Using textivate.com for simple interactive tasks

Textivate.com offers a great teacher tool for creating simple interactive tasks for younger students.


Update: Later discovered that all quizzes can be embedded on your class website or blog. Great feature!

For my set of interactive tasks I chose a poem by Kenn Nesbitt  Today I Had a Rotten Day. It is a brilliant poem for teaching the students about the body parts, and a wonderful resource for teaching the verbs.

Today I had a rotten day
as I was coming in from play.
I accidentally stubbed my toes
and tripped and fell and whacked my nose.
I chipped a tooth. I cut my lip.
I scraped my knee. I hurt my hip.
I pulled my shoulder, tweaked my ear,
and got a bruise upon my rear.
I banged my elbow, barked my shin.
A welt is forming on my chin.
My pencil poked me in the thigh.
I got an eyelash in my eye.
I sprained my back. I wrenched my neck.
I’m feeling like a total wreck.
So that’s the last time I refuse
when teacher says to tie my shoes.


To create the tasks, you can choose from various options.

I started with the easiest task, in my opinion - separating the words. After your students have read the poem, they go online to the address you have given them and separate the words of the poem. To do it, they just have to click in the right place.

After the first task, they go on to the next, slightly more difficult task - mixed lines. There are many layout variants, I used 10 tiles. Students rearrange the lines by dragging the tiles.

When they have done the easier tasks, they go to the next task which is a little more challenging than the previous ones - they have to write the missing vowels.

After the vowel task, give them a considerably more difficult task - putting back the missing consonants.

Now it's time to ask your students to recall and write the missing words. The good thing is that the tool generates a new variant each time you click on Restart. The words may be hidden or shown depending on your student abilities. If they see the words, they simply drag them to the right space.

Finally, ask your students to reconstruct the poem from scratch - with only empty letter squares given. Looks hard but in fact it isn't, taking into account they will have learned the poem by that time.

Observe how proud they will look after they have completed the last version of the tasks!
 

A teacher in the summer

I am not a teacher in the summer.

I am a person who does not know anything about teaching, who does not stay up late at night grading essays or preparing for the next day's lessons, who does not worry about students skipping lessons or not doing homework, who does not call parents for consulting about their offsprings' school work, who does not attend staff meetings, who does not look for texts and exercises for tests, who does not labour creating a fresh task for an interactive whiteboard...

I am a person who sleeps in and enjoys her morning coffee leisurely, who does not put on makeup in the morning and does not style her hair every day, who does not wear smart clothes daily, who has thrown away her timetable and put textbooks in the darkest drawer...

I am a person who has recently discovered the joy of having a garden with green grass and multicolour flowerbeds, who has learned to listen to the silence and hear the bugs rustle grape leaves, who steps into the rain barefoot and lets herself be soaked in warm ozoned rainwater...


Teachers unanimously savour the summer break. Look at these tweets. The first tweeter is a headmaster :)

 

 





During my marvellous summer months I truly bask in the possibility to read read read... There are so many books and so little time for all of them. How to read the right book and not miss the ones that may be written just for you? I have found a lot of lists advising which books to read in the summer of 2012. Have a look at some of them.

11 Best Summer Books Of 2012 on Huffington Post 

Summer Reading 2012: 10 New Must-Read Books - new books with detailed annotations

Books to read this summer 2012 on MSN + annotations and reviews 

Richard and Judy Summer Book Club - new titles for the summer months


In addition to abundant suggestions which will help me now to choose my next book, I have happily discovered an online bookstore The Book Depository where you can get books at a good price and have them delivered to you free of charge, at least to Latvia.

Have a carefree summer!

Image source http://bit.ly/MMezm6

Recommend a book for me

I am a person who reads in the morning while having my morning coffee, at lunch while eating my soup, in the afternoon while grading student homework, in the evening with a hockey game on TV (my husband's choice) in the background, at night when all the world around has fallen asleep... I'd also read at the lessons but I know it is impossible, unfortunately.

I am an omnivore. I read everything. But I have my preferences.

The books you see in the picture have been taken from the shelf randomly, not because they are my favourites, although I loved these too.

I read travel books and crime stories, I read memoirs and biographies, I read psychological thrillers and children's books, I read drama, romance and love stories, I read action and adventure books, I read cookbooks and gardening books, and of course I read books on methodology and didactics.

For me, a good book should open up a new world (like Elif Shafak's The Bastard of Istanbul), make me fall about laughing (like Bill Bryson's Neither Here Nor There), shock me (like Kate Long's The Daughter Game), surprise me (like Audrey Niffenegger's The Time Traveler's Wife), shake me (like Anita Shreve's Testimony), entertain me (like Jo Nesbo Nemesis),  terrify me (like James Rollins' Amazonia) and soothe me (like Maeve Binchy's Evening Class).

I'd like you to suggest a book for me which I could read next. I have been given great recommendations before (like Elif Shafak's book suggested by someone on Twitter - I am hugely grateful for it), and this is the time when I ask you, my readers. I am curious and I am impatient to make new discoveries in my world of written word.