.

3. spelling games

Spelling games are great practice to improve student's vocabulary and writing skills. So far I used quizlet.com exclusively because it is easy to use and I wasn't familiar with any other site.

In this following link: http://www.kidsspell.com/spelling-lists.php

You can find more than 6,000 words that are organized according subjects and grade of difficulty.

After I tested this site I can say that it is o.k., but Quizlet is much better and allows the teacher to create the vocabulary sets by himself instead of using existing lists. It is also possible to add translation to each word, image and try more games except of spelling.

Week No 4

Hi Guus

I hope your'e all doing well in school, and the Meitzav tset is already behind you.

My week was quite full, I visited Tel-Aviv  and attended AliBaba webinar conference about sourcing products from China, I learned a lot and it was very interesting conference.

In this week task I found a lot of gret tools that I can use with my students.

1. http://photofunia.com - My students constantly asking me to teach "outside" of the book and use more of Youtube and fun activities, since I'm having some discipline problemsI attend to "surrender" to their requests and cooperate with them. I asked my 8B students to write down their motto in life and find a photo that will emphesize it the best way. My example was: Work hard play harder. In order to sucseed you need to try and fail, try and fail, and to put a lot of effort in school. I see it as the univeral formula for sucsses. I used $$$ sign as the variable for sucsess though its quite materialistic

2. Google Images my perfect vacation - writing task. 

I typed in Google images the key words: tropical island

and ask my 9th graders to write 100 words essay about their perfect summer vacation. 

They will go to google and find their perfect location to travel, they will need to describe according the picture what they did during the vacation and what was most fun for them.

Week Number 3 - My Experience with Puzzle Makers

I don't consider myself as an artistic person, I'm also very busy in my daily  routine (I guess you all very busy as well). I think the sites that I review during the past 3 days offer the ideal solution for me.  I'm quite familiar with Quizlet, Kahoot , QUIZZIZ and many more interactive sites that basiclly offer the same product in differenr variations.
I loved the fact that the sites I reviewd are easy to use and generating the work sheet rapidly with no hassle or waste of time, no editing, no designing involved, simple tamplate and you can generate the worksheet on Auto Pilot, real time saver for me simple and easy.
I tried this tool and highly recommend you to use it -
 http://tools.atozteacherstuff.com/word-search-maker/wordsearch.php
Yon can generate word serach worksheet in easy 1,2,3 process

see attached

My Blogs

Week number 2:

I decided to follow the following blogs:

1.http://bhtechnology.blogspot.co.il/

2.https://admtechnology.wordpress.com/

3. https://21centuryedtech.wordpress.com/

So the first insight I learned was how to use Google Hangouts. In Barbers Hill School the teachers and students learn literacy and math via google hangouts. The students communicate with other students from other schools via google hangouts, and share their knowledge and skills in a fun and beneficial way.

I also learned about different technological tools that can help students improve their reading and writing.
This site: http://www.comicmaster.org.uk offer students to write their own comic in a creative and very vivid way, they can also write a report using crtoons and present it in front of the class

Anither great site is http://www.zooburst.com. this site enabels students to create their own 3D pop - up book, it's very easy to use and very fun.

Hi everybody and welcome to my blog

My name is Eliasaf I'm 27 years old, I live in kadima and  works in Zeev junior high school in Hertseliya

In addition I'm running two stores on ebay and I have my own Youtube channel for newbies on who wants to start selling on online : 

1. http://www.ebay.com/usr/eliasafthebest

2. https://goo.gl/KTTwhU

I really want to expand my knowledge regarding how to teach English via ICT, I will be glad to learn more about new sites that incorportes learning via fun activities such as Kahoot or quizziz.

I sure this course will improve my ICT skills and wish you all good luck and great week