UNIT III

All right then, Now we are in the road to becoming the New President of the Independent republic of our Classroom. So, it's time to develop our proposal and plans for our people.

Objectives

- to encourage creativity skills

- to learn how to create speech

Activity 1

creating the campaign

1. Create a 3-minute speech with your proposals as candidate
   (note: pick your words wisely, watch video)
2. Record your speech in vocaroo.com and save the link
3. Create an image with logo and a slogan for your campaign
4. Upload your image to an image host (i.e. imageshack, tinypic) and save the link
5. Post your links in the comments

Activity 2

taking the stage like a boss   

    1. prepare a 1-minute clip for your campaign presentation (next class)

       - search for videos from real candidates to get some ideas

         - you can use clips from any other video available from different sites (youtube,  dailymotion)

        -don't complicate yourself using professional softwares, you can use Windows Movie Maker to edit your video

   2. Upload your video to youtube and save your link

  3. post it in the comments

GOOD LUCK!

UNIT II

All right, these are “big fishes” of debating. It is time to learn from the bests of persuading people. 

Objectives:

- to develop critical thinking skills

- to develop discourse analysis skill

Activity 1

Taking notes from the masters

1.       Identify the politicians in the video

2.       Search in the web about them; take notes about their main proposals.

3.       Listen to the debate and take notes about how their answers to every topic given by the presenter.

Activity 2

After watching the video, answer:

summing up discourses 

1.       Which candidate do you think has better proposals?  

2.       Which candidate do you think is bluffing?  

3.       Do you think they will keep their promises after being elected? Why?

Post your answers in the comments.

GOOD LUCK!

UNIT I

Have you ever talked about any topic with someone, arguing for hours, trying imposing your idea as the right one?

"talking"with a friend

We all like to be right when talking to others. Nevertheless, we all have different points of view for different topics.  

One of the first requirements when debating is RESPECT. So, in order to avoid ending an argument using “your mama is so” statements, this class is focused on learning the basis of debating. 

Class Objectives:

-          To learn how to collect data about a topic

-          To learn how to defend your statements

-          To learn how to write an argumentative essay

Activity 1

even old friendships have died after debating
who is the best

Web discussion

1.       Think about a topic you like and narrow it until you reach an specific topic

(I.e. Comic books > DC comic > Justice League > Batman,

Music >Rock>metal>Iron Maiden)

2.       Look in the web for different discussion sites where people uses to discuss about these topics (forums, image boards, Facebook groups)

3.       Look up for old posts/ threads and identify the most discussed topics.

4.       Read the used arguments and decide which side had the best arguments.

5.       Post your results in the comments

Now, what are you waiting for? Go out and google it!

Activity 2

Defending your statement

1.       Based on the first activity, now you have to write a 200-word argumentative essay about the same topic you previously selected.

2.       You have to deliver the essay to my email, have until midnight.

-          You can use google.com to search specific information

-          Using Fan pages would be accepted only this time. The reliability of these sites is not always the best.  

If you need help with how to write an essay click here

(Source: Bellevue College, Washington, http://bellevuecollege.edu/)

INTRODUCTION

DEFENDING YOUR STATEMENTS WITH ARGUMENTS

LEARNING HOW TO DEBATE

Complementary b-learning unit

World is changing and so people. Previous generations used to think and share equal worldview based on their social heritage. However, there is a new generation that have born in the information age, they have free access to information and have a different view of life. 

the future seen with the eyes of the past

Society has changed and so students, but teaching methods remains the same. And teacher should lead with this new scenario. Students needs and abilities go beyond the old fashion standards. Modern era students are already in touch with new technologies, but they don't know how to learn with them. This is where the teacher appears as a learning facilitator. He should guide his/her students on making his own way through learning (construct learning)  

This blog is complementary to a unit based on creating a debate group. Students will be able to develop critical thinking and a wider point of view for different topics. The participants of this class, also, would be able to improve their researching skills by learning how to discriminate between sources and its reliability.

old school teaching methods, not so different nowadays...
 until now

The teacher will be in charge of leading the group through different task based on using internet databases and WEB 2.0(youtube, twitter, facebook, and blogs). The role of the teacher will be as a facilitator of learning rather than just a knowledge source.  The teacher would be monitoring the students and encouraging them to be self-aware of their own learning. The teacher would also have know how to use these web tools, so he/she must be up to date with ITCs usage in order to guide his/her students.




In the first unit, the teacher would lead the student to learn about the basis of debating. The use of web searcher (i.e. google, yahoo) is crucial at this level. The teacher He would encourage the students to research about topics and how to select the correct arguments. 



In the second unit, Students would analyse a political debate on youtube. They would also have to research about politicians’ background. They will have to identify the arguments used by the politician and its reliability based on their researches. The idea is to encourage critical thinking and discourse analysis.

even no one can be elected

In the final unit, students would have to create their own proposals as candidate for class president. They will have to record their own speech and record it online. The teacher will help the students with the recording and the speech preparation using an online voice recording site Vocaroo.com and supporting them with any other requirement.