KDLerma Blog for ESL 509

Valley Vista Expands Dual Language Immersion Program 9 March 2018  - by  John John The Chula Vista Elementary School Distr ict  (CVESD) is the largest K-6 th  grade elementary school district in the state of California and is located in the southern San Diego County and enrolls approximately 30,000 students within 46 schools. The district serves diverse communities and starting the 2018-2019 academic year, every kindergarten class at Valley Vista Elementary School will be a Dual Language Immersion (DLI) classroom.  This program expansion will help Valley Vista to become “the first non-charter DLI school in the Chula Vista Elementary School District (CVESD) and reaffirm its mission to embrace diversity through multicultural language courses.” The dual immersion program provides both English and Spanish instruction to students needing help to develop their language skills.  The kindergarten students will receive personalized instruction...

How Technology Can Equalize Learning Differences By Kathleen L. Daly  MARCH 13, 2018 (photo courtesy of james yang, chronicle) This article talks about how different students learn differently which is the heart of the debate, not whether technology in the classroom is a distraction.  It’s about engaging students according to the diverse learning styles, with some of them involving the use of technology. The examples used in this article are based on the undergraduate population compared to their high-school counterparts as an ideal to replicate. The examples can be used in any classroom in the K-12 environment. Some ideas presented include needing to step outside the comfort zone of traditional pedagogy. “It may mean additional preparation time, rethinking an exam format, showing a movie or film clip, turn on the captions. Although these are simple solutions, they increase accessibility for hearing-impaired students as well as they help English-...

Stung by loss of funding, Syracuse district wants to halt charter school expansion Updated Feb 14; Posted Feb 14 By James T. Mulder jmulder@syracuse.com, syracuse.com An article I read this week was interesting as it relates to charter school funding and how whether financing these schools are “hampering efforts to improve city schools” in Syracuse.  As a result, the district is asking the state to temporarily ban additional charter schools in Syracuse at the next city school board meeting.  According to the article, charters schools have reduced the district’s " ... ability to increase learning opportunities for all students, encourage the use of different and innovative teaching methods, create professional opportunities for district personnel, provide parents and students with expanded choices, and improve student learning and achievement.” Other reasons given are that the charter schools  enroll smaller percentages of students with disabili...

This week's Google alert was an article regarding a new adaptive learning platform from Kidaptive.  The article, Edtech company Kidaptive raises $19.1 million for its adaptive learning platform,  Posted Feb 20, 2018 by  Sarah Perez  ( @sarahintampa )  Edtech startup Kidaptive is an adaptive-learning company that began its life with a suite of curriculum-focused iPad games for kids.   The announcement about the $19.1 million funding with an investment from Korean education company Woongjin ThinkBig. The investment follows a deal with Woongjin that will see Kidaptive powering an English language learning system Woongjin Compass wants to build.  Although Kidaptive started out with educational games for the iPad, the company wants to be more of a “big data for learning” company rather than a maker of educational kids’ games as it was known for just a few years ago. The technology behind this learning experienc...

This week I gained additional knowledge about the benefits of blogging with ESL students in the classroom.  There were benefits, of course, but challenges were resolved as well.  Read the full article here:  Using Blogs to Engage English-Language Learners by Jon Schwartz. https://www.edutopia.org/blog/ell-digital-divide-jon-schwartz Jon Schwartz teaches fourth grade in Oceanside, CA and bridges the digital divide with blogging with his blogging program at  Kids Like Blogs .  He uses blogging  with his combination grade 4/5 class where students use the technology to “find their creative muse and learn about the technological world they are inheriting.” They used optional blogs as an in-class activity which improved student engagement and gave them the important technical exposure and skills in digital citizenship. Additionally, he was able to find resolutions to many challenges such as parental engagement, internet safety, keeping students engaged, in...

Blogging for English Language Learners . Rusual Alrubail, March 16, 2015  Illustration Credit: Rebeca Zuñiga / @Rebezuniga (Click image to enlarge.) As the author of this article Rusul Alrubail explains, “ Student blogging provides opportunities for sharing, reflection, and ownership. With ELLs, blogs can provide deeper engagement and a public forum to demonstrate their developing skills.” The details the author shared makes perfect sense, but for me, as a newbie in this subject matter, I needed more explanation.  Reading the article further gave me just the information I was searching for in order to understand the how and why of using a blog for ESL students.  This article gave me a great introduction to blogging in general and how to use it with ESL students and in the classroom. As we know for society today, blogging can be powerful both personally and professionally,  It’s a form of communication, learning, and reflection that can ...