SlideShare

I really like the idea of SlideShare. If I can organise a class blog for my Year 6 students (see previous post), then we could also post any PowerPoint presentations we develop on there, via SlideShare. My only concern with SlideShare would be the same one that I have with YouTube: you're never quite sure what will come up as the "featured" or "recommended" presentations. What if it is adult content? In the past I have shown YouTube videos direct from the website, but now I try to convert the clips first and insert them into my Smart NoteBook presentations (IWB software) so that I know for certain what the students will see. You can also do this with SlideShare of course, but if the students need to go to the site to post their presentations, it could be a problem. Maybe I can post on behalf of the students...

The presentation below would be good to show to my Year 4 students, when I do an in-depth explanation of script types. I particularly like the way the author has used photographs of real signs in Japan (from the flickr.com website) to show examples of different scripts. I must remember to take a look at flickr.com myself. (or is that already on our list of 23 Things??

View more presentations from ajJB2. (tags: japanese hiragana)

YouTube 大好き！ I Love YouTube!

I love using YouTube videos in my lessons. As we have SMARTBoards (IWBs) in our classrooms, it is easy to share them with the class. With the K-2 students, I often end the session with a short (2-3 mins) video clip from Japanese TV. The children love it! We talk about how TV shows in Japan are the same as or different from the ones we watch. One of our favourite shows is "Anpanman", a cartoon series that was first created in 1968 and has been on TV continuously since 1988. Over 50 million Anpanman books have been sold in Japan - it is an institution!

The video I have embedded here is from another TV series about a dog called Shibawanko. This series is designed to teach Japanese children about Japanese culture and traditions. Although all in Japanese and quite difficult for young students to understand, it is interesting just to look at the pictures and discuss things such as Japanese traditinal housing and gardens. After participating in PD related to Intercultural Language Learning, I encourage my students to notice things, rather than telling them what life is like in Japan. Watching authentic Japanese videos is great for this.

This particular episode explains the origins of Children's Day (Tango no Sekku). I will show it to my Year 3 and 4 students in May.