Podcasting

Podcasting is a new way to record and follow the information you want and you need( radio, episode...etc.) anywhere, anytime.

I found a Podcasting which called "Kid Friday". Kid Friday has kid's name Zoe and other kids on the radio. They talks about many topics on this radio, like Apple products, Apps, tech for kids, websites...etc. I can connect this Podcasting in my classroom by asking students to listen to it everyday. They talks about variety of topics. After students listened to it, we can discuss the topic in the classroom. Talking about the topic they like could raise their interests. Also, have students try to listen to Kid Friday could help them to get used to listen to English and improve their listening skills.

What is the best? If students cannot listen on time, they could download it and listen to it after they have time. Moreover, it is a very good habit for students to keep their listening habit. For those students who are more audio, it would really help them to improve and learn fast.

It would be cool to involve Podcasting into classroom.

ePals

When I was in school, my classmates and I are always arguing about emails. In the Business Writing class, our teacher ask us to use e-mail to contact with each others. However, because everyone uses different email account, like gmail, yahoo, hotmail...ect. Therefore, missing emails often happen.

Now, there's new thing for us to try!!! ePals, which could help students on their communication.
By using ePals, students and peers could send mail and messages to each others. They don't have to worry about missing emails again. Moreover, they could send messages immediately, practicing using emails to work with others and engaged parents into the class. This would be very helpful for the kids in high school.

In my future class, I would ask my students to set up an account in classroom. Then, they will have to hand in their assignments by ePals, communicate with their classmates by ePals and learn workplace skills. It would be especially useful if I am teaching a class like Business Writing. Students could use ePals to be familiar with the environment of offices. Also, I could talk to the parents about how their kids are doing in the class. Moreover, parents could engaged with their children by doing assignments and school works together.

Now, let's ePals!!!

Story time!!

Tell story with only pictures??
It's already old fashioned!!


Try our slideshow maker at Animoto.

Nowadays, people tell stories in a cool and fashion way.
Animoto, which is a place to make short digital video. This is a very easy place for novice to learn even if they don't have any experiences on making digital story book. It is actually very good for teacher to teach students on using digital to make story book and tell story or to introduce something.

This kind of digital story telling is actually good for the classroom. What teacher could do is assign a topic like festival, unforgettable experience, introduce your family or friends. Then, students could make their own digital story and share with their classmates. Moreover, they could keep the video for a very long time. By doing so, students could learn how to make video, tell the story, and cooperate (if teacher assign students work in a group). The best thing is, this kind of story telling could use in a very wide range of students. They would all make it if they are over 3 grade in elementary school. What they have to have is only know how to use computer.

For myself, I would definitely use this tool to teach my students. Digital thing could always attract students' attention. Also, they could learn a new topic by making a video. Moreover, they would have a very good chance to practice their oral skills. 

Ready?
Let, tell a story!!!

Let's tell story by digital.

Digital story telling could be fun!!!
This is the digital story book of mine!!

In the classroom, teacher could set up a topic like "Travel" and show students about what she has done. Like the example above. Digital storytelling would be a lot of fun if teacher use it in ESL classroom. With students from all of the world, they definitely would have different culture and adventure to share.

Bookr, where I and my students could create our own story book in a very convenient and easy way. Students could have a lot of fun during making their own story book. Also, they would be very eager to show others their own country or cultures. Students could learn not only culture but also how to express. They will have to introduce their story to others, therefore, they will have a chance to learn how to do a presentation and how to make it fun!!

All in all, combining digital story book in the classroom especially like ESL classroom. Assign for a topic. Then we could see students amazing creativity!!!

New way to tell stories- Digital storytelling.

We could tell the story by ourselves, why use digital one??

Photo by Profusions

Digital telling is actually a new way to use video or picture to tell the story. Why do we need it?


The definition of "Digital storytelling" is the practice of using computer-based tool to tell stories. Most digital storytelling focus more on specific topic and contained a particular point of view.

Actually, in this new technology century, people are eager to use technology to combine with many things.One of the thing people do is combine story telling with digital. By using pictures or images to tell story, it would actually attract people's attention. Moreover, recognize how sharing and bearing witness to stories can lead to learning, action, and positive change. (Center from Digital Story Telling).

For my class in the future, I would definitely use digital story telling to teach and to interact with students. By using digital story telling, teacher could express their ideas more clear. Also, for those students who are visual learners, it would help them learn more efficiently. On the other hand, students could learn and have fun while they are searching videos or youtube on the web (The Educational Uses of Story Telling.) Moreover, teacher and students could create their own time machine. While teacher and students work together, the could learn from not only the topic but from each others.

                  

Teach by Micrioblog- Twitter

This is a century that almost everyone use internet to cope with all the things. They find information from the internet, social with others on blogs and share their feelings and actions on social groups like facebook and Twitter.

To make the class even more interesting than before, what teachers could do is connect the class with what students are using in their daily life, Twitter, for example. For me, personally, I like to use microblogs to communicate with others. How to make it connected to my own teaching? Let me tell you what I am going to do.

1. Sending information.
Twitter is a place for posting instant information. What I will do is post any info. which is related to my teaching on the Twitter. Students could immediately see what I am posting. For example, I could post a message like: Watch this video which is about phonics. Then students could watch it right away. Also, I could use Twitter to send homework to them.  More importantly, I could review what I taught on the Twitter. I could create a questions which are related to my teaching and ask students to reply the answer. I think they would rather answer it online instead of writing it out and hand in to me. (

Teach with Twitter? Read This!)

2. Stay connected with students.
With the Twitter. I could clearly know how students are doing on their school work. Moreover, I could know more about my own students. By reading their posts, I could understand my students more. What is more, if the student have problems or facing some difficulties, I could immediately provide helps. Sometime, some students are afraid to tell teachers what is going on with them if they have some difficulties. At this time, Twitter really will help!!

3. Play games.
Class will be funnier if it is connected with games. I could set up a  game on Twitter and all of my students could get involved. For example, I could set up a games call create a cool sentence. The one who create the coolest sentence will win the game. By posting their answers on the Twitter, not only me but students could see other's answer. They could learn from their peers. With the competition, students would get more aggressive on their learning.

(28 Creative Ways Teachers Are Using Twitter)

All in all, Microblogs really could help teachers on teaching a lot. Using it well could not only improve the quality of teacher's teaching but also could improve the relationship between teachers and students. For me, I would really want to give it a try on teaching my students.

Social Network Group

Social Network group is very famous these years. Facebook, for example has been used all over the world. The benefits from social network groups is that information could be spread easily. This means that if there are new information or news, people could get immediately. 

Using social networking group is good for teacher because we could get new info. fast. If there are new teaching methods, teachers could learn and use it as soon as they know it. I, personally have been using Facebook for a very long time. From, using it, I realize two things. First of all, if there are news or information, I could know in a very short time, even it is a news from the opposite side of the world. Secondly, if I have questions, I could get the answer very fast. People could provide different views of it. 

Therefore, when I look through the social networking groups like, Ning, Classroom 2.0, EVOline2002...etc. I found out that EFL Classroom 2.0 is most useful for me. EFL Classroom 2.0 is a social networking group that has many people who are interested in EFL/ TEFL in it. They provides their ideas about teaching and post some new content. 

The reason that I choose EFL Classroom 2.0 is because that they have all kinds of tools and information that I could get from it. For example, in the section called EFL 2.0, I could find the classroom featured which is Teaching Young Learners. In this section, there are articles like "10 ideas for teaching YLs" and all kinds of blogs. Also, there are sections like "Teach", "Learn", "Play", "Read" to help teachers with teaching.

It is a very useful social networking group for me. As a fresh teacher who do not have enough experiences, I believe by using EFL 2.0, I could learn a lot from it. Also, if I have questions, I could get the answer from other experienced teachers. Teaching, after all, is about learning experiences. Others' experiences really could help new teachers to improve fast.

EFL 2.0:http://community.eflclassroom.com/group/teachingyounglearners

A teacher is like...

Teacher has been seen as an irrigator who keep teaching and providing information for learners. Learners on the other hand is like a planet. What they only need to do is absorb the knowledge that teacher provides. However, thanks to the invention of computer and new technologies, things has changed.

For me, I think teachers nowadays is like a tour guide.

They lead learners to the area that they are going to learn, provide them the basic information and knowledge. Teachers recently changed they way they teach as before. They do not need to teach everything but to let students experience by their own. Information learning is a significant aspect of our knowledge. Therefore, formal education no longer comprise the majority of our learning.  According to Karen Stephenson, " Experience has long been considered the best teacher of knowledge. Since we cannot experience everything, other people's experiences, and hence other people become the surrogate for knowledge. ' I store my knowledge in my friends' is an axiom for collecting knowledge through collecting people.'"  As the result, teachers as a tour guide could not only teach knowledge from books but could also share their own experiences of it.

Learners now also learn from the Networks. Teachers, who have more experiences help learners to form the connection between people, groups, and also computer. They help students on the Network learning, From "The Changing Nature Of Knowledge" by Siemens elaborates on Connectivism, he states that "The learners themselves, they connection they form with each other. The connection they form with data bases and other sources of knowledge is really the primary point of learning."  So, learners have to learn how to use all the information they get and put them together as their own knowledge. At this time, teachers play a very important role which is to guide. 

The learning environment is changing. Teacher teach knowledge from context and students learn is no longer exist. What learning environment that learners have is all connected with computer and network. Teachers is like a tour guide who lead learners to where they are, tell them what that is and help them to understand more. More importantly is to teach them how self- organized which is the capacity to form connections between sources of information, and thereby create useful information patterns.

Article:http://www.itdl.org/Journal/Jan_05/article01.htm

Preschool Kids-One of those who changes the world.

Preschool kids are naughty and full of energy! They could spend all day just to jump, shout, and running around. They are cute but sometimes act like evil! Preschool children are NAIVE  :)

Preschool learners are not mature enough; therefore, sometimes teacher needs to spend more time on understanding what they are thinking and what is best way to teach and to communicate with them. I, myself, is interested in teaching learners who are from K-12. As a result, I found this blog interesting. 

Teacher Tom- One of those who changes the world.

http://teachertomsblog.blogspot.com/2011/09/one-of-those-who-changes-world.html

Teacher Tom is a preschool teacher. He spend time on writing blogs about his preschool children, like what he design for his learners, how they react in or out of the classroom, and how to teach them. Because of his hard working, he receive the Best Teacher Blog at year 2010. From his blog, I could understand and learn a lot about how preschool students are like and they behave. It really helps me to prepare for the future class. I was so impressed and excited when I found this blog. The reason is because that his blog not only write in words but also have pictures about children. It really catch my eyes and would want to keep reading. For my future, I don't expect myself as a super teacher on preschool area. However, I expect myself as a teacher who understand my students and provide as much help as I could.

This post is talking about a little girl who is 5-year-old and said " You can't play..." with her classmates. From this article, I started to think about how this might happen in my future classroom. Kids started to develop their relationship as soon as they get in to school. This is when they begin to learn how to get along with each other. However, they might fight, argue, or yell at each other sometimes. Then, at this time, how teacher behave and react is very important. We will have to talk to not only kids, but also his/her family to understand what is actually going on. As my experiences, I had saw some teachers would just yell at the children and ask them to stop saying this. However, it would not help but will hurt kids' feeling. What we should do instead is to talk to the students and let her/his to know it is not right to say like that, it should be like.... Teacher Tom had mention about a book "You Can't Say You Can't Play' which was written by Vivian Gussin Paley rule. This book talks about the rules for students. I think I will try to find the book and read what is in there!!. 

A Vision of K-12 students Today.

 Vision of K-12 students

Kids who are born at 21 Centuries are special. They grow up in the environment with high-tech. They started to watch TV, listen to iPod, play computer games since they were small. As the result, they feel more familiar with having high-tech around.

However, many teachers in the school do not use technology to teach them. As the video shows, 76% of the teachers do not use Wikis, blogs, and podcasts to teach young generation. Moreover, 63% of the teachers never let students create with technologies. To tell the truth, what are kids going to learn when they are in school? They hope they can create, consume, remix, and also share information with other classmates. But, indeed, they cannot.


For modern students, they spend 3.5 hours playing games, 16.5 hours watching TV, 5.5 hours using computer, and 4 hours listening to ipod. Yet, they ONLY spend 2 hours  to read in a week. Furthermore, they use cellphone to text, use instant messages to communicate with each others. Their parents also use e-mail to contact. In the world like this, how can teachers still use those old strategies to teach? Students who still learn by repeating the words feel curious about its effect. Does keep repeating words like "cat, cat, cat" can really help them to remember the word? Definitely, using high-tech like camera, computer and muti-media would work better.

Learning for kids do not have limit. They started to learn everything since they were born. Therefore, their learning should be "WWW" which is whatever, whenever, and wherever. This would be the best for them. By using technologies to learn, they could understand how to think on their own, to create, to analyze, to evaluate, and to apply on what they have learned. Children nowadays are digital learners. So, teachers who plays a very important role in their life should improve. Engage them with high-tech, connected to the world.

Announcement: Teachers, stop using traditional ways to teach. Engage with technologies!!!!

Is it true that Technology will replace teacher?

Technology makes our life better. However, the question raised, "Is it true that Technology will replace teacher?"

Some of the teachers are afraid that using technology will replace them especially when it comes to online courses. Will technology expand in the future from this complementary role to replace teacher? Actually, according to Clifford in 1987, "A rational response to this question might be that technology will not replace teacher. But, will replace teacher who do not use it."

There are several reasons that indicate teachers will not be replaced by technology.
First of all, people still feel more comfortable when they are communicating with people. Therefore, once students have questions, they still feel more comfortable to discuss with teacher face to face. Then, it would be better to talk directly face to face if students wants to ask questions. It would avoid misunderstanding. Last, if students are taking the class which is teaching by records, they could not immediately raise their hands and ask questions. The most important point is that teachers could take care of the students.Therefore, teachers are still needed in this century.

Internet safety.

My dear students,

I know you all like spend all of your time on serving the Internet, posting messages online, and copying information. However, sometimes it is not as safe as you think. Crimes could be committed on the Internet, like stalking, fishing, and identity thief. Therefore, there are several points that I would want you to avoid.

1. Guard your financial information.
    When you are shopping online, be careful about the websites you are buying things. Check if the billing system is safe or not. Sometimes your financial information could easily be stolen while you are paying bills online.

2. Be aware of imposters (Cheater).
   Be careful when you are talking to a strangers online. Sometimes, exposing your own personal information to a stranger is not a smart thing. Some strangers would pretend to be your friends and ask about our own information like your credit card number, your family members..etc Sometimes trouble begins here.

3. Keep your e-mail account safe.
    Be aware of e-mail account and the passwords. Avoid using e-mail at public computer. Sometimes the passwords would be stolen by others. Moreover, be careful not using e-mail to send information like bank account and personal ID. Never response to a e-mail that ask for your own identity.

4. Do not visit some strange websites.
    Some of the websites do not clearly point out what it is about. They only put some fancy titles on it. Avoid entering those websites. Sometimes they will make your internet shut down or affected by virus.

5.  Turn on the firewall.
     This could help prevents hackers from getting information such as passwords to bank account or other information they could use to steal funds or steal your identity.


Here is the video of Being Smart Online.

Here is an article about " Safety rules for kids who use the Internet."

http://crime.about.com/od/online/qt/kidsonline.htm

Three ways to teach by blog.

1. Communication
Standard 1.1Students engage in conversations, provide and obtain information, express feelings and emotions,
and exchange opinions.

Students at 21 Century are modern. They use internet to communicate and to get information. They do not spend time on looking information in the library as often as before. Moreover, they feel more comfortable to communicate with others by new techniques like texting messages, posting information on facebook, and writing blogs. Therefore, they could feel more relax while teachers are teaching them with the technology they are using, blog, for example.

In Taiwan, most people use a blog called " Plurk". Plurk is a place similar to Twitter. It is well-used in our country. I believe it is a good place to use for teaching because almost everybody use it and it is easy to use. I could post a new knowledge that I am going to teach. For instance, I want to teach a new term called "cognitive". I could post the definition of cognitive and some related information about it. Then, students could started to leave messages about what they know about cognitive and ask questions. Plurk would be good to use because students could immediately reply on it with their own internet language. They are already familiar with this tech, so they won't feel stress on it. By chatting and posting, students could remember the term easier.


2. Comparison
 Standard 4.2 Students demonstrate understanding of the concept of culture through comparisons of the      cultures studied and their own.

By using blog, students could post any findings. Teacher could post a topic related to culture and provide some information or instruction he/she want students to discuss. On the blog, students could express their ideas and personal experiences. Other students could see the opinion and support or disagree with it. Students could also learn other countries' culture by comparing theirs with others. Every posts will show at the blog, so that everyone would not miss the information. Also, posing response and opinion is in time. They could do it whenever they want to. Students can definitely learn by reading all the post. At least, they could know more about other countries' culture.

3.Community
Standard 5.2 Students show evidence of becoming lifelong learners by using the language for personal enjoyment and enrichment.

The best thing of using blog is that teachers could always connect it with websites like youtube or news. Most of the learners would like the videos better than just reading. Therefore, teachers could put on some videos or music or movies that is related to the topic. Students usually could have deeper memories after watch the videos. Therefore, next time when they look at the topic, they could easily build up a image of it. It is good especially for those learners who are audio learners. Also, by using these technology, students could try to listen to the target language they are learning. By posting messages in target language and watching or reading in target languages, they could learn it faster than just focusing on text books. Once they are familiar on writing  comments on blog, they could improve fast. Not only the terms they are using, but new information they are absorbing. Most importantly, blog could use for a very long time. As a result, they could learn as much as they like. They could also get sense of achievement by posting messages on it.

Hello

Hello, This is Wei Ju Chen. You can call me Alice :) Nice to meet you all!!!!