This blog is for PIGATE, a grass-roots pre- and in-service teacher development group in Kumamoto, JP. Our monthly meetings are every 2nd Saturday, usually from 1:30-4:30 p.m. For more information, please contact pigateadvisor01 (aT) Gmail (dOt) com.
The screenshot below shows three websites I've earmarked recently for PIGATE by tagging them and sharing them in Diigo, a social bookmarking service. The list on the ... [right] side shows the top ten tags in use since May 2015.
For example, a few days before Mr. Kobori's presentation on September 9th, 2017, I discovered a homepage offering a free, open source typeface designed to help "make reading easier for [people with] some symptoms of dyslexia" (https://opendyslexic.org/faq/, ¶1).
Though the PIGATE Diigo Group currently is private, anyone can find and use bookmarked website links in an RSS feed on the PIGATE Blog sidebar (Diigo Bookmarks: Group PIGATE's best content).
PIGATE members are more than welcome to join. I'd love to see what websites other little piggies recommend for each other.
At our gathering last Saturday, questions arose regarding how and when to help young English learners recognize, recall, and write letters of the alphabet.
For example, with regard to a presentation on dyslexia, participants wondered where the small letter D came from, and why it was so different from the big D.
Though I'll leave reporting details of the session to others who attended or presented, I would like to share a clue to the origin of the letter D:
I'd also like to point out a new video from Sesame Street (2017.09.08) offering musical alternatives to traditional ABC songs. Like most songs of this ilk, it focuses on capital letters.
What impressed me the most was the searchable transcript (lyrics) that you can display from the menu under the "..." button below the lower right corner of the YouTube video on site.
Select, "Open transcript," in the pop-up menu, then choose, "English - CC (English)," at the foot of the transcript window, for closed captions (rather than the auto-generated transcript).
Video source: Sesame Street's Back to School playlist
Below are a couple of snapshots of the transcript display with the timecode toggled either ON (at 00.01) or OFF (at 03:29 of 12:50). If you click on the images below, you can see details.
The mind map in this post points out locations of online endeavours by and for members of a grassroots language teacher development group, for various language and professional development purposes.
Though the map itself is far from comprehensive at present, it does include both links to venues and [plenty of] to-dos (tasks with or without checkboxes) planned or envisioned in order to consolidate, extend, and facilitate ICT use by group members.
One such purpose involves collaborative creation and publication of information to promote face-to-face group events. Others reflect collective documentation of activities, maintenance of archives, and sharing and showcasing of professional development resources.
Tasks may be one-off, on-going, or periodic (recurring monthly or annually). Green arrows indicate connections between various tasks and other tasks or venues.
Group PIGATE's best content).
