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.