I am currently trying to reinvent my teaching approach in order to meet the demands of the NET. generation.
I am interested in educational technology. I am developing my own interactive multi-media keynote presentations.
What technology are you using in the classroom?
Anybody using smart board interactive whiteboards? Easy to use? Any good software packages/websites?
Can’t believe nobody has replied to this yet. The school I work at isn’t very techonolicaly savy. I get lots of great ideas on the internet though.
[quote=“KathVic”]Can’t believe nobody has replied to this yet. The school I work at isn’t very technologically savvy. I get lots of great ideas on the internet though.[/quote]I think this is due to the very real fear and cost on the part of school administrations and parents that computers aren’t real teaching and it’s all play.
Almost every time I tried it, I got push back from the school and it was deemed as me not doing my job and goofing off.
Well, in my experience in the US, at least, many times those fears are correct.
Many teachers take “technology” as a license to show a video (in a more modern form) and sit back and relax. Maybe they provide a worksheet if they’re really ambitious.
If a teacher is going to use technology in a way that will promote language acquisition, not just babysit, a lot of effort has to be front-loaded into the presentation. The upside is that it will be available for use again in the future. The teacher also has to consider carefully what the added value of the technology is, if any. Personally, I use technology when I can to make things easier – to give instant access to vocab lists, provide audio flashcards for kids to download, and give optional extra practice – but since language is such a basic human interactive tool, I really don’t see where just the addition of technology makes a language lesson “better”, necessarily.
Ironlady,
How do you make your audio flashcards. I have used a site called spelling city.com. You can make your own list of words and there are numerous games for the kids to play. I don’t particulary like their tests sections, because the kids need to be able to type.
[quote=“KathVic”]Ironlady,
How do you make your audio flashcards. I have used a site called spelling city.com. You can make your own list of words and there are numerous games for the kids to play. I don’t particulary like their tests sections, because the kids need to be able to type.[/quote]
I don’t like the way they use alphabet letter names for the spelling part. Not helpful for beginning reading and spelling activities.
I prefer the synthetic phonics method in order to teach phonemic awareness.
My kid watches DVDs of a thing called “Dora the Explorer.” Its fab! He loves it and can already say “backpack” (nearly) and can clap along to “I’m the Map.”
Technology is GREAT!
My take on Educational technology: (mainly focusing on Constructivism Theory)
using a multi-media interactive approach to:
empower students to learn, set own goals, connect, communicate, collaborate, think, form prior understanding, exploration, confront and support, reflection, realize, rational thought, master a subject of interest, form knowledge, reorganization and accommodation, problem solving
I like finding out what the students are interested in learning, and then download some info from the web (mainly wikipedia)
I start the class by mentioning that this info may be wrong and I have no idea if it is correct.
If you have chosen a subject that they showed interested in learning about and they have prior understanding, the students become the teacher and I (the teacher) become the student. Students are exploring the info and a topic continues with no expiration date.
Unfortunately, now the students in my class are too busy worrying about the impending doom and gloom of test results and have resorted back to cramming the info from them text books for the upcoming exams.
The trick is to find a balance between instructional-design theory and a form of pragmatic constructivism.
This is an article from 2005. Good starting point.
[button]Educational Technology & Society,http://www.ifets.info/journals/8_1/5.pdf[/button]
I will be running a summer camp program at two different schools. Both schools are eager to combine learning and technology.
Currently, it has taken me 6 months of my valuable free time to come up with a multi-media interactive program. (Just scratching the surface)
Prototype coming along nicely.
Two good reads with regards to trends in technology and the Net. generation:
[button]grown up digital,http://dontapscott.com/[/button]
[button]socialnomics,http://socialnomics.net/about/[/button]
I don’t really get what you’re saying. Seems like you make worksheets from stuff off of Wiki. I suppose its using technology, but isn’t it just using another source – and one that’s often inaccurate, to boot? Why not just use a trusted book rather than dodgy Intarweb info?
The rest of the meat of your post – all that “empowering” stuff – sounds like an empty sales pitch.
[quote=“KathVic”]Ironlady,
How do you make your audio flashcards. I have used a site called spelling city.com. You can make your own list of words and there are numerous games for the kids to play. I don’t particulary like their tests sections, because the kids need to be able to type.[/quote]
Hi,
There are two ways of doing it:
If your students have iPhones or iPod Touches, you can make audio-equipped flashcards using the iPhone app from orangeorapple.com (the author actually studies Chinese, so it also has many Chinese-friendly features, BTW). You use his Web site to upload the flashcards and “tell” the program where the audio files are located, or if it’s just for you, you can record the audio directly in the iPhone program (although the files are named with numbers, not anything intelligible). I sometimes record on the iPhone, export the sound files, rename them quickly on my computer, then upload them via his site to produce a set of cards my students can download. This gives you actual flashcards (with text plus audio).
If your kids don’t have that equipment, you can make simple all-audio “cards” using any mp3 recorder, just saying target language — native language – target language (or native language - target language for advanced learners). Put these on the mp3 player as a playlist (I usually organize each “lesson” as an album for simplicity) and playback on shuffle. (This is my main fallback for flashcards when I’m busy, since I can do them in my car while driving.) Obviously these aren’t “real” flashcards but they’re pretty effective.
For anyone interested, go here and click any of the “Lab” links. I do the maximum permitted 5 sessions in the lab per semester with my students, and they absolutely look forward to lab weeks. www3.nccu.edu.tw/~smithsgj/CE1ppt.htm
The other techy thing we do is class blogs. Feel free to take a look here: www3.nccu.edu.tw/~smithsgj/ce-blogs.htm
I’m pretty interested in ICT in teaching. Basically students here are having fun and engaged when interacting with a computer. And as we all know, it’s only when we’re having fun that we open up to learn language (or anything else).
Smith,
I took a quick look at the links you provided.
Not to criticize you, but nobody commented on anybody’s writing. Should we make a rule that the students have to visit the blog and comment. How can peer editing work if nobody comments?
Also, I am teaching much younger students who don’t have such a background in English, so I’m not sure if your ideas will be helpful to me.
[quote=“KathVic”]Smith,
I took a quick look at the links you provided.
Not to criticize you, but nobody commented on anybody’s writing. Should we make a rule that the students have to visit the blog and comment. How can peer editing work if nobody comments?
Also, I am teaching much younger students who don’t have such a background in English, so I’m not sure if your ideas will be helpful to me.[/quote]
KathVic,
You might be interested in [button]starfall,http://www.starfall.com/[/button] and it’s free
If this is helpful, I can pass on a couple of other links. Mainly for beginner Grade 1 and up
Thanks Shoe-Wielding Legislator!
[quote=“smithsgj”]For anyone interested, go here and click any of the “Lab” links. I do the maximum permitted 5 sessions in the lab per semester with my students, and they absolutely look forward to lab weeks. www3.nccu.edu.tw/~smithsgj/CE1ppt.htm
The other techy thing we do is class blogs. Feel free to take a look here: www3.nccu.edu.tw/~smithsgj/ce-blogs.htm
I’m pretty interested in ICT in teaching. Basically students here are having fun and engaged when interacting with a computer. And as we all know, it’s only when we’re having fun that we open up to learn language (or anything else).[/quote]
Interesting ideas. Have you thought of using [button]keynote presentations,http://www.apple.com/iwork/keynote[/button]?
I’m in the process of switching to keynote 09. Unlimited creativity.
On that note, anything better than keynote presentations? Any links?
Still waiting for the giant touchscreen ipad (or similar wall mounted interactive tablet) to replace half my whiteboard
[quote=“sandman”]I don’t really get what you’re saying. Seems like you make worksheets from stuff off of Wiki. I suppose its using technology, but isn’t it just using another source – and one that’s often inaccurate, to boot? Why not just use a trusted book rather than dodgy Intarweb info?
The rest of the meat of your post – all that “empowering” stuff – sounds like an empty sales pitch.[/quote]
Wiki is just an example. I like the fact that it may or may not be more accurate than a traditional encyclopedia?
I’m not telling the students the answers. I don’t know everything. It’s up to the students to analyze the content and communicate their findings.
Why not just use a trusted book rather than dodgy Intarweb info?
…because Taiwan 'aint Texas (although we are using their crappy curriculum textbooks at the buxiban)
I’m not really all that impressed with starfall. When you click on words it takes a long time before it reads them.
Spellingcity.com has a strong point that it is very easy for the teacher to make lists of vocabulary words found in the crappy textbooks, then the students can play games with the words.
[quote=“KathVic”]I’m not really all that impressed with starfall. When you click on words it takes a long time before it reads them.
Spellingcity.com has a strong point that it is very easy for the teacher to make lists of vocabulary words found in the crappy textbooks, then the students can play games with the words.[/quote]
it takes a long time before it reads them
True, but at a beginner level this may be beneficial as it gives the student time to focus on listening to one particular sound/word at a time.
Try [button]mingoville,http://www.mingoville.com/en.htm[/button] Once again, it is “free” (haven’t used this site in the last six months)