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.