16 jul 2020

by | in #StaySafe, Classroom Experiences, Educational Technology, Reflections about Education, Technology

An increased interest in online teaching has emerged in recent years. Such interest has become even more prominent due to the COVID-19 pandemic and the quarantine, during which teachers worldwide had to take up online teaching overnight. Many of us had been teaching adults – or taken online lessons and courses ourselves – for a while, but teaching a group of teenagers through a screen was unimaginable. Given my considerable experience with online teaching, I was very confident about welcoming my teenage students to a video call. Little did...

15 ago 2019

by | in Bilingual Education, Classroom Experiences, Educational Technology, Teacher Development, Technology, Trends in ELT

Monday, 6 p.m., the sun peeking through the blinds in the brick and mortar language school building in Brazil. The teacher enters the room carrying a bag of props, flashcards, and her tape recorder. The recorder being to her as precious as a map to a Geography teacher: “Hi, John Peter! How are you today?” asked the teacher in a high-pitched voice. “I’m fine, thanks. And you?” replied the monotoned student. The automatic, “I’m fine, too,” followed. “So… Let’s begin! Open your books to page 50,” she continued while rewinding and...

06 jun 2019

by | in Classroom Experiences, Classroom Management, Educational Technology, Teacher Development, Technology, Trends in ELT

Curiously, I have posted a variation of this article on a blog I used to update, almost 10 years ago. Unfortunately the question is still up to date. In recent years, one of the main discussions in the educational business has been about finding the proper ways to face the growing need to move from print materials, and traditional pure face-to-face learning to a situation with more digital online content and self-instruction, self-paced learning, flipped classroom, etc. We currently live in a world where students have instant access to content...

28 abr 2019

by | in Educational Technology, Teacher Development, Technology

Have you ever considered the good side of waiting in line, being stuck in a traffic jam, waiting at the doctor's office?  Well, you might feel mad, impatient, or even cranky. But wait? Is there a way to change all these negative feelings into the opposite spectrum, like feeling energized, inspired and wanting to change the world?! A loud YES to it. It might seem crazy at first, but this is exactly what happened to me after I discovered Podcasts in my life, not only as a means for...

21 abr 2019

by | in Educational Technology, Technology

As metodologias ativas estão presentes em quase todos os debates contemporâneos de educação no Brasil. Nos últimos três anos, o termo tem ganhado força e aparecido em publicações, cursos e debates sobre educação. Tenho atuado na formação docente de professores com foco em metodologias ativas desde 2013, em especial, com o Ensino Híbrido. Desde então, foram centenas de formações em instituições de ensino públicas e privadas. No ano de 2018, tive a oportunidade de participar de uma série de encontros oferecidos pela Richmond em sete cidades do país: São Paulo,...

10 abr 2019

by | in Classroom Experiences, Educational Technology, Reflections about Education

Recently the school where I work has implemented Google Classroom for most of the groups, in order to promote a broader and more consistent interaction with learners, as well as make communications between students and teacher faster and more effective. As a tech enthusiast myself, I celebrated the achievement along with my peers at the branch, specially because we knew the impact this would have on the students’ tangibilization of progress. Mind you, I have the utmost respect for students who are able to keep their studies organized...

04 mar 2019

by | in Educational Technology

Yes, I have just invented that word. Technology use in the classroom is debatable when it comes to usability and rationale of tasks. We (Active ELTers) have been discussing this topic for a long time now and one feature I believe is worth mentioning is that, if you use interactive boards, chromebooks, padlets, projectors, etc you are already using technology in your classroom. So, what’s new about that, you ask? I have been learning a lot from Alice Turibio, my partner at circular.club and as she is a...

16 dez 2018

by | in Classroom Experiences, Educational Technology, Games, Lesson Ideas, Resources, Technology

If you have been teaching teens for the past years you have probably noticed how attached they are to their mobiles or tablets. To say that they love technology is an understatement. Playing video games, watching TV series and films or listening to music are some of the usual activities they perform in their free time and they all involve technology. But technology is not the only thing they are interested in. Take, for instance, teenagers who practise sports or even go to a dance school. Would it not...

07 nov 2018

by | in Classroom Experiences, Educational Technology, Lesson Ideas, Resources, Technology, Trends in ELT

As a child, I was a tech enthusiast. Born in 1980, I am an active member of a lucky generation which could see the evolution of computers from gigantic monsters which could occupy an entire building so as to produce what we know today as a very limited amount of data, to micro technology,which enables us to store virtually anything in a “cloud” of information. When I started teaching, back in the last century (phew, I AM getting old), rooms were constituted of a blackboard, chalk, chairs and books,...

06 nov 2018

by | in Educational Technology, Resources, Sin categoría, Teacher Development, Technology, Trends in ELT

Have you ever used Jing for anything in your language teaching experience? Have you ever heard of it? I am asking you these questions because I have been suggesting the use of this nice tool in my educational technology workshops for over 7 years now. But it's still interesting to notice that a lot of teachers all over the country have actually never heard of it, let alone use it. But don't worry, this is not an ad. Jing is actually a free tool by Techsmith, which makes it even nicer, isn't...