Hello TESOL Friends,
I apologize for my late post. My mind has been in a fuzzy place this week as my Dad’s house was in the evacuation zone for the fire in Orange County. He is safe and has a neighbor keeping an eye on him so I am feeling more at ease.
As for the EdTech tool presentations, I really enjoyed what everyone brought to share! It struck me that we each presented something completely different and unique, and I feel like I learned a little bit more about each of you in the process. Thank you! I could honestly see myself using all of the tools presented and my mind was quickly processing how fun it would be to teach kids with these tools as well.
I would echo Gretchen who said in reply to Alex that she now has more understanding for her students who may been working through the barriers of using technology. I was both frustrated and excited last week to make progress toward understanding how to use Pear Deck. I wanted to magically be adept at all of its features so I could seamlessly Zoom away and do an amazing tutorial. Click the following link for a Pear Deck Pro:
"Vestal's 21st Century Classroom"
Using a new tech tool reminds me of what we have learned about second language acquisition. When you are first learning this new “language,” it can feel a bit overwhelming. You want to use it to communicate, but there is so much you do not know yet. There are some rules to follow which is quite helpful as you get the basics down, yet a lot of it can be more inductive than deductive as you experiment. As you gain more confidence through what is essentially error correction, you keep learning more of the tool's language until you gain a certain amount of proficiency. It’s funny how things seem so easy once you know how to do them, but can seem so difficult until you do!
Thank you for sharing all of your hard work last week and creating a welcoming space for me to practice my error correction. 😊
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