New CELDT practice for 6-8th graders

I just completed a comprehensive practice module for the CELDT test for grades 6-8. It is in sliderocket format, but you can print out the slides if you want, or work form a SmartBoard or regular projector.

http://portal.sliderocket.com/ATSTV/Prepare-for-the-CELDT-test

Note: The teacher says parts are meant to be read aloud by an instructor. Also, it is a work in progress,so I appreciate any corrections and feedback. Please share with anyone who is struggling with reclassifying English Language Learners in the middle grades.

Lesson: Reflect on Year with a ReadWriteThink Comic Strip

Objective: You will reflect on this school year and your learning using figurative language* and the Comic Creator.

In this lesson you will create a comic strip to reflect and communicate how your school year went, including what you learned, what you could have done better, and what you liked and disliked the most. 

Students  should already know:

1. what metaphors and similes are

2. What characters and setting are

Steps:

1. Open the link below that says 

Click Me to Start!

2. Click on the Get Started Button. 

3. Think of a title and a subtitle

   example:

Title: Diary of a Funny Kid

subtitle: Francisco’s adventures in 4th grade

4.  Choose number of panels (recommend 3 to start)

 

5. Play around with the tools to get a feel for the options.

 

6. STOP! before you continue, turn to a partner and discuss how the year went. Think of 1 metaphor or simile you can use to describe your year: “This year was as ________ as a __________” or ” I can’t believe this year flew by so quickly. OR “This year was a real ________. I __________ so much.

7. Characters Remember. You are going to write at least 3 panels, so you have to come up with two characters. They will talk or dialogue. One of these will be you, and the other a friend, parent, or teacher.  You can add more characters later, but start with 2. 

8. Setting: Where do you want your characters to talk? You don’t have to be in school! choose a background form the menu. 

9. Once you pick your characters, pick a Speech Balloon. Remember, some balloons are only for things characters think and others for things they say. Remember, Think about what you want to say before you type it. 

10. A good way to start is by having a character ask you, “So how was your year?”

11. Finish all 3 panels and click Finish. 

Remember: it’s ok to mess up. Go ahead and try it twice if you didn’t like how it turned out!

DID I DO A GOOD JOB?

To see if you completed the task correctly, you should have:

1. At least two characters and 3 panels.

2. Use at least one metaphor or simile in the balloons

3. Your reflection should say something more than “My year was good or bad”. Give at least one example of why the year went the way it went. 

4. If you write what you could have done better, then you did an AWESOME Job!

5. You had fun. 

 

*4RL3.5 Narrative Analysis of Grade-Level-Appropriate Text: Define figurative language (e.g.,
simile, metaphor, hyperbole, personification) and identify its use in literary works.

Cancionero de Cinco de Mayo

The Battle of Puebla, commonly referred to as Cinco de Mayo, was just one event in a larger conflict called the French Intervention of Mexico, (La intervencion francesa).  We’ll save the history lesson to others for now, as it is too complicated to do it justice in a blog post.

As it turns out much of the content found on the web related to this “holiday” revolves (sadly, or amusingly, depending on your mood) around making piñatas, and coloring Mexican flags, or just simply reminding the myopic population of the USA  that Mexico even exists.

Instead of all this,  today we offer this Sound Cloud archive of popular songs from the era, as recorded by Amparo Ochoa, a Mexican folk singer and ethnomusicologist of sorts.

Some suggested uses:

Use the lyrics and songs in your bilingual or Spanish Class, and have the students do their own research about the terms, personalities and incidents mentioned in these songs.

Be prepared for some harsh anticlerical and anti-European tone and language! Also, be prepared for words that are not exactly in Spanish.

We give credit to INAH and Amapro Ochoa, a Mexican folk singer for putting this together.

Here is a slide share releated to this project with Lyrics!

Or try it on YouTube, where many of these files also live:

OR try Mixpod:

http://assets.mixpod.com/swf/mp3/mixpod.swf?myid=74876132&path=2011/01/04<br><a

Want MORE? check out this “official” government site with downloadable (descarga) links to two centuries of Insurgent music!

Click here !

Science Lab Funnies by Tyrrellteacher | Pixton #Comics

Check out the comic I just created at http://www.pixton.com/. Go make your own, it’s click-and-drag easy!

Vodpod videos no longer available.

Science Lab Funnies by Tyrrellteacher | Pixton …, posted with vodpod

Breathe Some Humor into Your Drab Routine with Pixton Comics for Education

Pixton comics has been around for only a few years now and it’s no surprise that they have won many ed-techy awards in their short lifespan. But it took just a half an hour before I  became instantly hooked.

Pixton allows students and teachers can create their own highly-customizable comic strips with unlimited options, scenes, characters, poses, props, and backgrounds. The uses for these strips are manifold, but Pixton does a great job of making them user-friendly and purposeful. They provide a community where users can submit their comics to showcase learning, comment on , and remix other strips.

Teachers can make their own (as seen below) and assign students projects based on the strip. Students can remix them, or make their own. They can add panels, re-edit an already published strip, work collaboratively, and get approval from their teacher once their project is complete.  Teachers can also monitor student progress and manage their classes, assignments and grades.

Vodpod videos no longer available.

Science Lab Funnies by Tyrrellteacher | Pixton …, posted with vodpod

Pixton also allows users to print, download and (thankfully) embed their creations. For ELL’s the potential here is truly exciting. Students in groups or individually can add appropriate dialogue, even record their own audio tracks to correspond to each panel, or type content into speech bubbles to illustrate real-life scenarios, for example.  Ideas like these keep bubbling  like effervescent bursts of inspiration when one plays with Pixton.  Give it a shot here for a trial period.

Yeah, the downside is that it costs money. But It’s not out of this world, and one teacher could afford to make one account that allows up to four users. These could be set up as teams of students. The above strip will be part of a CELDT practice module that will soon be available for download.

 

http://www.diffen.com/

Comparing and contrasting is one of the essential language functions that students of ESL and other languages are expected to master.  

You have the graphic organizers; you have taught your students the glue and mortar (ie the grammatical structure and phrases) in place to help them connect their ideas and find similarities and differences; you have probably assigned an essay to compare and contrast, say, lions and hyenas, and you may even be pleased with the results. 

Here is another resource to consider for your compare and contrast toolbox: Diffen.com

Who Assesses the Assessments?

Remember that catchy saying from Alan Moore’s the Watchmen?

Well, here is your chance to rate those old 20th century multiple choice high stakes  assessments! Time for teachers to do the assessing for a change. That’s right, even though most teachers sign ominously-worded affidavits prohibiting the discussion of most test items and language, we are still free to comment online and informally on the overall effectiveness of the CELDT, CST,   or any assessment. Thanks to a marvelous team of frustrated teachers,  as of August of  2011 we have…

http://www.assessment-advisor.org

Assessment Advisor  describes itself as follows:

Assessment Advisor is a website created by teachers that allows preK-12 teachers to review publicly available assessments that they use in their classrooms. It is a resource for educators who want effective means of measuring their students’ progress, and gives teachers a platform for voicing their thoughts on which assessments work, and which don’t.

Rate the CELDT exam

Anyone with any experience in matter can probably guess that most of the high-stakes exams currently available and widely administered are not exactly 5-star winners. In fact, the CELDT is rated at 1.57/5 stars, while the English Language Arts CST (California) can boast a higher rating of 2.29!

Granted, these ratings are not exactly quantitatively bullet-proof at this point, with most assessments relying on less than 20 ratings. Still, they provide a good starting point for further review, especially for test designers and state agencies  who are wrangling with the development of the next generation of assessments in this,  the post-NCLB age (is it too early to call it that?).  Will they listen to the teachers, or will the rely on the Arne Duncan, test-with-a-human-face market- based approach? Will these  experience-based numbers make into the Power Point presentations  of ed consultants who preach a data driven approach as the magic bullet for school reform?  Only time and more ratings will prove this to be true.

Please share and let’s get this project of the ground.

Added Value Scores Debunked

A Review of Xtranormal is due. In the meantime, here is a little teaser of what can be done with this powerful tool:

 

In the spirit of Anonymous: Expect US!

iBooks and English Language Learners

Apple’s recent announcement of a “gamechanger” in education arrived with much fanfare and generated mega decibels of buzz around the world because the Cupertino, CA tech giant was again attempting, to either  A) help revolutionize how we consume and create content, or B)  to gobble up yet another industry.

The past few days have produced many posts and tweets, many critical, many outraged, some cynical and  others truly awed and excited about the possibilites iBook Author offers. With all the questions regarding content ownership, portability, collusion with mega publishers aside, we at Zacatechista wanted to drop our own thought droppings on eTextbooks and iBook Author specifically.

 

Here is a screenshot of our current project–and the reason for this post:

We should disclose that we have been working for more than a year now on a set of English Language Development games and apps for the iPad called elDcoder, and while the project is still under construction, the prospects of being able to extend its boundaries  into the textbook realm offers new possibilities.

First, as content creators we look forward to adapting and extending the content of elDcoder,  which is currently much more geared to gaming and testing English listening, reading, writing skills, and porting some of that over onto a sequential textbook series that can accompany the app, or vice versa. And its clear after only one weekend of playing with iBook Author really makes this process easy. This should come as no surprise, coming from the same company that puts out Garage Band and iMovie, both of which were used to build the content for the first chapter of elDcoder’s (Beginner level).

Getting the hang of it was no problem. Knowing how to best take advantage of the features and to better streamline your job will require more tinkering. Discovering the versatility of working with Dashcode also contributed to the prolonged sense of tech-arousal inherent in these interactions. Now a textbook can be embedded with anything we can dream of, as long as it is not Flash.

As for what this means for English Language Learners? Well, anyone that teaches ELL students knows that ELD curriculum is not always the top priority of most schools or districts. The requirements are there, but ELD, at least as it is practiced in California is a reality often found on paper, but with so many curricular and other constraints, it often goes untaught or folded into the traditional English Language Arts, leaving many students with profound language gaps in both the forms and functions of English which prevent them from every reaching Fluent English Proficient Status, permanently relegating them to a secondary LEP  status, thereby  not graduating, or amounting to anything, and dying a cold and lonely death.

OK, hyperbole aside, It should also be noted that while explicit English Language Development is very important, not just for newcomers, but for those students with years in the system, there often is very little invested in terms of materials for its instructions, leaving many teachers to make up their own curriculum.  This is where iBooks author comes in. All of us who are in the trade of educating English Language Learners in all of their manifestations and who have been for years developing our own curriculum where there was none now can come together and start building the next generation of textbooks, as open and free in many cases, and under Apples restrictive ownership agreements in others.

The goal for us ESL teachers, authors and content providers  should not be whether can get rich making textbooks, as the mega-conglomerates are happy to do, but to offer schools the most authentic, constantly updated, classroom-tested textbooks at the lowest possible price in the name of education. If we must partner with the Giant Apple that is now doing the gobbling in order to do so, then we must deal with them with the best interest of our students constantly in our mind.

If you are interested in contacting us about possible collaborations or if you have further questions, please leave a comment below. We will be launching a more formal collaborative effort with the aims of producing a collaborative eTextbook series for English Language Learners in the coming months and asking other interested educators to share their lessons, materials and other resources for inclusion into the elDecoder series.

 

 

 

 

 

Biblioteca Digital: An Indispensable (and Contemporary) Source of Spanish Language Texts

Mexico’s Biblioteca Digita ILCE has been around for many years now, and has undergone many face-lifts over the years. It’s newest form is no different and still constitutes one of the greatest portals for Spanish Language quality texts available on-line.

It not only features curated sites for the study of humanities, sciences, art and more, it also has an impressive children’s library containing dozens of high-quality, illustrated books that will students reconnect with their Mexican heritage as well as learn content area material ranging from science to social studies, ecology, and more.

The site is perfect for anyone who either teaches Spanish as a second language or in a primary language Spanish-bilingual classroom.

I’ve used their materials over the years throughout the elementary grades. The format tends to vary, as the materials comes from various authors and illustrators, but the content is available in most cases on mobile devices, making it an indispensable tool for the Spanish or bilingual classroom, or those wishing  to stay connected to Mexican and other Latin American cultures.

 

ILCE which stands for the Latin American Institute for Educational Communication, is the organ that put together this great project. They have been around for 55 years and these days they are dedicated to setting up all kinds of collaborations between countries and making Spanish language educational materials available online through various partnerships.