Words to the New Technology Group.

Time flies! Another course's going to be done! I am now missing the lecture and other classmates even though it is so exhausting to be concentrated for another 3 hours after working for long hours. A thousand thanks to Chirs for being always so helpful and my dearest group members. I miss the time when we worked together for the project. It is blessful to meet you all.

Reflection on Week 7 Reading

Although the project using a foreign language Interactive Videodisc Courseware was done in Taiwan, where students learn English as a Foreign Language, I think the findings have important teaching implications in Hong Kong, too. IVD may be especially helpful to university students graduating from CMI secondary school.

As the writer points out, IVD provides the messages on realistic life, visual support and demonstrate how language are used in a great variety of contexts. IVD is more entertaining. All these elements make IVD more attractive and impressive than the printed version.

Learners will also be able to pick up the accent, intonation and stress from the IVD materials.

Reference
Hsien-Chin Liou

Another 'Susan Boyle' from Taiwan

A latest rising star from a Taiwan Talent show. As shown in the the following video, he can't even handle with daily conversation but he has perfect pronuniciation when he sings. That stimulate and encourage us, teachers, not to give up our kids. There's a way for them to enjoy learning English when English learning is part of their interests and hobbies. As what he says, 'there's a reason for everybody's existence in this world and the best way to get back to them is to be more successful'.

Justin Bieber

The latest hit among teenagers. A youtube sensation who makes my girls screaming and my boys keeping talking about him in the spare time.

Even the weak achievers in the English class manage to sing his one less lonely girl.

Justin Bieber and Usher in Ellen Show



Justin Bieber One Less Lonely Girl


Justin Bieber Baby

Hotpotatoes

With the Hotpotatoes, teachers can design a range of online tasks such as matching exercises, MC questions, Fill in the blanks and so on. The online exercies boost learners' autonomy and foster independent self learning. Teaching and learning becomes more efficient since learners can get immediate hints and feedback and assessment results from the computer.

As we all know, students are exposed to an explosively large amount of information through the internet. There is so much information that learners may feel lost and confused. What matters most is how to guide students to process appropriate materials. Hotpatoes exercises will help to scaffold students with proper language input. They will guide students to select suitable online materials for the more interactive task such as blogging. Hotpotatoes exercises are especially important for young learners to prevent that learners may be scared away from the highly difficult authentic online materials.

How Blogging Helps to Teach Writing - A Review on the Writing Task from Our Group Project

From the previous activities, students have learned vocabulary to describe and comment on food. They have also picked up the comparative and superlative structure, which are essentially important for a good review.

This short writing task is interactive and student-centred. They need to use the vocabulary and sentence pattern they have learned to write a review on their favouite restaurant. The guided questions are provided to help the weak learners.

Wikis pages have been set up for every student named according to their class number. They need to locate their wikis page before they rename the page with their class number, names and the name of their own restaurant. Except the language output, students are encouraged to upload photos, insert links of the webpages about the restaurant in their review so that their classmates can explore more about the restaurant browsing the internet. In this way, authentic online materials are integrated into the peer learning process. Online materials chosen and recommended by their classmates are better than those by the teacher because teachers may select materials far beyond students’ comprehension level.

The forum also provides an interactive platform by allowing students to reply to other learners’ reviews.

Modifying our group project

As for the group project, I am the one to design the last writing task where students need to produce an 80-word review and comment on their classmates' reviews. We need to establish a platform for students to interact with each other online. Originally, we plan to ask students to write their reviews in teh comment box and leave their names in the end. It involves fewer technologies. But it is quite messy for both teachers and learners to locate a specific review. According to the integrative CALL, Learners should learn both the language and technologies at the same time. Therefore, our group decided to set up a specific page for each participant. The outcome consists not only the 80-word review and two 30-word responses and a viewer-friendly webpage. All the three components are to be marked.

Exs created by Mandy

animal quiz

fill in the blanks

Response to Dr Hafner's post on the hotpotatoes

The hotpotatoes can be useful but we may get burned if it is too hot.

As a quiz-creating tool, the hotpotatoes is very user-friendly. Teachers do not need to be an IT expert to apply it. It is less time-consuming but more interesting since online multi-mode texts such as audio-visual materials can modified and integrated. In a way, the hotpotatoes makes teaching environmentally friendly, too, since paper can be saved by using e-learning materials. It is convenient for students, too. They can seek help online if they have difficulty while hints can be set with the hotpotatoes for the students who get the wrong answers so that students can get immediate feedback. Moreover, different quizzes can be presented in a tidy and systematic way so that students do not have to spend time filing the weeksheets and risk losing them. I think the hotpotatoes acts as great extended self-learning materials. The online quizzes serve as a good source of daily marks. But we can’t set heavy weighting because learners can cheat with the convenience of internet.

Although the hotpotatoes can assist classroom teaching, it is not perfect. I agree with Clair that most of the quizzes are drilling exercises, a type of behaviorist CALL. The exercises created by the hotpotatoes is not so interactive and authentic. Teachers should be not stuff learners with large amounts of online quizzes just for the sake of being technology-oriented. In fact, it goes back to the same view point that I have learned from the article by Mark Warschauer, all the technologies are not important in themselves but the way they are used to help with student-centred collaborative language teaching and learning.

Responses to Two Course Readings

Reading Computer Assisted Language Learning: an Introduction by Mark Warschauer, I have better understood how the different modes of CALL have influenced our daily teaching. Take the online program, English builder, which our school is using, for example. It is actually a type of drill and practice program based on the behaviourist CALL. The computer is used as tutor. The computer is supposed to be the knower of the right answer. Students need to do listening, reading, writing and speaking exercises and the right answer and elaboration is provided by the computer rather than the teacher.
But the communicative and integrative CALL remind me that behaviourist CALL is not interactive and the language learning will be limited if learners can not communicate naturally and authentically. Teachers should adopt different technologies appropriately so that students can be stimulated to discuss and share and think by using the target language in a critical way. While students may be asked to express their opinions on the same topic on a blog or the blackboard, they may also make comments on and give responses to their group members’ post.
According to the chapter about Language Teaching and the Internet, autonomous learning, collaborative learning, cross-cultural learning, and critical learning are the important learning goals. Students must learn both the new technologies and the language together. More project learning and student-centre learning activities should be integrated into our teaching practice. Computer technologies and internet make it possible for students to first work on their own and then combine the works of all group members and modify the whole with suggestions from others.

After reading the two articles, I bear in mind that all the new technologies are not important in themselves but the way they are used to help with language teaching and learning. I used to use the computer technologies and the internet more as tool and tutor rather than stimulus in my class. Sometimes it was used for the purpose of integrating technologies. But how useful and effective were they in the language teaching and learning? I myself am in doubt of it. From now on I will try my best to use the technologies in the purpose of facilitating student-centered learning in a collaborative and critical way.

Webquest

Webquest uses online information and resources to design learning activities which requires high-level thinking skills. With Webquest teachers are able to carry out more project, problem, inquiry-based activities. The four samples provided have well elaborated how students solve problems, or use the internet resources to look for questions being asked. For example, in Dinosaurs before Dark, students need to document the Dinosaurs they meet in the book. Guided questions are well set. For example, students need to search if Frog Creek, Pennsylvania is a real place using the US postal service. Please refer to http://questgarden.com/52/36/4/070612201403/process.htm. By doing this, students can relate the reading to the real life. Webquest bridges well the classroom learning with the real life. Compared with the first sample, the rest three samples have tasks which are more demanding and require more problem solving skills. They require more collaboration work between peers.
I think Webquest implies integrative CALL because with the tool have successfully show a good way how students are able to pick up the technologies and the language together. Definitely I would try to implement it in my daily teaching. It is very useful to the project learning with all the learning materials and outcomes well filed. But when I design my own webquest file, I must select the resources carefully and provide clear and direct references so that my students, a group of low –achieving ESL learners, will not be scared by links full of incomprehensible English. Moreover, the four samples mainly provide reading and writing exercises. For my own webquest, I would try to use the video files as well so that students are able to practice their listening and reading skills. For example, sound tracks can be added to each chapter in the first sample, Dinosaurs before Dark.
Besides, I would have a try on other online programs such as Filamentality, zWebQuest ,and PHPWebQuest. I am the most interested on Filamentality because both teachers and learners in the 21st century are facing one problem, namely, how to search the relevant information in the era of information explosion.

How do I view new technologies before the course

Teaching in a low-banding CMI secondary school, I use new technologies like internet, computer, and camera in my teaching from time to time.
I rely a lot on the internet for searching useful information. Take the module on chimpanzees, for example. Photos about chimpanzees and its habitat were downloaded. Internet articles were modified and worksheets were designed depending on the information from Wikipedia (www.wikipedia.com).
Except the printed materials, I use youtube (www.youtube.com) a lot in my class to introduce hot social events and popular culture to my students because most of them do not use English in their personal life because of their low social-economic background.
Powerpoint helps a lot with my lesson presentation so that I do not need to write much on the blackboard. But sometimes the effectiveness of the lesson is restricted because of this. Students’ responses go far beyond what have been prepared. Sometimes it accounts for the fact that the lesson is quite teacher-centred. Students find the class not interactive.
I believe I can learn more ways to get myself out of the trap so that I can make full use of different types of new technologies to assist my teaching.

Useful Links

http://dictionary.cambridge.org/
http://www.howjsay.com/