Common classroom problems

Common classroom problems

Becoming a teacher is a difficult task as we have to look for new ways to maintain our students quiet or calm. Moreover, to do this we have to handle first with discipline as it is one of the most important factors that affect students´ behaviors. For that reason, there are some strategies that can help teachers to control students’ behaviors. For example in one my class teaching little kids I had that problem and I was frustrated because my students never paid attention to me, and they were always standing up, talking and doing all they wanted so that I invented a new strategy for them. I told them that I was going to check the way they behave during the whole class and if they do all the activities without acting mad I was going to give them a star. Some of them didn´t pay attention to me, but some other did it. So at the end of the class I gave to some of my Ss the star and the rest was angry because they didn´t win it.

For the next class, the first thing that I did was to talk to their parents and we made a pact. Later, I made the same deal with the Ss. This activity really functions in my class as at the end all the Ss were paying attention. In sum, discipline is a difficult task for me, but at the end I defeated this problem.

How can I use Voicethread in Education?

How can we use Voicethread in Education?

         Voicethread is one of the most wonderful tools that I have ever seen because I can do lot of things on it. For example I can upload pictures and start commenting using different tools such as typing, recording my voice, adding a web cam video or a phone call. For that reason, I think that using this tool in education could be so interesting for those students who really like to surf on the net, and also for those who are visual learners. I would use this program with students of Intermediate English as they are more able to talk in English. I imagine an assignment in which I upload information of an interesting topic for young adults. In this case I am going to mention “Marriage”. So, I would post my information about it and later students have to comment on it and give their own opinion.

But, I would assign them a different way to comment on the presentation. (Some would type, others would record their voice, and the rest would do it by a web cam video.) I can say that in this way I can use Voicethread in education with the only purpose of making a class different and interesting at the same time.

What do I prefer to use PowerPoint or Prezi?

I really like how PowerPoint and Prezi work because both facilitate the teacher’s life as they make the class more interesting for students. Moreover, PowerPoint and Prezi allow using a variety of pictures, sound and effects to a presentation. 

In this occasion, I am going to say that I prefer to use Prezi because I like the variety of effects that I can add to a picture or text. I consider Prezi more interesting because I can interact in a different way with the whole presentation. However, I can say that it takes more time to prepare a presentation than working in PowerPoint.