Podcasting

Fun English Lessons is a comedy style talk show done by two Canadian brothers living in Shanghai, China. It's fun to listen to and a great way to improve English. Although I am already an advanced English learner, there is still something to learn from their talk. It's also a great material to adopt for classroom teaching. Up till now, there are 119 eposides and each episode has a topic. Take the first one for example, the topic is "humor" and they focus on several words and expressions such as hilarious, sense of humor, absolutely, awsome, suck and etc. followed by specific explanation, examples and dialogues. I found it very authentic, colloquial and contexturized. It works as a perfect supplement to formal classroom lecture. Each episode lasts about 15 minutes, neither too long or too short. I could incoporate this talk show into my lessons on a daily basis. My English lesson doesn't necessarily focus on the same topic with each episode they created. This talk show can be used to practice listening comprehension, expand vocabulary and enhance cultural understanding. I will prepare some worksheets based on each episode for students to do while listening or for further reference. I can also give some additional explanation if necessay, but I won't spend too much time on it. This talk show is downloadable, so students can listen to it repetitively on their spare time. I hope my students will enjoy the show and their English get improved with time going on.

Global Collaboration Part 2

Among those tools I've explored in the last mod, I think I will integrate Voxopop in a project for global cooperation. Actually, I am thinking of integrate Voxopop with either ePals or TalkingITGlobal. Voxopop(formally Chinswing) is a short of audio-based discussion board: it’s a place where you can post your question or thought to create a conversation (or to answer an existing one) and wait for others to reply in the same fashion. I choose global warming as the topic of my project, for instance. This topic is listed on both ePals and TalkingITGlobal and there are many threads there. Also, there are some classes around the world are doing the same project right now. I can either connect with another class through ePal or just work independently. I can ask my students to read through some posts posted by people coming from different areas, and then to summerize what they've read and post their own opinions. Then I will create a discussion topic about global warming on Voxopop. Students are required to respond to the topic orally. Also, they are required to respond to other students' responses (around 3 students) at the same time.

Global Collaboration Part 1

Among listed sites for global cooperation, I explored ePals and Talkingitglobal.

ePALS is not only the place where you can chat with people around the world and make friends. More importanly, it's an educational website which connects students, teachers and parents around the world for cross-cultural and interactive projects. ePals provides learning units, instructional resources, practices and member-created projects all arranged by topic. This makes it easier for the teacher to match her classroom with another by finding whoever is intereted in writing about the same topic. One unique feature of ePals is that families are invloved. Many parents left messages there looking for epals/penpals for their children, which I think greatly encourages global cooperation.

Talkingitglobal uses an online social network aimed primarily at youth to raise awareness and discussion on a number of global issues such as animal rights and sustainable development. It also encourages youth to take action that affects their local and global communities.

Both websites provide ways for students and teachers to communicate around the world much more quickly. People can make friends, practice writing and get to know other countries and cultures. I like both of them.

From my own experience, it is often difficult to motivate EFL students to readand write. ePals can serve as a platform to motivate and inspire studentsin language learning. By integrating a letter-exchange program in the classroom,students will be excited about literacy learning. As a teacher, I can selecte-pals for my students and develop real-life writing and learning experiences forthem. Students learn the format of a friendly letter and the parts of an e-mailmessage. With carefulselection of an e-pal group, students can also learn about other cultures,languages, and geographic areas that align with the curriculum in your school.

Using Videos in Classroom

The speech made by President-Elect Barack Obama in Chicago serves as a great material for English teaching and learning. It can be integrated into English course to practice four skills through careful planning. For instance, the lesson can be divided into three phases. Before watching the video, students are given several questions regarding presidential election campaign to think about, or discuss about. Also, students can be given a vocabulary list with some key words which will be heard in the video. When they are watching the video, they may be required to do a part of dictation or listening comprehension. After watching the video, the teacher may ask students questions to check their understanding and hold a class discussion. A transcript of the speech may be passed around for students' better understanding. For take home assginment, students can be asked to do some research about historical references Obama made in the speech such as the Dust Bowl, the New Deal, the buses in Montgomery, the hoses in Birmingham and etc.
Also, this video can be used to teach students how to make a public speech. It's also a great example for writing.

Microblogging

Twitter is a compeletly new tool for me and I am still working on it although it's quite simple and self-explained. I didn't really like at first because I felt like it's quite similar with facebook and other tools. Also, many tweets I read are quite useless. But I started to see the postive side of Twitter. Usually the people you followed are those you are interested. Take me for example, my main interest is Teaching English to Non-native English Speakers. Therefore, I followed EFL Classroom 2.0 and several EFL teachers. Those people and I form a small network. In this small network, it's very easy to have an interactive conversation. "The effective part of Twitter is the immediate feedback when you have a question or comment that you need to 'get out there. " Therefore, I am thinking if I encounter any problem in teaching or any other areas, I could just post it on Twitter and I might be suprised by those responses given by my followers. Twitter serves as a great platform for teachers to exchange ideas and materials.

Frankly speaking, before I read those articles provided by Dr. Burgos, I have no idea of how to incorporate Twitter into teaching and learning. Since there is a word limitation for every tweet, I thought it wouldn't have much use in classroom. However, when I read Can we use Twitter for educational activities?, I was so suprised to find out so many usages. For instance, "It promotes writing as a fun activity. It fosters writing skills and develops literacy skills" All those educational uses mentioned in that article are great and I am willing to try them in my future classroom. But Twiiter also has limitations for classroom use. In Educators Test the Limits of Twitter Microblogging Tool, whether Twitter is safe for kid is discussed. Youth Twitter, a revised version of Twitter will allow teachers to edit students' tweets by granting them "adminstrator status". In this way, "teacher controls will allow educators to feel comfortable using the Twitter platform and to take advantage of its educational benefits."
http://tesl-ej.org/ej45/int.html
http://www.scribd.com/doc/2286799/Can-we-use-Twitter-for-educational-activities
http://www.edweek.org/dd/articles/2008/06/24/01twitter_web.h02.html

Tweets

It's so good to know such a great platform!! People post their thoughts, what they find interesting or useful , or what they are doing right now, which are so-called tweets on twitter. You will never know what responses people will pop up with. Also, you might be suprised to find out your friends are interested in the same thing just as you are.
I didn't twitter too much in the past two weeks, since I don't have much information to share with my friends. But I spent a long time looking at others' tweets. The more people you follow, the more tweets you have to read. The function of "following" is amazing!! By following the people you are interested, you will always get the up-to-date information of their thoughts, their readings, and some links they've posted. I should say, most the tweets are useless, which are usually about weather, what they are doing and etc. But there are also some informative tweets. For example, I followed EFL Classroom 2.0 and it provided very useful links about various activities that can be used in EFL classroom. Quite fun!!
The thing I don't like about Twitter is that there is a limitation of words you could type. You can only post a few sentences and that's the only function Twitter gets. You can not upload audio or video files. Also, I feel that twitter is like facebook in a certain way.

Using skype to collaborate

For me, skype is just used as an alternative of phone. I use it to call my parents sometime and we could see each other through webcamera. I've never thought of using skype as a tool to collaborate, teach and learn until I saw Using Skype to Collaborate (Classroom 2.0 Live this Saturday morning)on Moving at the speed of creativity. This post leads to another post Skype Virtual Guest Speakers and Collaboration wiki written by the same author earlier. He or she mentioned that skype can be used to bring in visual guest speakers to classroom. One person replied that he or she has invited several well-known children’s authors into the classroom via Skype. They spent time talking with students and answering questions. A great learning opportunity has been created. It connects the classroom with the outside world. I was so excited when I saw this and I definitely will try this in my future classroom.

Mod 3 Social Networking

I spent quite a long time looking through groups in www.ning.com and found out many interesting groups. I think Educational Technology which is recommended by Dr. Burgos is quite useful not only for this course, but for my future teaching. After I signed up and opened the website, the first article caught my attention is How to Create an Audio and a Video Podcast, which is just one of the Mods we need to complete in this course. The article gives every specific explanation followed with examples. I definitely will consult it when it comes to the last Mod. When I was seeing photos posted on Educational Technology, one aroused my great interests and led me to a wonderful website ESL (English as a Second Language) Web On Line Games. There are many interesting games which can be adapted in ESL classroom. The most exciting thing is they are all free!! Students are easily motivated in playing games while learning.
I checked out many groups. One common problem is that many of them have not been updated for a long time. Therefore it’s hard to me to constantly refer to them.
Another group I find useful is ESL Classroom 2.0, which is quite a nice place for both English teachers and learners. There are a lot of resources for teachers to adapt, such as lesson plans, activities, other teachers’ experience and etc. There is even a job place on it. For English learners, resources are also abundant, from phonetics to presentation. Nice group!!

Mod 3 A learner is like a ...

Connectivism is a completely new theory to me. Much has been said about how learners today (especially teenagers and younger learners) are different from previous generations, so as the learning process. In the past, learners were relatively isolated. Nowadays, learners seldom sit before a desk piled with tons of books and read books one by one to get what they are looking for. Most of the time, learners get connected through the internet with other learners or resources to locate the specific thing they are looking for. Siemens says, “The ability to synthesize and recognize connections and patterns is a valuable skill.” This reminds me of honey bees. One important feature of bees is that honey bees are highly socialized insects. Bees could know the location of honey by communicating with each other about food sources using dances. Honey bees could also convey other information by their various movements. Most of the time, honey bees would work out different activities within a group with shared information and responsibility. In this sense, learners nowadays are just like those honey bees.
I cannot image how a learner could achieve his or her success without consulting others’ help in such a digital-aged world. Living in such a fast changing society, possessing the ability to recognize what to learn and how to learn plays a crucial role in the way to success. Just as stated in the video, The Network is the Learning, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rpbkdeyFxZw&feature=PlayList&p=3E43054A8703F57A&index=4, “Learning is a network creation process …..what we know today is not as important as our ability to continue to stay in current”. Technology such as blogs, wiki, and other software just provide learners with the necessary tools to stay in current

Poor internet in China

Today I was informed to pay the gas bill of my house in Buffalo. But it turned out I cannot open the website. Then I tried to finish my asssignment since tommorrow is Chinese New Year Eve, I probably will spend the whole day with my parents. But I found out I cannot open any of the top educational blogs listed by Scott McLeod and list of blog finalists. What can I say.....Many websites are blocked. Fortunately, some of the blogs listed by Will Richardson can be opened and I added four of them on my blog. I miss the internet service back to U.S......

Three ways to use blog in the classroom

1. I could use my blog as a place to keep my teaching journals. I am still a student teacher and I don’t have much teaching experience so far. Therefore, keeping journals to reflect my own teaching is a great way for me to keep record of my progress. I could write down events and ideas for the purpose of later reflection. In the process of writing, it might trigger some insights about teaching. Therefore, writing blogs about my own teaching experience could serve as a discovery process. Also, I could post some problems which I cannot solve on my blogs. Other teachers might give me some constructive suggestions. Blog is a great place to share, discuss and discover.
2. I could also use the blog as a part of the teaching and learning. I could post class-related information such as syllabus, homework and other materials on the blog for students to refer to. It’s just like the UB-Learns we are using right now.
3. Blogs can be used to make the classroom more collaborative and interactive. I can post not only class-related information, but also activities, discussion topics, links to additional information about topics students are studying in class, and readings to inspire learning. Students would be asked to post their reponses and ideas to questons and topics. They could also be asked to comment on each others’ respones just as we did in this class. This commenting feature will help students to develop language skills and also promote group learning.
Besides the above ways of using blogs in the classroom, there are other ways also. For example, I could involve parents into the teaching and learning process. They could monitor their children’s learning and give me some suggestions at the same time.