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.