Blog Post 14

Box of Tricks is the blog of Jose Picardo, who is the head of head of Modern Foreign Languages at Nottingham High School. Mr. Picardo's tips are use streaming video, because there is a wide variety of videos out there about any subject. Use music, because you can relate it to your students in any way, shape, or form. Use teleconferencing tools such as Skype; I think with Mr. Picardo's classes, because they are foreign languages, this would be a great idea! Especially if you could get them to speak with native language speakers. Create your own interactive exercises using websites; learn how to use your whiteboard (I'm guessing he meant SMART Board) more effectively. These go hand in hand in my opinion, because you can do so much with a SMART Board. Create your own podcasts using Garageband and Audacity. Along with that, create blogs and wikis to display your student's work. If you going to spend great deals of time on teaching how to use these tools, why not showcase them on a blog? We saw this first hand in all of our C4K assignments. Use social networks like Facebook. He says it is controversial, but nowadays groups are closed and it is a perfectly viable way to connect with students. Lastly, he says to use internet tools, because there are loads out there and it just takes time to find them and lastly, make the most of your students gadgets like phones and iPods.

What I really enjoyed about the video was that Mr. Picardo geared the tips in his video towards students. He knows that students like music and tells you to use it in your lessons. I like that he gears his lessons towards students, which should happen anyway. However, he is using things that students already have familiarity with. I would definitely use Facebook with my students and have podcasts that they can listen to on their iPods. All in all, I really enjoyed this video.