TASK: Provide your answer to the question below including supporting details for your opinion. You may include specific examples from your home country. In addition, you must respond to at least one comment made by one of your classmates.
What do you think is more important economic development, protecting the environment, or a combination of the two?
Friday, October 17, 2008
Friday, August 15, 2008
ELS San Antonio Digital Story Telling
This is a video my Digital Storytelinng students did to demonstrate grammar points they were learning in a Speaking and Structure class. They are looking forward to seeing comments about their video.
Thursday, July 17, 2008
Photostories by my students
I created a video bar on the right side of the page to show my students Photo stories that they did in class. I let them choose what subject they wanted to do. Three chose to do something about their hometowns or cuisine in their country. Two students recently quit smoking so they wanted to do a Photo story on smoking. All of them are very excited about people watching their stories and commenting about them, so I hope you will take a little time and tell them what you think.
Tuesday, April 17, 2007
Mad TV - Hooked on phonics
I found this video spoofing hooked on phonics and thought Dr. wright would get a kick out of it.
Saturday, March 31, 2007
Reading Prompt #10
We've talked a lot in class about how technology can be used to help ELLs learn English. The Internet is also an excellent resource for teacher professional development. Describe ways you have used Internet resources for your own professional development as a language teacher. If you haven't already done this, describe some of the resources in the Egbert chapter you would be interested in trying.
Next, briefly describe how images such as those from Flickr and other free photo sharing sites can be used in ESL classrooms.
I like the tappedin web page. To me, teaching, like learning is a collaborative activity in many respects and this web page allows teachers to network with other teachers and share ideas and activities. I think a resource like this can help alleviate the frustrations that teachers, especially teachers with limited technology experience, feel when dealing with new technologies. Teachers can go to this web site get answers and ideas. They have less pressure to constantly rely on their own creativity and where technology is concerned, talking to other teachers can stimulate your own creative juices. I think this can be particularly important for less experienced teachers. So to me, a tool like tappedin is invaluable for teacher professional development in the CALL realm. I couldn't help but notice that the teacher in the Egbert Chapter 10 scenario realized that her unpreparedness would effect her students benefit of technological tools. In my opinion, her supervisor should have had that same sense about her preparedness. As a leader, that supervisor should have made sure that she had the tools she needed to take full advantage of the computer lab. He set her up for failure by pushing her into the computer lab without ensuring she had the training she needed to make it a success. His failure to do so ended up trickling down to the students who ultimately found it as frustrating as the teacher did. As teachers we want to set our students up for success. The same holds true of school administration, if CALL is to be effective the teachers need to be set up for success as well. Ultimately each teacher is individually responsible for their classroom, but it is not unreasonable to support expectations that match what they are doing. Sorry, just couldn't help getting on that soap box. Now back to CALL. I really like bringing things like Flickr into the classroom. I know as a history buff and posting the Dachau and Verona pictures on my blog really made me feel empowered to write my own history. I know that seeing those things and being able to touch them gave me a much higher sense of involvement than just words alone. I have to admit it is really cool to see the things you've read so much about up close and personal. I think what I would do with Flickr is have my students do virtual field trips. I would let the students pick a topic that interest them and then search for pictures about that topic and then do a slide show that the narrate and/or sub title the slides with their own explanation of what the viewer is seeing or do actual field trips and give the students camera's to take their pictures and do the same thing.
Next, briefly describe how images such as those from Flickr and other free photo sharing sites can be used in ESL classrooms.
I like the tappedin web page. To me, teaching, like learning is a collaborative activity in many respects and this web page allows teachers to network with other teachers and share ideas and activities. I think a resource like this can help alleviate the frustrations that teachers, especially teachers with limited technology experience, feel when dealing with new technologies. Teachers can go to this web site get answers and ideas. They have less pressure to constantly rely on their own creativity and where technology is concerned, talking to other teachers can stimulate your own creative juices. I think this can be particularly important for less experienced teachers. So to me, a tool like tappedin is invaluable for teacher professional development in the CALL realm. I couldn't help but notice that the teacher in the Egbert Chapter 10 scenario realized that her unpreparedness would effect her students benefit of technological tools. In my opinion, her supervisor should have had that same sense about her preparedness. As a leader, that supervisor should have made sure that she had the tools she needed to take full advantage of the computer lab. He set her up for failure by pushing her into the computer lab without ensuring she had the training she needed to make it a success. His failure to do so ended up trickling down to the students who ultimately found it as frustrating as the teacher did. As teachers we want to set our students up for success. The same holds true of school administration, if CALL is to be effective the teachers need to be set up for success as well. Ultimately each teacher is individually responsible for their classroom, but it is not unreasonable to support expectations that match what they are doing. Sorry, just couldn't help getting on that soap box. Now back to CALL. I really like bringing things like Flickr into the classroom. I know as a history buff and posting the Dachau and Verona pictures on my blog really made me feel empowered to write my own history. I know that seeing those things and being able to touch them gave me a much higher sense of involvement than just words alone. I have to admit it is really cool to see the things you've read so much about up close and personal. I think what I would do with Flickr is have my students do virtual field trips. I would let the students pick a topic that interest them and then search for pictures about that topic and then do a slide show that the narrate and/or sub title the slides with their own explanation of what the viewer is seeing or do actual field trips and give the students camera's to take their pictures and do the same thing.
Monday, March 26, 2007
Software Evaluation #2: ESLReading Smart
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.
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.
Reading Prompt #9
Which of the limitations, caveats, and challenges with regards to computer assisted language learning apply to your current (or future) classrooms? How could these be overcome?
It seems to me that the biggest concern for teachers may be cultural differences in how copyrighted material is viewed and/or handled. Intellectual property rights are not necessarily universal. As a teacher, I think I would need to try and familiarize myself with how different cultures that are represented in my classroom may view both technology and the use of material that technology provides. Additionally, it seems to me that helping students learn the rules for referencing information is a critical part of developing academic proficiencies that students need to succeed long term in American schools, especially at the university level. I also was surprised by the students in Egbert Ch9 that had physical and developmental barriers to using computers successfully. I had not even thought of that until I read the chapter. I think I need to educate myself a little more on that one. I think the idea of having other forms of backup to the computer is definitely a good idea. I know that sometimes for older learners they just prefer good old books and paper and pencil. Something I need to consider since I really want to work with adults who may view themselves as to old to learn new tricks and resist the use of technology.
It seems to me that the biggest concern for teachers may be cultural differences in how copyrighted material is viewed and/or handled. Intellectual property rights are not necessarily universal. As a teacher, I think I would need to try and familiarize myself with how different cultures that are represented in my classroom may view both technology and the use of material that technology provides. Additionally, it seems to me that helping students learn the rules for referencing information is a critical part of developing academic proficiencies that students need to succeed long term in American schools, especially at the university level. I also was surprised by the students in Egbert Ch9 that had physical and developmental barriers to using computers successfully. I had not even thought of that until I read the chapter. I think I need to educate myself a little more on that one. I think the idea of having other forms of backup to the computer is definitely a good idea. I know that sometimes for older learners they just prefer good old books and paper and pencil. Something I need to consider since I really want to work with adults who may view themselves as to old to learn new tricks and resist the use of technology.
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