Week 10: Research Tools in the Classroom + The Google Scholar Challenge
Hello Fellow Students!
Wow it has been a while...
I think of all the tools that I looked at, the one that most excited me as a future English teacher was Simple English Wikipedia. The reason being, these are great options for texts that I could bring into my classroom.
In a different course we are taking, incidentally with the same lecturer, we discussed the importance of differentiating content in our classrooms - one way being according to readiness level. Being exposed to this particular tool can help us in this seemingly time consuming pursuit. As opposed to the regular Wikipedia, which is long-winded and has difficult collocations, these articles are short and to the point.
You now have two text options on the same topic - both provided by Wikipedia. Regular Wikipedia and Simple Wikipedia.
Let’s take Healthy Habits and Diets, for example. The famous Present Simple topic. Here are two text options that you can just copy and paste without much effort.
Option 1 - Simple Wikipedia:
A healthy diet or balanced diet is a diet (what you eat) that contains the right amounts of all the food groups. It includes fruit, vegetables, grains, dairy products, and protein. It does not include too much or too little of any kind of food. Eating wrong amounts of a food group, whether it be too much or too little, is called an "unhealthy diet" or an "imbalanced diet". A healthy diet is one that includes more foods that come from plants and fewer convenience foods.
Option 2 - Regular Wikipedia:
A healthy diet is a diet that helps to maintain or improve overall health. A healthy diet provides the body with essential nutrition: fluid, macronutrients, micronutrients, and adequate calories.
A healthy diet may contain fruits, vegetables, and whole grains, and includes little to no processed food and sweetened beverages. The requirements for a healthy diet can be met from a variety of plant-based and animal-based foods, although a non-animal source of vitamin B12 is needed for
those following a vegan diet.[3] Various nutrition guides are published by medical and governmental institutions to educate individuals on what they should be eating to be healthy. Nutrition facts labels are also mandatory in some countries to allow consumers to choose between foods based on the components relevant to health.
The point is that this tool, aside from introducing us to topics and explaining things simply so we can get the gist of the subject, is a wonderful educational tool as well.
And now I present to you:
🤓 THE GOOGLE SCHOLAR CHALLENGE 🤓
Google Scholar is a fun place. Yes, I did actually say that. You know why? People conduct research and look into just about every topic under the sun. So this is what I did.
I looked up “Ice cream flavors” 🍨🍨🍨🍨🍨
I got the following academic article: Sensory and social influences on ice cream consumption by males and females in a laboratory setting https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0195666385800490
Super random. Sounds fascinating. If I finish my homework at any point, I might actually read it.
People who are responding to me, just for fun. Look up a random topic and see what comes up. Comment your answer below.
Wow it has been a while...
I think of all the tools that I looked at, the one that most excited me as a future English teacher was Simple English Wikipedia. The reason being, these are great options for texts that I could bring into my classroom.
In a different course we are taking, incidentally with the same lecturer, we discussed the importance of differentiating content in our classrooms - one way being according to readiness level. Being exposed to this particular tool can help us in this seemingly time consuming pursuit. As opposed to the regular Wikipedia, which is long-winded and has difficult collocations, these articles are short and to the point.
You now have two text options on the same topic - both provided by Wikipedia. Regular Wikipedia and Simple Wikipedia.
Let’s take Healthy Habits and Diets, for example. The famous Present Simple topic. Here are two text options that you can just copy and paste without much effort.
Option 1 - Simple Wikipedia:
A healthy diet or balanced diet is a diet (what you eat) that contains the right amounts of all the food groups. It includes fruit, vegetables, grains, dairy products, and protein. It does not include too much or too little of any kind of food. Eating wrong amounts of a food group, whether it be too much or too little, is called an "unhealthy diet" or an "imbalanced diet". A healthy diet is one that includes more foods that come from plants and fewer convenience foods.
Option 2 - Regular Wikipedia:
A healthy diet is a diet that helps to maintain or improve overall health. A healthy diet provides the body with essential nutrition: fluid, macronutrients, micronutrients, and adequate calories.
A healthy diet may contain fruits, vegetables, and whole grains, and includes little to no processed food and sweetened beverages. The requirements for a healthy diet can be met from a variety of plant-based and animal-based foods, although a non-animal source of vitamin B12 is needed for
those following a vegan diet.[3] Various nutrition guides are published by medical and governmental institutions to educate individuals on what they should be eating to be healthy. Nutrition facts labels are also mandatory in some countries to allow consumers to choose between foods based on the components relevant to health.
The point is that this tool, aside from introducing us to topics and explaining things simply so we can get the gist of the subject, is a wonderful educational tool as well.
And now I present to you:
🤓 THE GOOGLE SCHOLAR CHALLENGE 🤓
Google Scholar is a fun place. Yes, I did actually say that. You know why? People conduct research and look into just about every topic under the sun. So this is what I did.
I looked up “Ice cream flavors” 🍨🍨🍨🍨🍨
I got the following academic article: Sensory and social influences on ice cream consumption by males and females in a laboratory setting https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0195666385800490
Super random. Sounds fascinating. If I finish my homework at any point, I might actually read it.
People who are responding to me, just for fun. Look up a random topic and see what comes up. Comment your answer below.
Yeah I also found the Simple English Wikipedia very usefull. Great challenge! I Searched for "jamping jacks" and didn't find anything appealing.
ReplyDeleteMichal!
ReplyDeleteI love reading your blogs you are so creative and intelligent! You keep me inspired and enthusiastic about teaching! I loved the ideas you came up with the benifits of the Simple English Wikipedia.