Where Turkey Is The Guest, Not The Entree

Thanks to my teacher, I have used NPR to practice my listening skill before. I found out it is quite interesting and amazing to gain so many news and information by this prod casting website. Although sometimes I could not get the meaning clearly, it has summary for the story under the title. It made easier for me to get the story itself after I keep listening for few times. Therefore, I think I would introduce it and include it into my lesson plans in the future.

After I found couples of different themes in this website, I wanted to do this topic if I could use in my class "Where Turkey Is The Guest, Not The Entree." Since Thanksgiving is coming, I would like to use some special news or stories that related to this famous holiday. Turkey is a well known meal in Thanksgiving, but this news does not show the same way as peoples' traditional view of turkey. Based on the reporter's saying, there is a farm that the host treat these turkeys as their pets just like other treat dogs or cats at their house. This house does not eat turkey because they believe turkeys will feel hurt. In addition, every turkey has different personality. Therefore, the host want people to interact with turkey and realize how friendly they are.

In the activity, I would ask students to listen to this procast several times. Then make them to fill in the blanks that I prepare for them based on the scripts. After making sure they understand what it is saying in this news, I will make them start to share their experience about their own Thanksgiving or how they imagine Thanksgiving is. I think it will be fun!

ePals

         After I look over the website named ePals, I feel quite impressed about this social learning network. It makes the world smaller and closer by building a global community in this platform. It contains many functions that not only can make teachers exchange their lesson plans and materials but also make students have chances to realize how other people feel or experience in other countries or millions miles away. Teachers can find the projects that are related to their lesson and ask students to prepare. After they do the research, students may present on the website by uploading their project or combine  all the experiences they've got to present in the class. 

         

        In addition, I found out there is a pretty interesting work named eFilms. Basically, ePals will provide a film that showing different theme and topic per month by their partner SnagLearning. And I've seen the video for this month "why Do White People Have Black Spots?" I think it inspired me to think more about this kind of culture difference and the curious of the stereotype. I am wondering if I use it in my future teaching, will my students get chance to think more and deeply? Even though there is a question mark in my mind, I still want to try this method to put my students to obtain more variety information from different area and realize why other people think in other ways. Making them to learn respects and knowledge in the same time!

Digital Story (The Journey)

 

I created this digital story via Animoto. Through this short preview, I want students to recall their memory that they first came to the place with these kind of questions, such as what kind of feeling did they have before? What do they want themselves to gain here? How do they feel right now...etc?
At first, I will show my story to them with the pictures I took and share the experiences. And after that, I would invite them to talk about their stories, their journies to their classmates. I think it is a warm activity and at the same time, they can practice their speaking skill.

Digital Storytelling (part 2)

Friendship

The reason that I want to use this topic for the digital storybook is that I want to make those students who are the beginner of English learners to be comfortable. Through the photos I chose, they can share experiences with their classmates from the most basic and warm part of their life to reduce the nervous and pressure for starting a new language. Also, they can talk about the relationship between the characters in each photos based on their creation and knowledge of the words. I think it is a good way to use in the future class.

Digital Storytelling

Photo by: Davide Restivo

According to the article 7 Things You Should Know About Digital Storytelling, "digital storytelling is the practice of combining narrative with digital content, including images, sound, and video, to create a short movie, typically with a strong emotional component." It is very popular for the teachers' teaching methods and students' learning methods in today's education.

In my future teaching, I will make my students to think of a simple story or a unforgettable experience and make the script which is the digital storytelling's first step. Then let them to find the pictures or videos that related to their topic. They may cooperate in groups if their topics are similar to each other. For the first time, I would rather them to enjoy fun of doing this rather than making perfect project. Therefore, the digital storytelling won't be too long and may be created around 3 to 5 minutes. If they can learn and have interests of doing this project, then they will be willing to do the advanced narrative story or more detailed digital project in the future. 

I especially like the way that the video (The Education Uses of Digital Storytelling) said about the digital telling. He said that the project is like a "time machine" from both teachers' and students' creations via a clip to interesting images, audios and videos. Digital storytelling can be an important component of higher education because it includes an effective integration of technology with learning, an emotional connection to content, and increased ease of sharing content. These are the benefits that other project may miss.

Also, in this website, it shared some goals that both teachers and students can use through this method. For example,

Teachers can: Create a digital story for use as an anticipatory set or hook for a lesson; Enhance current lesson plans with the use of a digital story within a unit; Assign student-created stories which requires students to research a topic from a particular point of view. Students can: Learn to use the Internet to research rich, deep content while analyzing and synthesizing a wide range of content; Develop communication skills by learning to ask questions, express opinions, construct narratives and write for an audience; Increase their computer skills using software that combines a variety of multimedia including: text, still images, audio, video and web publishing.

Let's Tweet

This is my first time to use Twitter and it really surprised me by those functions that a teacher can use in the class. According to the article, 28 Creative Ways Teachers Are Using Twitter, this new social microblogging seems really can help both teachers' teaching and students' learning. Through this article, I think I may let my students to "follow conferences" from some professionals' views or reflection and then require them to write down their thoughts on the twitter. Since Twitter has "TwitLit," students need to consider which part is the most important goal that in those paragraphs and make the specific points in 140-character. In this way, students not only can learn how to grab the main point of the certain articles, but also can decrease the job for teachers that looking at the long essay papers without main point. Also, based on the other article, Free Techonology for Teachers: Educational Twitter Chats Calendar, I can create some Twitter chats monthly for the students. With the Twitter Chats calendar, it can remind both I and my students to pay attention on this workshop. After I looked at these articles, I found out there are really a lot of educators using Twitter as a teaching tool and I hope I would use it in my future career, too.



EFL Classroom 2.0

           EFL classroom 2.0 is a website that can let people learn from each other by sharing their experiences on it or their own blogs. The function of it is just like the motto on the top of its own page "when one teaches, two learn." It has a lot of gadgets on both sides of the websites, includes links to related websites,members' facebook, quick announcement, twitter, etc. You can also find some interesting videos, lesson plans, stories, or even karaoke via this website.This is really attractive social networking website.

connect

Teachers' goals may be variety, however, most of them have the same general targets when they teach their students. For example, giving them directs, taking care of them, teaching them the knowledge, showing them the good manners,etc, and that's why when I think of "a teacher," I think of the whipping top. Teachers' loves, knowledge,experiences are just like the filament surrounds us. Nevertheless, learning is not an easy job and so does teaching. These two activities should interact with each other. "Learning is a process that occurs within nebulous environments of shifting core elements - not entirely under the control of the individual" said by George Siemens' Connectivism: A Learning Theoryfor the Digital Age. If we want to play good whipping tops, we need to practice a lot. We need to combine different styles of throwing, the materials of the floor or the stuff of its own self. It’s just like continuing learning and learning and in this period, students not only learn from the teachers but also students and so do teachers. After that, teachers throw the tops safely on the floor and tops can learn from themselves individually.

According to the video of The Impact of SocialSoftware on Learning, he said that social software is a broad umbrella term, and includes everything from the blog to wiki, to social bookmarking, to tagging......it would able to share and connecting to each other. Thanks to the technology, students now can learn independently through more effective, challenge, cultural way. It is just like the analogy I said above. At the beginning, teachers would teach students how to use the tools, how to get the knowledge you want and once they learn the methods, they can enjoy the benefits the technology bring to them  and have intellectual hunger on what they interests.

Bilingual Learning

I had just read the blog from Bilingual Fun (Maestra Jen). She used to be a Spanish teacher, but now she chose to stay at home and takes care of her children. The article I read is the experience that she share how her daughter learn bilingually from her and school and how she taught her daughter to think and talk in both English and Spanish. It is quite excited when I looked at her blog. I always think that children have some amazing learning ability and I wish I can teach not only my children but also my students bilingually when they are young. In their childhood, learning should be naturally, purely and correctly. And that means if they can learn the words from the daily life, it will be very helpful and pressure less. Unless not like me, when I started to learn English, and I need to carry a heavy grammar book to school every day. In addition, Ms. Jen taught me that children reader should be familiar with their first language than to start with second. It surprised me actually because I used to think that children can learn and read the words for both languages at the same time, like the way they learn how to speak bilingually. It reminds me that if I am going to teach the children who speak bilingually, I need to notice this issue carefully. Otherwise, children may get confused easily. In the end of the article, Ms. Jen invited her daughter to read a book that contains both Spanish and English. I have to say that she has a really cute daughter and she did a great job! I am thankful that Ms. Jen can share her own experience with videos and let me learn a lot.

The link of the article: http://bilingualfun.blogspot.com/2010/10/adventures-in-teaching-our-kids-spanish.html
The link of the picture: http://blog.hattoss.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/05/bilingualediu-225x300.jpg

Pay Attention (video)

I really like this video even though it just has words and background music. The facts surprised me when it showed up every time.  "Richness" is the word that impressed me the most. I thought about my childhood. At that time, we did not have that much technology engage in our learning. However, we can see that most of the families have more than one computer at home and even a kindergarten child has his/her own cell phone! I did not have my phone till I was a senior high student. That is the different. And that it is the challenge, too. Just like the video said, why not teachers try to use cell phones in their teaching. It is obvious that people rely on the cell phones and like to use them a lot now. Instead of forbidden using in the class, why not just try to make friends with students via this technology? Maybe in this way, students will become more creative and that is what their generation's spirit should be in this richness environment and society. I think this video is really useful for the new teachers who has already accept technology in their learning process. They can think more and provide more opportunities to their students with creativity.

Reflection on Chap. 1 of Brave New Digital Classroom

When people are talking about learning a  new language, good interaction with others will be the most concern to learn the language well. The reason is that language is the important bridge that make people have conversation. In this chapter, some researchers found out that people can have activities with media (machine) just like interact with real people. "The Internet is an ideal tool for allowing students to gain access to authentic L2 materials; it might be the next best alternative to actually going abroad. L2 students can virtually 'travel' to French-speaking Africa, Tokyo or the Peruvian In can ruins of Machu Picchu with just a click of mouse." It is quite impressed me with this example, but I think it might be true. Since the Internet is so worldwide and nearly everyone knows how to surf the Internet, this thought might become the life style we all face in the coming future. However, everything has advantage and disadvantage. I cannot stop to think after I finished this chapter. I am worried what if people rely on the Internet too much. Or what if people do not want to go out and talk with each other? Moreover, what if people text to each other instead of talking even they sit beside on the same chair? I know that knowing the different culture and language by the Internet is becoming convenient and  useful. However, the concern I wrote above is another issue that teachers need to judge and balance when they are using the technology in teaching.

Internet Safety

The list for your safety in the Internet world

1. Remain as anonymous as possible. These may include your private information, such as:

• full name
• home address
• phone number
• Social Security number
• passwords
• names of family members
• credit card numbers

2. Ignore all the messages that make you feel uncomfortable. Bullying does not only exist in the real world.

• the messages may from your friends or other people you know
• ignoring is better than responding
• if you feel ignoring doesn't help, feel free to contact me or the adults you trust

3. Get some virus protection software or be careful when downloading or opening unknown e-mails

• some hackers may access to your account and add you into their spam list
• you may get a lot of junk e-mails
• you may get the virus into your computer and it will broken

These are some simple ways to protect yourself and your computer.

And it was founded from: 

http://kidshealth.org/teen/safety/safebasics/internet_safety.html#

If you want to know more, we can discuss in this CHAT ROOM.

blog 1

Dear students:

This is a website that I hope we can get in touch more after class!

In this blog, there are several things we can do:
You can type your feelings or opinions that you want to say. (Say it out loud!!!)
You can find some additional information or articles that related to our class. (Going Deeper!!!)
You can chat with other classmates or even me. (Grab a cup of coffee and cookies!!!)

Hope we can have a good time here! : )))))