Blog #8: Open Topic / Reflection

For your final blog post, please feel free to write about any topic related to the course.  For example, you can reflect on what you have learned about in the course and your e-portfolio project and also discuss any future goals or plans you have to use technology in your classroom.


Time flies. I can't believe it's my final blog. To be honest with you, taking this class isn't easy for me. It was a real struggle to complete the tasks everyweek. I couldn't dealt with the tools that I learned in class easily.

However, I've learned a lot of things through the CALL class. I got inspiration how to design and make my classroom materials from this courese. I'm very pleased to know various useful tools. You introduced useful tools and applications at every class. I've never met these tools before. Thus it was good experience to be learned them. Especially presetation tools, storytelling, survey, and assessment tools were very impressive. I think they have enormous potential for education field. Even though I'm not a teacher now, I will use these tools for my class.

I'm interested in using technolodgy in education. And I think it's essential part in this field. I strongly believe that teachers can make classroom atmosphere and materials more learner-centered. Teachers and students can interact more actively. Thus I'll be able to make my class more actively through these tools that I've learned. Frankly speaking, I can't handle these tools well right now, but I really want to continue using and studying them. And I want to extend and run my own homepage(or blog) through using my google site. 

Through this class, I can experience new world that I've never met before. It's very exciting and amazing experience.

Online Portfolio: It's my google site: https://sites.google.com/site/hemilshyutesol/home




 

Blog #7: Mobile App Review

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

 

Mobile apps provide provide us with the chance to study and review any day, any time, without the need to remember to bring our books or class materials. They are amazingly user-friendly and well-organized into topics. It means we don't waste any time looking for what we want to practice.

I'll introduce very useful mobile appilcation.It's LearnEnglish Audio and Vedio.

http://learnenglish.britishcouncil.org/en/apps

 

It contains lots of awsome features like landscape video mode, an audioscript and glossary.

In LearnEnlish Audio & Video, we can find the best podcasts and videos offered on the LearnEnlish wedsite. And it has plus extra features that are only available in the app to help improve English listening skills. We can take control of our learning. Click any part of the audioscript to jump to that section or listening again. If we don't know a word, we can use the built-in glossary. And then we can test how much of the episode we've understood by answering the comprehension exercises. our learning.  Through this app, I can enjoy and learn Enlish any time, any place. It helps learnres improve listening skills and learn new vocabulary.

Furthermore, it's very user-friendly app. We can handle it very easily. There are so many great features to help us learn English.

I would like to recommend this app.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Blog #6: Digital Storytelling

Write brief reviews about the two tools you used to create short lessons with this week.

I'll explain two tools briefly. 

1. Storybird: http://storybird.com/

When I first saw this site, I was surprised and excited. I thought it's very amazing and useful tool for teachers and learners. Teachers can make beautiful and understandable classroom materials by using this tool. And learners also create their own stories using their imagination.

Storybird is a user-friednly site. Users  can create and utilize this tool very easily. They can choose pictures and then write a story. There are various tags that users can choose like festival, friend, family and so on. Users just choose, drag imagies and wirte a story based on these pictures. It allows students to focus more on the content of their writing rather than drawing pictures.

2. Domo Animate: http://domo.goanimate.com/studio

Domo animate is a tool designed to create text-based presentations online. Leaners can add speech bubbles, animate characters and add mulitple effects to their presentations.
It's very easy-to-use and simple tool that present contents like classroom materials. It helps learners improve writing skills. And it helps learners stretch their imagination. It's very useful to share ideas each other.



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

As you know, stories are very powerful source of teacing and learning. Especially stories give young learners a lot of opportunities to learn language. Stories represent holistic approaches to language teaching and learning that place a high premium on children's involvement with rich, authentic uses of the foreign language. Stories offer a whole imaginary world, created by language, that children can enter and enjoy, learning language as they go.

Digital stroytelling is very effective way to teach and learn lessons. Integrating technology into lessons is very powerful and useful approache. Digital stroytelling tools can be very usefutl to both teachers and learners. Both of them can make and design classroom materials. They are very understandable and attractive.

These digital storytelling tools can be incorporated into a class. These tools can maximize a class effect. For example, teachers create very moral or insturctive stories that dealt with social issues like bullying by using storybird tool. Teachers tell the stories to their students and then give them opportunities to think about these serious issues and discuss the solutions. Or teachers give students writing assignments.

Teahcers can make classroom materials more dynamic with Domo animate tool. It can be express contents more lively and funny. For example, teachers can make conversational scenarios to illustrate language in use or particular misunderstandings in communication. Leaners show this animations with pleasure and learn some teaching points(spoken language-communicative language in particular situation) and repeat the patterns, and improve their conversation skills.

These tools are very powerful and useful for  both teachers and learners. Teachers can make their classroom materials more various and dynamic. On the same time, these materials can improve learners's interest and motivation. There are so many ways to use these tools to incorporate into a class.

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:


Here are very useful tools for designing classroom materials. These tools encourage teachers to create and design class contents and materials more properly and effectively. They helps teachers can decide what to teach their students in the class.

As you know, languages form, change, and cease to exist according to the passing of time. Languages are very different depending on situations and contexts. Thus most frequently used  words can be different from contexts and situations. Teachers should select high frequency words considerably and create materials properly.

Following these tools help teachers  make good and proper mateials for their students. I'll explain these tools briefly.

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

How can we learn vocabulary? It is very difficult to answer the question because there are so many ways to learn vocabulary.  Perhaps only thing we can be sure of is repetition(practice or recycling). According to Keith Folse(2004), learners should be given opportunities to exposure new words various ways(in various contexts), so that the words will be stored from short-term to long-term memory. And Tom Cobb(1999) suggested that if learners exposure words in a variety of contexts, they can keep and recall them easily. These are basic concept of this tool.

The Compleat Lexical Tutor is an online based interactive tool for learning vocabulary in a variety of contexts. It is divided into three sections: learners, researchers, teachers. It gives both students and teachers a lot of opportunities to learn and teach most frequently used words and analyze the words in variety of contexts. Teachers can generate activities in teacher's section, and students can self study in learners section. Especially, researchers' section is very useful. It allows to analyze the high frequency words and teachers can refer to them and make proper classroom materials.  The online Concordancer allows students to search a variety of corpora for correct language use in authentic texts. As I mentioned above, it is very important for learners to learn high frequency words and know how to use them in authentic contexts. To summarize, this site is very useful and powerful tool to design adequate classroom mateirals.

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

The second site is 'The Corpus of Contemporary American English(COCA)'. It is the largest freely-available corpus of American English. And it is easy to use and understand.

 

The corpus  has very different divisions like fiction, popular magazines, newspapers, and academic texts. It contains more than 450 million words of text and it is updated rugulary. Thus we can search current(contemporary) and high frequency words. And teachers can cross check(analyze) between spoken and written use of language and so on. Teachers can compare, anlyze them and develop some teaching points like descriptive grammar. Teachers also can contrast and compare the collocates of two related words, to determine the difference in meaning or use between these words. Teachers can find numerous synonyms words, compare their frequency in different contexts, and can easily create their own words lists.


3. Wordle: http://www.wordle.net/

The third tool is Wordle. It is a free, easy-to-use and very visual site. It can be used to express high frequency words and low frequency words. Fonts, layouts and color can be expressed for differnt effects. Teacher can use the tool as a pre-teaching activity to introduce a new words to students.

Blog Post #4: Podcast Review

Listen to one or two of the podcasts.

I watched Ken Robinson's podcast, "How to escape education's death valley." through Ted talks. Ted talks is very informative and educational websites. The world's greatest scholors and celebrities gave lectures. It conveys powerful and insightful messages. Ted talks has very high quality and authority.

Ken Robinson is an international advisor on education, creativity and innovation. His other podcasts are also very useful and interesting. Frankly speaking, the podcast was TYL's(teaching young learners) class material. My professor recommended it. Thus I could watch it by chance, but it has great message about education.

Provide a link to the podcast on your blog.
Give general information about the content and quality.

Here is links: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wX78iKhInsc

 This podcast is a story about Education system in America. As I mentioned above Ken Robinson is a professional in Education feld. He has given a lot of informative and good lectures. Thus his speeches have high quality and deliver powerful messages.

He described the education system in Ameria as death valley that is dry and looks dead due to lack of rain. However, in 2004, it rained heavily there and after a few months life was back to the valley.  Ken compared this valley to schools. He said that education is learning, organic system and something about human, so if schools give students the ideal conditions, students will survive. He emphasized the importance of the social, human, and artistic capital in learning. And he focused on individualized teaching and learning(engaging creativity), continuous professional development for teachers, and school level control(not goverment or state level control).


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

I strongly believe that it is very good podcasts for teachers or preliminary teachers. It gives educators very important messages. They should rethink about current education system and their roles, and learners' situation.

And I think Korea's education system is not as quite as different as other coutries. Students receive strongly standardized education in Korea. Most schools focuse on test based teaching, and they can not cover or consider students' individual situations. I know it's very difficult to reflect the whole messages. However, educators(including government, schools, and teachers) should rethink about their roles and ways to foster and encourage their students to participate in class more actively. And they should make  more free and less standardized class atmosphere, so students can use their originality.

In conclusion, it provides very good points about education system. All educators should think about this issues and try to change the education system gradually.

Blog Post #3: Synchronous and Asynchronous CMC Tools

Please review one of the Synchronous CMC Tools AND one of the Asynchronous CMC Tools we looked at this week in class.  Please include the following in your blog post:

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

[Scribblar: Synchronous CMC Tool] Here is the link: http://www.scribblar.com/

Scribblar seems like a blackboard in real classroom. It is the on-line based program used for real time teaching sessions. It is a whiteboard tool with on-line chat and audio option. It is very easy to create and use this tool. It's very user-friendly websites. Teachers can upload classroom materials like documents directly to the white board. The whiteboard tools are then used to review the documents with the students. Teachers can draw pictures, diagrams and write something to the whiteboard. It gives students a lot of opportunity to interact with their teachers and peers. They can present their opinion more freely. And this tool helps students focus on conveying message in order to communicate with each other in real time.

 

[VoiceTread: Asychronous CMC Tool] Here is the link: http://voicethread.com/

 

A voiceThread is a useful tool for creating and having dynamic conversation on on-line. It is very easy to sign up and use this tool. Students can create various forms of voice Thread files. When students make a file and upload, then their peers can comment about the file uploaded. Thus they can share their ideas more freely and comfortably. Students can upload, share and discuss documents, presentation, images, audio files and videos.

 

 

 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?

 

I think that CMC(Computer-Mediated Communication) is absolutely indispensable to the Education nowdays. And its influnce is becoming more powerful. Both these tools have a vital influence on English Education. These tools help teachers create and provide quality classroom materials. At the same time students can use these materials and devleop their learning skills.

There are some similarities between these tools. They have positive effects on students' language skills. Using CMC tools in classroom encourage students to participate in class more actively. They make classroom atmosphere more comfortable. Thus they can lower the students' affective filter. Students can learn and exposure their target language more comfortably(Perez, 2003).

 

However, there are some differences between Synchronous CMC tool and the Asynchronous CMC tool. First of all, synchronous tools can real-time communication. And participants share and co-work ideas or classes in different place but same time. On the other hand,  asynchronous tool can participate and share their ideas or classes in different time and different places. Second, synchronous tools relatively tend to focus on coveying message and meaning. Thus students can develop fluency about their target language. However, asynchronous tools relatively tend to  focus on accuracy. 

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.

 

We can make various activities using these tools. I would like to suggest following activities. I can design activities about same topics using different tools.

 

[Synchronous CMC tool]

Teacher tells students specific topics like how to improve English ability before doing activity. Then teacher gives students enough time to think about this topic. And then teacher presents the time and place to meet each other for discussing the topic through synchronous CMC tool(Scribblar). Students meets and talk about the issue more freely in real time at Scrbblar. Teachers can give a feedback directly. And teacher and students can interact more actively.

 

[Asynchronous CMC tool]

Teacher gives students homework like how to improve English ability. Students can think about the topic. They can search related information or ask for advice. Thus they organize their ideas and thought, and then they make their videos, images, or audio files and so on. After uploding the files, students can comment and share each other's ideas.  

Blog Post #2 - Presentation Tools & Screencasting Tools

1. Describe the presentation Tool or Screencasting Tool you used. Provide a link to the website.

I used Prezi for my presentation. Here is the link:http://prezi.com/index/

It is very powerful presentation tool. It has a lot of strong points.

First, you can make your presentation more dynamic and flexible. And you cna see big picture of your presentation. Thus it makes your presentation more understandable.

Second, Prezi makes you a storyteller. You can embody your stroy and idea into visual image through this tool. It has a flow and narrative. You can express your story visually and emotionally.

Third, you can use it very easily. As you know, it isn't easy to make visual materials by using presentation tools like powerpoint. However, there are so many visual tamplates in this tool. Thus all you need to do is to choose the most suitable templates when you use this tool. It can turn you into a professional. You can easily dealt with this software.

Overall, Prezi is very useful tool to present your ideas and stories.


2. Describe the presentation or activity you created using the tool. Provide a link to the location of your embeded presentation on your google site.

I created very easy and interesting activity by using this tool. It is listen and draw activity. Through this activity, you can improve listening and speaking ability. It is designed for 4th grade elementary school students.
Before this acitivty, students can learn various place prepositions and relevant vocabularies. During this activity, student 1 describes a picture and student 2 listens to the description and draw. After the activity, students check their pictures each other whether they draw well or not. And then let the class vote for the top three most accurate pictures.

I could present my activity visually and narratively. It seem like that I made visual story. It has a flow and narrative. It's very understandable.

Here is the link:http://prezi.com/cbvot1cv1z4x/untitled-prezi/

Google sites: https://sites.google.com/site/hemilshyutesol/assignment/prezi







3. Describe your experience using the tool. Would you recommend it to other teachers?
Why or why not?

As I mentioned, Prezi has a lot of advantages. Even though I'm not skilled enough to evaluate this tool, it is a very powerful and useful tool. I could express my presentation just like telling a stroy. It seems like my presentation material is a living creature. I could express my presentation visually and emotionally. And it prevents losing a big picture of my presentation. It makes my audience more understandable. However, there is some limitations to express details. I feel it's very powerful tool to capture big picture of presentation, but it's a little hard to make details. Even though there are some limitations, I would recommend it to other teachers. I stronly believe that it provides a lot of opportunities to stimulate and capture students' interest. Visual materials can improve students' understanding. It can help classroom management more efficiently.

4. Describe potential uses the tool could have in the Korean EFL learning context.

Visual materials are becoming more important these days. Most teachers use and make useful classroom materials through various computer based programs. And they share their good ideas and materials.

In the past, teachers wrote down something that they wanted to teach to the blackboard and taught their students. However, as technology develops, teachers can create useful materials to use them in the classroom. It helps students understand the lectures, capture their interests and motivate their learning. According to many researches, visual materials can improve students' performance. Thus these tools can encourage students to study hard.

In Korea, education is very important, especially English Education. Teaching materials and methods have been developed in Korea. These tools have great potential in Korean Education system. And if teachers share their ideas more actively and freely, DB system that contain a lot of useful information and materials can strengthen. And it can improve the quality of education in Korea.

All things considered, these tools have great potential in the filed of Enlish Education in Korea.