Podcast in Teaching

Recently I checked out the Educational Podcast Network. This is a websites full of educational resources in the podcast form. Many topics in this website can be used for educational purposes. For example, there is one podcast about the America's Thanksgiving, and it can be used in an history class. With this audio, teachers can introduce, from a special perspective, the history of World War II. This podcast is really authentic. It excerpts part of Winston Churchill's lecture before the America's Thanksgiving, talking about people from all of the world would soon be freed from the fear of German war. Using podcasts in history narration is always a good idea, because the podcasts can make the classroom vivid, and thus motivate students more to learn the somewhat tedious history.

Exploring the ePals

The website I'm going to introduce today is called ePals Global Community. ePals provides collaborative technology to help the schools, teachers and learners to connect with each other. It gives students the chances to learn under a intercultural context, working along with peers from other parts of the world. In other words, the students are learning within an authentic context. For the schools and teachers, ePals can be a chance for them to look for cooperation, or opportunity to exchange educational ideas, or even friends.

With the help of ePals, teachers can set up a project which provides the students with opportunities to research on a topic with peers from other places and culture. Students can email their peers, exchanging information and ideas with each other. From my point of view, on one hand, it is a GREAT environment for the students to learn because the input is quite comprehensive in this situation; on the other hand, when the students, especially those ESL/EFL students, are working on the projects, they are practicing their language skills at the same time. This is the feature I like most about ePals. In the future, I would love to use it in my classroom. I will try to choose a intercultural topic (holidays, etc), and encourage my students to communicate with voices from all over the world (introducing each other about their favorite holidays and making friends). I believe it will be a good chance for them to learn.

Another feature I love is the virtual field trip series. In this section, there are a lot of video clips introducing different places. The several clips I checked out are all made by the students themselves, and they are so cute! I feel like I'm there with all those lovely students. It's amazing because probably you cannot go there by yourself, but with the help of this feature, you get the chance to see the world from another perspective. Vice versa, I'd like to encourage my students to make videos themselves to introduce their hometown. I think they will like it. Also I am thinking 

This clip was made by the students from Ola School, Idaho USA.

Picture retrieved from: http://www.epals.com/blogs/film_festival/archive/2009/04/15/earth-day-film-festival.aspx

A Happy day --- Something you can create with Bookr

I recently created this using Bookr. And I will use it in my class. Because we are learning how to describe feelings and emotions now, I can use this storybook to help the students review related words, and provide them with some authentic context through telling them the story and showing them the pic book. With pictures, it is much more possible for the students to get the meaning of the whole story and each word; on the other hand, the students are probably intersted in the storybook and pictures so they are motivated more to learn.

I do feel it is a good way use picture tools like Flickr and Bookr in the classroom. I am pretty sure that my students will like them. Why don't you have a try?:) I'm convinced that incorpotating these things in the classroom will lead the teacher and students to an unexpected beautiful place

LIKE THIS ;-P

a little slice of heaven, and a little bit of you by notsogoodphotography
Attribution License

Burges Window --- Example of using a Flickr picture and attributing it to the creator

Bruges window by Monosnaps
Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike License

This picture is called Burges Window, and it was created by Monosnaps. The picture is retrieved from A Flickr CC search toy

Various types of creative commons licensing

This license lets others distribute, remix, tweak, and build upon your work, even commercially, as long as they credit you for the original creation. This is the most accommodating of licenses offered. Recommended for maximum dissemination and use of licensed materials.



This license lets others remix, tweak, and build upon your work even for commercial purposes, as long as they credit you and license their new creations under the identical terms. This license is often compared to “copyleft” free and open source software licenses. All new works based on yours will carry the same license, so any derivatives will also allow commercial use. This is the license used by Wikipedia, and is recommended for materials that would benefit from incorporating content from Wikipedia and similarly licensed projects.



This license allows for redistribution, commercial and non-commercial, as long as it is passed along unchanged and in whole, with credit to you.



This license lets others remix, tweak, and build upon your work non-commercially, and although their new works must also acknowledge you and be non-commercial, they don’t have to license their derivative works on the same terms.



This license lets others remix, tweak, and build upon your work non-commercially, as long as they credit you and license their new creations under the identical terms.



This license is the most restrictive of our six main licenses, only allowing others to download your works and share them with others as long as they credit you, but they can’t change them in any way or use them commercially.

Information retrieved from:
About the Licenses - Creative Commons, http://creativecommons.org/licenses/

How to integrate the microblogs into your classroom

This week we are dealing with the microblogs. So I am thinking about how to integrate them into my classroom to motivate my students' learning. Then I read some articles and searched on the websites about how other teachers deal with the microblogs like twitter. I came up with a couple of good ideas which I would like to share with all of you.


1. Teachers can post links of additional resources for their students on the microblogs for their students to check out.
2. Post a video for the students to check out.
3. Let the students post their idea on a certain topic on their microblogs. And let the students to leave comments and maybe do some discussion on each other's microblogs.
4. The students can post their questions on their own microblogs. Teachers or other students who have the answer can answer them.
5. Guide the students to follow people with expertise in certain fields. In this way, the students are expected to learn a lot from those people.
6. The students can follow daily updates like news or other things. In this way, they may practice their literacy skills. This is especially useful for those language learners. They can refine their reading skills by following those microblogs in the target language.


There are a lot more ideas can be found on the websites, I recommend the following link, and it does contain a lot of useful information.


50 ways to use twitter in college classroom
Tips for using twitter in the classroom

Integrating video games into your classroom!

Recently I have found a very interesting blog. It is about several video games which can be integrated into the classroom instruction. I found it on the Website of Larry Ferlazzo's Websites of the Day, and you can find the links as follows: Video Games in Classroom Instruction.

I find it interesting and useful. I have played a lot of video games before, and I am pretty sure that most of my students will be interested in those games. However, I never thought of integrating those games into my classroom instruction. Inspired by the author of the blog, I suddenly realize that we can use those games to make the teaching more interesting and funnier. Like in the escape game series, we can use it to teach prepositions or vocabularies or whatever you can find in this game. This game will definitely motivate the students to learn, and as teachers, you can make the students engage more in the class (As in the games there are always options for you to choose).

I will absolutely try it in my future classroom, and I believe that it will be great! I hope you guys can check it out, and maybe also try it sometimes. Trust me, it is going to be amazing!

A social networking group

Recently I found a social networking group: Technology Integration in Education


This group, as the name indicates, is about all kinds of technology which can be implemented in a classroom. I like the forum part and the blogs part so much because they provides all of the educators a place of exchanging information and ideas in the educational technology field. What is more, the group is not only about the language education, it includes the teaching of every other subjects. And it is always so exciting to get some ideas from a brand new perspective. For me, the website is really useful and I recommend it to all of you guys! Check it out!

Connectivism

In my opinion, the learners of today is like the beacon towers. The beacon tower is designed as a signaling or guiding device. The main function is to connect with other beacons to form a large "network". The learning environment today is like a big network. It is amazing because we can exchange a large amount of information with the help of technological tools like blogs, wikis, etc. It is possible now that we can acquire the information or knowledge we need in a very short time, no matter how abstruse the information is. To realize this, every learners will perform as a beacon tower, trying to link with each other to form a huge "information network", and provide useful information to other people.

In George Siemens's article, he holds a very similar view toward the learners of today. He contends that "The pipe is more important than the content within the pipe" (Siemens, 2005). From this, I think Siemens is trying to convey a notion that in this information age, it is more important for you get the ability of acquiring the information through the network, and serving as part of the information network, than the ability of simply having some knowledge. Also in the video - The Impact of Social Software on Learning, Siemens said that "I think in the learning today is one of forming networks with each other". Again he emphasizes the importance of networking, and that learners have to play the role of information exchangers.

I used to hear a saying that you can be connected to anyone in the world though six people around you. I believe in this, and I suppose that we are all connected with each other in this "network". On the basis, I guess if all of us can fully serve as the "light beacons", the amount of information we can access to will be unbelievable, and that should be a great thing for all of us, especially the learners.

Reference:

Connectivism: A Learning Theory for the Digital Age
The Impact of Social Software on Learning

A review of A Vision of K-12 Students Today

I recently watched this video: A Vision of K-12 Students Today

It is really an interesting video. It describes a vision of the students today in the clip that students will use engaging technologies in collaborative, inquiry-based learning environments with teachers who are willing and able to use technology's power to assist them in transforming knowledge and skills into produces, solutions, and new information. From the video we can learn that what 21st century learners usually do: they spend a lot time engaging with all kinds of technologies. They watch TV, use computer, listen to iPod, text messages, write blogs, and play games. It is apparently that the learners will spend a large amount of time in using all these technologies. And it is the learners' expectation that they want to share information with each other, and learn through using podcasts, blogs, wikis, etc. These kids in the video raise good question: why don't we apply those technologies in classroom when they really work, and the learner want them so badly?


BTW, the video itself is inspiring to me. No one says anything in this video, but definitely it is a good way of showing the students something. Surely I will try these kinds of technologies in my future teaching because I believe that learning by doing is a good way for the students to acquire knowledge.

Safe blogging

There are somethings we can do to guarantee the students' safe blogging:

1. Make sure the students understand the importance of not sharing certain information, like their full name, name of the school they attend, address, age or phone number with people they (or you) have never met in person.


2. Screen what the students plan to post before they post it. Seemingly innocuous information, such as a school mascot and town photo, could be put together to reveal where the author goes to school.


3. Blogs are places that the students tend to let their guard down. Share with students the importance of not telling everyone exactly what they are doing, or do on a regular basis through their blog. Encourage them instead to stick to “social” information, such as music, movie and other wide spread interests.


4. If the students are active in chatrooms, ask that they not use their real name as their blog or chat name that is displayed to other users.


5. Establish rules for online use with your kids and be diligent.


6. Ask yourself (and instruct your kids to do the same) if you are you comfortable showing any of the content to a stranger. If in doubt, have them take it out.


7. Evaluate the blogging service and find out if it offers private, password-protected blogs.


8. Save the Web address of your child's blog and review it on a regular basis.


9. Check out other blogs to find positive examples for your kids to emulate.


10. Tell the students not to post any provocative pictures.


11. Let the students know what they post online is permanent. Teach them to change privacy settings when necessary.


12. Ask the students to keep blogs positive and don't use them for slander or attack others.

Something more about the safely blogging can be found in the following link:

Safely Blogging

Using blogs in teaching

It's really an exciting idea to use blogs in our daily teaching, and I cannot wait to try it in my own classroom. Here are some of the ways I think I can try later after reading the books.

    Firstly, we can use the blogs as online filing cabinet. The students can post their work online for peer and teacher response. They can archive their work online, and this creates a space for an online portfolio of work. And they can refer back to it anytime they want. It is really cool because the students can trace back the way they made improvement and grew up by revisiting their blogs. And it should give them a sense of fulfillment. At the same time, it is easier for the instructor to give in-time suggestions or grade to the students. Or in other words, the students and the teachers can interact with each other better.

    We can also use blogs to create spaces where students can collaborate with others online. Students can use the blogs to share information with their peers, teachers, or even some other person like a author, etc. In this way we can coorperatively accomplish a task or share the information with each other without seeing each other. It is good because in some situation it is really difficult to find a time available to everyone to have a face-to-face meeting.

    I also think using blogs in classroom is a non-stop trend of moving curriculum to a digital, online environment. As teachers, we can post course curriculum, syllabus, class rules, homewok assignments, rubrics, handouts, and presentations on the blog for the convinience of both instructors and students. In this way, the students can always be clear about what they need to do for the course. Thus, it is less possible for them to miss the important things of class.