Blog #8: Open Topic / Reflection

• Reflection of what I have learned about in the course, CALL

- Actually, I'm not a person who is talented on using computers such as surfing the Internet or solving any problems when they are broken etc. However, this course, above all, helped me a lot to feel more familiar and comfortable in using computers. Whenever I click some icons, I  used to feel  afraid it would bring me unwanted places or make some terrible problems happened. As I did review what I learned and try to use some tools, however, I was getting accustomed to using it without realization.
- Every week, I was so amazed that there are amount of beneficial materials and sources online, which I would never know about if I hadn't had this class, CALL. Especially, some tools making cartoons and comics were greatly amazing! Who created these kinds of website? And How did they think of this? Moving characters' joints and changing facial expressions were the most impressive functions of the cartoon's websites. In addition, I learned a lot of educational websites like TED, Scribblar or Voice thread.

• Any future goals or plans to use technology in my classroom.

- Even though I learned many kinds of nice resources, if I don't try to use it and adapt it to a real class, it would be useless and just forgotten. Thus, I should try to facilitate it more often in class and modify it appropriately.
- Those tools that I learned should be adapted properly according to many kinds of contexts such as students, environments or administrative situations. A tool I would like to use in my classroom is 'Voice thread' as an assignment during vacation seasons. Since teacher and students cannot meet each other, they can asynchronously record their voices and upload regular assignments. And sometimes for some shy students who feel ashamed before other peers, speaking with others in class will be embarassing and eventually constraint. This kind of tools, however,  provide them practicing, recording and deleting repeatedly.

Blog #7: Mobile App Review

1. Search for a language learning application designed for mobile devices such as smartphones and tablets.  Provide a link to the application's website.

    

http://www.eslpod.com  

2. Write a brief review of this application that includes information about the app's functions, which devices it is compatible with, and how it can assist or enhance the language learning process.

    ESL Pod ensider is an application that provides podcast contents for ESL learners. If we find the app in smartphone market and download it, then we can see the icon above. If we click it, then we will be able to see so many lists of podcasts. We can download or play whichever content we want to read or listen to. Also, it has a function that we can select my favorite contents in my own lists.
    When we listen to a content, a little player will be popped up, then we will see play or pause icon that we can freely click as we want. Moreover, what I really liked about this app is that they provide the back and forward controlller. For instance, if we click -30s, then it will be backwarded 30 seconds. Click Repeat button, then you will listen to the repeating sound of it.
    Even though this app is not the formal one from http://www.eslpod.com, it will be realy helpful for ESL learning, thanks to those reasons above. Especially, the contents and levels are appropriate for ESL learners and repeating and backwarding or forwarding function are greatly beneficial for them to practice listening.

 

Blog #6: Digital Storytelling

1. Write brief reviews about the two tools you used to create short lessons.

     The one that I tried to use is Zimmer Twins. On this site, we can make a short movie as a flash player without signing in. If we click 'Make a movie', we can see some of the examples. By clicking 'Make from scratch', we can make our own video clip. Several sections are provided as static picture with a speech balloon (We can type in some talks in it), more active movement, facial expressions and even some objects. As we choose and click some of them, the scenes we click are arranged in a row, and we can edit as needed. After it is all done, we can restore it as clicking 'save movie'.
     The other one is Pixton. This provides various functions to make comics. Since it's deviced well in detail and variety, I prefer using this. The best thing I've ever liked is that this tool serves in three separate parts according to the purpose of making comics; Fun, School, Business. If I get into the site clicking 'fun', you can see 'Get started in 3 easy steps' and just simply follow the guide. To create a comic, first you have to choose a comic frame, a template and two characters. Then, you can see many kinds of tools around the layout like shown below. Or you can just click the joint and freely move it to change the posture.

2. How could these tools be used by teachers AND students?  How could they be incorporated into a class?

     Text books in class don't offer everything especially nowadays when students are exposed to the Internet and medias everyday. So if teachers try to download materials from outside the classroom, however, there are a lot of risks that learners could be easily exposed to sexual or violent things. Thus, these tools could be really helpful to make students interested and actively motivated in class. Teachers can use these tools making conversation using target languages in preactivity. Also, it can be used for students to make their own comics. A teacher distributes the comics having speech balloons empty, so that they can fill in those balloons as they imagine, which will develop their creativity.

Blog #5: Corpora, Concordance, Collocations, Word Frequency

•  Check out the following sites and report back on how they could be used to inform materials development and classroom instruction:

 

1. Compleat Lexical Tutor: http://www.lextutor.ca/

    When teachers, especially EFL teachers, teach vocabularies, they often convey only the particular words and corresponding meanings in first language. However, some vocabularies could have different meanings according to collocations or context. Thus, learners should also be exposed to some lanugage use either, and recognize what other words or expressions the word goes with.
    This website provides amazing concordance system. Like the picture below, if we type in a particular word, we can see amount of examples in sentences. Then we can recognize not only a part of speech of the word, but also when and where the word is used. Since it is so simple and easy, even busy teachers can use it easily and quickly.
    In an inductive teaching, a teacher can use it providing some examples first having the word deleted. Then, learners can guess what the word should be as they read the other part of the sentences.

2. Corpus of Contemporary American English: http://corpus.byu.edu/coca/

     Whereas a concordance means a list of words used in a body of work, with their immediate contexts (by Wikipedia), a corpus is a large and structured set of text. And they are used to do statistical and linguistics analysis, checking occurrences or validaing linguistic rules on a specific universe.
     On this website, we can type in separately a collocation as well as the word which we want to see the list of. Also, we can choose and see in which area the word is used such as magazine, newspaper, academic, or spoken. After conditioning searching for the list of corpus, on the right side of the page, the number of frequency of the word use is presented and below it, a set of text is shown.
     Some of the uses would be difficult for learners, if they have academical or technical terms in it. Thus, it is doubtful if it could be treated by young learners. Teachers, however, could benefit from word frequency, especially, when they consider which words should be taught. High frequency of words should be taught and used to learners first.

3. Wordle: http://www.wordle.net/

    
     Wordle is to generate  “word clouds” from text we provide. On this website, we don't even need to sign and log in the site, but just create your own word clouds. Click the 'create' tap, paste in a bunch of text, and go. That's all. In the clouds some words are given greater prominence to words that appear more frequently in the text. Also, you can make the clouds with different fonts, layouts, and color schemes. Moreover, you can simply save them and quickly print them out.
     I once used this site as a brainstorming in a pre-reading activity. Learners look at the word cloud and they guess what kind of topic or theme today's text will be about. If a teacher color the words or shemes, it will visually give more pleasure and motivation to them.

 

Blog Post #4: Podcast Review

1. Listen to one or two of the podcasts.
2. Provide a link to the podcast on your blog. Give general information about the content and quality.

    http://www.ted.com/playlists/24/re_imagining_school.html
  
    I found this video clip as I typed in 'education' in searching box.
    This video clip,  'Ken Robinson says schools kill creativity' was recorded in 2006. The speaker, Ken Robinson makes entertaining and profoundly moving cases for creating an education system that nurtures creativity. He also emphasizes developing human intelligence should be divers, dynamic, and distinct.
    Moreover, we can vividly hear his speech and even the audience's laughter sound as if we were there.   

 3. What do you think about the podcast?  Which type of learners could benefit from the podcast?

    According to topic or theme, we can see various kinds of video clips through podcast. Thus, what is the best thing of the podcast is that we can listen to famous lecturers or specialists' talks in anywhere in the world, and get great amount of information of any subject.
    Also, not only learners speaks English as first lanugage but also ESL or EFL learners could benefit from it, since it provides whole subtitles in a lot of languages. It would be helpful for them to extensively listen to the talk in other lanugages.

Blog Post #3: Synchronous and Asynchronous CMC Tools

 1) Brief descriptions of the tools and links to their websites

    - Synchronous CMC Tool website: http://www.scribblar.com/

      :      Synchronous Computer-Mediated Communication (CMC) allows group of people to speak to  one another in real time over the Internet. This website, Scribbler, provides various functions to both teachers and students. First of all, it gives us some space to use it as a whiteboard and to share with all the group members. On the whiteboard, each one can write letters, draw some pictures, put some graphs or grids, and even store the whole board in clipboard. Thus, through this fuction, communication of group memebers will be highly increased and improved. Moreover, teacher and students are able to simultaneously chat  altogether on the little chatting room. Since we should type in our own name before we start, everyone can see who they are talking with and anyone can enjoy talking each other. Lastly, it also has an audio function, which allows teachers and students to be able to speak and listen each other.
 
    -Asynchronous CMC Tool website: http://voicethread.com/
       
       :      In synchronous communications, all participants are online at the same time, while asynchronous communications occurs with time constraints such as email. (from Wikipedia)Voicethread provides voice and video recording functions. If we register to the website, then we see three main taps, 'Browse', 'Create', and 'My voice'. With clicking the 'Browse', we can view many other video clips recorded by other users and we can also leave some of our comments or opinion regarding it in the section. To leave comments or opinion on other's records, there are several ways : using phone, webcam, typing and recording. Also, to create a new one, we need to go into 'Create' tap and we can check it up in 'My voice'.

 

 2) Your thoughts about how the Synchronous CMC tool and the Asynchronous CMC tool could support learning and the development of language skills.  Are there any similarities and differences in how they could support language learning?

   -        Scribbler could support language learning in several ways. Firstly, it basically provides a chatting room and an audio function online. So students and a teacher can mutually communicate each other just sitting before their own PCs. In addition, unless they are able to type fast or speak fluently, they can facilitate the whiteboard function to write or draw what they try to speak. Thus, when some who are not be able to spontaneously listen and speak or some who are not really confident of speaking, it offers another place to express their message or ideas in other ways such as drawing or pictures.
            Voicethread would be helpful for language learners to develop their language skills. Especially, after I record my voice or video, I am able to check it up and revise it as many times as I can. Moreover, other participants can leave their own message on my record with drawing or typing at the same time.
            They both should be useful in that we can naturally learn and acquire foreign language in communication mediated by computers, which is quick and convinient. However, in terms of time    constraint, two kinds of tools are somewhat different. While Scribbler is used by participants at the same time, Voice thread allows them to delay or control what they try to convey. So in Voice thread, people can continue to reflect and revise the record after they upload it. 

 

3) Some of your ideas of possible activities and ways that the tools could be used in a language class to supplement in-class content and instruction.

    -        Scribbler could be used for group or class conference in a language class. When a teacher provides some ideas or arguments of a specific topic, they could gather in the room and talk or write down around the topic. For kinesthetic learners, it would be a great tool to scribble what just comes up into their own minds.
             I would use Voicethread for speaking test. A learner can record their own record, and the other members in the room give feedback with recording, typing and writing. Thus, all participants can share which part is good or bad and also give peer-revision to the learner.

Blog Post #2 - Presentation Tools & Screencasting Tools

1.     As a Presentation Tool, I tried to use Prezi.  http://prezi.com/
    There were actually several opportunities for me to use it. One was for the open class in my school, and the other was for a presentation of Teaching Young Learners. Thus, it was not really unfamiliar.


2. Activity         -   https://sites.google.com/site/hyumichelle/activity
        The activity linked above was for my 3rd-grade-students in public middle school. Even though they are in advanced level, they hardly speak English each other. So I first made a short and simple dialogue including two target expressions, "Which one do you think...?" and  "What makes you say(think) so?", to ask other's opinion and the reasons. Students drill and practice the sample dialogue first. Then, I showed them two pictures and some cues so that two students can make sentences and have conversation associated with the expressions and pictures given to them.

    Presentation  -   https://sites.google.com/site/hyumichelle/home/homework
        The other one I linked to here was for the presentation of Teaching Young Learners. Since it was  second time for me to use it, I was able to more deeply learn some other functions more in details. It was about TYL & Literacy, and I was going to explain about how children learn literacy skills, how they process in reading, two kinds of process (Bottom-up and Top-down) and some formal approaches. Thus, I need not only just presenting some information but also clarifying some primary concepts. Especially, I thought it would be greatly helpful if I use the balance background to present  that we have to equally balance two different approaches.


3.     I would recommend prezi to other teachers only when they need to use it for students conceptualizing some complicated information or when they have to present a whole picture or a process. It would be really useful and facilitative to conceptualize or to wholly view, because it has a function of zooming in and out. Also, it has sensible and modernized design.
        However, it also has a weak point for teachers to use it in class. I usually use animation function (of PPT) to make students dynamically get involved in the class. If I delay showing them pictures or information or if I don't show it directly, they seem to be more curious and really want to know what comes after it. It often leads them to be motivated to learn and finally actively participate in the class. Unfortunately, I was not able to find the function, so students got little bit bored and some of them were already given the answer or result without their own trial of thinking

 4.    Prezi could be potential tool in the Korean EFL learning context, because I heard Korean Educational Ministry already tried to teach teachers how to use Prezi. So, some of teachers are trying to learn those skills. However, I noticed that, to use more various uses or functions, we have to pay some amount of money (in dollors) and to carry it as a file, it takes much more time to turn it into file, restore it and open it than PPT. Moreover, if the Internet is disconnected, we cannot open it.
        Finally, being potential tool in the Korean EFL learning context could be limitedly accepted.