Title of Software:
Producer: Alloy Multimedia
Proficiency level (e.g., beginning, intermediate, advanced): beginning, intermediate and advanced students grades 4-12
Description: It is a reading and writing program that is designed for students in the above grades and proficiency level. It is very flexible and allows teachers to tailor to specific student needs. It provides multicultural readings and is backed by research conducted by prominent researchers in the second language learning field, for example Krashen and Cummins. The activities are fairly intuitive, but appear pretty easy to teach to a student who may lack some basic computer skills. It also allows for collaborative activities for the students and provides excellent lesson plans and teaching suggestions for teachers. Additionaly, all the materials are printable so if a teacher has limited computers or special needs students they can print the lessons to help overcome these challenges.
Evaluation:
What are the program’s strengths or weaknesses? There are three things that I think are real strengths for this program. First, the definite attention given to providing reading materials from a large variety of cultural backgrounds. Second, the program is designed to meet the objectives of state learning standards. Third, the program has 24/7 customer support and provides updates as technologies change.
Do you feel it would be effective for helping ELLs learn English? Why or why not? I think the variety of activities and readings definitely are advantageous for language learners and it appears to really focus on developing academic skills and vocabulary that we learned form Chapter 1 of Cummins are a problem area for ELLs at the 4th grade and beyond.
Would you use it in your classroom? Why or why not? I would definitely use this program in my classroom. Mainly because the software conforms to y intuitions as a teacher of how to teach reading and writing, especially the idea of exposing students to different genres of writing and teaching strategies for dealing with the way different types of information are presented to the learner.
What method or approach to language teaching does this program appear to represent? To me this program supports the communicative classroom very well, and the reading and writing assignments are very much like Cummins and others have described as the best way to teach reading and writing in the second language classroom. I particularly like the potential for bringing students' own cultural background into the classroom and the opportunity for transformational activities to build on what the students may already know. personally, I think this is the best CALL program I have seen so far.
Showing posts with label Software Evaluation. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Software Evaluation. Show all posts
Monday, March 26, 2007
Monday, February 12, 2007
Software Evaluation # 1 Auralog: Tell Me More Education
Title of Software: Tell Me More Education
Producer: Auralog
Target students (e.g., age or grade-level of students): The portion of the demo I saw seemed to be most appropriate for older students, perhaps 7-12 or adult students.
Proficiency level (e.g., beginning, intermediate, advanced): Intermediate, although the demo didn't allow me to see any other level of proficiency.
Description:
Provide a brief description of what the program is, what it does, how it looks, how the user interacts with it, etc.
The activity I was able to interact with was a trip to New York. The demo puts the user at customs in the airport in New York and you must interact with a customs agent. It had effective photos to support the language use. Additionally, there were also individualized activities to allow the learner to work on pronunciation, vocabulary, grammar, associated with the scenario. I particularly like the pronunciation activity that lets the learn via an oscilloscope compare their pronunciation to the pronunciation of a native speaker at both the word and sentence level. I would have liked to have gone through some of the lessons for lower proficiency level students to see what they were asked to do or see what some of the other lessons in order to gain a full range of what the program offers in terms of content.
Language skills targeted: listening, speaking, reading and writing. Also included grammar and vocabulary exercises.
Evaluation:
What are the program’s strengths or weaknesses? Do you feel it would be effective for helping ELLs learn English? Why or why not? Would you use it in your classroom? Why or why not? What method or approach to language teaching does this program appear to represent?
Based on what the demo allowed me to do I think the real strength of this program is the ability to tailor lessons to the individual learner targeting their strengths and weaknesses. I don' think the program lends itself well to collaborative learning although creativity by the teacher could probably overcome this apparent weakness. I do think the program is engaging and interesting and would help ELLs with acquiring English. Although, I think it is somewhat scripted and doesn't necessarily allow the learner to create language use, but the scenario I ran through was realistic. I think I would use it in the classroom, but perhaps only for individualized learning, focusing on what I think is the program's strength; addressing specific learner's weaknesses. I don't know that I got to see enough of the program to determine its overall value for collaborative learning. The program claims to address any methodology and I think based on the demo that is true, to a degree, because once again I thought the scenario was scripted. Not a lot of room for the learner to create their own answers. Overall, I liked the program and would definitely consider using it in my classroom.
Producer: Auralog
Target students (e.g., age or grade-level of students): The portion of the demo I saw seemed to be most appropriate for older students, perhaps 7-12 or adult students.
Proficiency level (e.g., beginning, intermediate, advanced): Intermediate, although the demo didn't allow me to see any other level of proficiency.
Description:
Provide a brief description of what the program is, what it does, how it looks, how the user interacts with it, etc.
The activity I was able to interact with was a trip to New York. The demo puts the user at customs in the airport in New York and you must interact with a customs agent. It had effective photos to support the language use. Additionally, there were also individualized activities to allow the learner to work on pronunciation, vocabulary, grammar, associated with the scenario. I particularly like the pronunciation activity that lets the learn via an oscilloscope compare their pronunciation to the pronunciation of a native speaker at both the word and sentence level. I would have liked to have gone through some of the lessons for lower proficiency level students to see what they were asked to do or see what some of the other lessons in order to gain a full range of what the program offers in terms of content.
Language skills targeted: listening, speaking, reading and writing. Also included grammar and vocabulary exercises.
Evaluation:
What are the program’s strengths or weaknesses? Do you feel it would be effective for helping ELLs learn English? Why or why not? Would you use it in your classroom? Why or why not? What method or approach to language teaching does this program appear to represent?
Based on what the demo allowed me to do I think the real strength of this program is the ability to tailor lessons to the individual learner targeting their strengths and weaknesses. I don' think the program lends itself well to collaborative learning although creativity by the teacher could probably overcome this apparent weakness. I do think the program is engaging and interesting and would help ELLs with acquiring English. Although, I think it is somewhat scripted and doesn't necessarily allow the learner to create language use, but the scenario I ran through was realistic. I think I would use it in the classroom, but perhaps only for individualized learning, focusing on what I think is the program's strength; addressing specific learner's weaknesses. I don't know that I got to see enough of the program to determine its overall value for collaborative learning. The program claims to address any methodology and I think based on the demo that is true, to a degree, because once again I thought the scenario was scripted. Not a lot of room for the learner to create their own answers. Overall, I liked the program and would definitely consider using it in my classroom.
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