Podcasting

I found few podcasts very interesting and useful. One of them is http://englishconversations.org/which which has practical conversations for the language learners. I really like this podcasts and I think I am going to use it in my ESL class for the following reasons:
a) There are videos and audios for students to watch and listen to the dialogues and speeches on the variety of topics like people and places, countries, cultures etc. This is going to be helpful for my ESL students to not only learn English language but also will give better understanding of the cultures of other countries.

b) This site provides the written dialogues along with the audio transcripts which can help my ESL students to compare their understanding with the written dialogues and speeches.

c) It also gives a complete guide how to use this site, how to download the videos and audios.

d) It also has the English lesson plans for teachers to use in their classroom.

The other podcast I found useful are:

a. http://www.teachingenglish.org.uk/think/articles/podcasting-elt

b. http://volkerh.public.iastate.edu/projects/podcasting/

c. http://tesl-ej.org/ej44/a4.html

surveymonkey.com

In my view surveymonkey can be a very useful tool for the global cooperation projects created by the students.The students, teachers, and other professional who are involved in any kind of resarch project, do need to conduct surveys. Through surveymonkey we can not only get the templetes of the surveys but we can also collect responses through email, evalute and analyse the results. This can be a great help to prepare the reports for the projects on the global issues like education, health, technology, poverty, economics etc.

www.surveymonkey.com

Global Cooperation Program

I have explored The Global House and Taking IT Global as the global cooperative programs.

Both the sites aim to connect people through technology to collaborate and work on various projects to solve global issues of various natures. Both the websites involve teachers, students and community in meaningful projects where they can learn by exchanging information through technology to develop literacy, communication skills and to encourage teamwork, cooperative learning and multi cultural understanding. The Global House aims to promote 21st century education and invites people to work on the projects on the wide variety of topics. The most interesting part of this site is that it allows schools, teachers, students to collaborate with 90,000 members from 194 countries. Taking IT Global is also very useful site which provides people an opportunity to work on the areas of culture and identity, health and wellness, environment and urbanization, education and learning, peace, technology etc.

I think I can use these sites to encourage my students to collaborate with the other students of different countries, understand their views on the different global issues through discussion and then finally work with them on various projects to find the solutions of the problems faced by the whole world. To encourage them more I might work with them in these projects. In this way we will be crating better policy makers, teachers, economists, leaders etc. in future.

The Global Schoolhousehttp://www.globalschoolnet.org/index.html
TakingITglobalhttp://takingitglobal.org/

Using videos in the classroom

I am really in favour of using videos in the classroom to make teaching more meaningful and effective. I used the following video in my reading class as the prereading activity .
the title is Earthquake Destruction and link is http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4Y-62Ti5_6s.

I showed this video to my students without showing the title and asked them to write the words realetd to the video they just watched. And then I wrorte the words suggested by the students on the blackboard. And then I asked them to figure out what was the video about. After we came on the word Earthquake, I asked them to discuss in the groups few things they knew about the earthquake and few things they wanted to learn about the Earthquake. After this prereading session, we continued with the during reading lesson.

I found it very useful idea to use videos as prereading, writing and speaking activities.

Following the Tweets

I have been following two microblogs this week. They were Simple English and TEFL.Net.
I didnot find the Simple English very relevant to what I thought it would be but TEFL.Net is really interesting for ESL teachers. This blog provides the links to articles written on the topics like" "Learing How to avoide vocabulary queries", " 15 ways of starting a preschool lesson " etc.
I have read these articles and I have found them very informative and I hope that I will keep on receiving useful information related to my field.

Twitter in the calssroom

I honestly had no idea about what twitter is before this class. But now i realize that many people not only know about it but are also using it as a platform for quick communication related to any area of their interest.
I have read many articles on how twitter can be useful for the teachers and really liked "Potential Uses of Twitter in Teacher Education Courses" by Bud Talbort.This article suggests many ways twitter can be used for better teaching and learning process.
I like the idea of "Continuing conversations" from the very same article.It says that our class discussionbs are mostly limited by the time factor. Twitter provides us the platform to continue discussions even after the class.
In my view this would also give confidence to those students to share their opinion who find very less opportunity in the class to speak or who are shy to speak in the class.At the same blog, the students can give their feedback about the course and its contents, how useful they are and what improvemnts can be made in the course. The teacher by reading this kind of feed back can improve the methods of teaching.
Another article "Twitter for Academia" from AcademHack gives us the use of twitter to asign group writing assignments to the students. I really am planning to use this idea, students can brainstorm on the assigned topic while being on distance.

About.com English as a Second Language

I have found very intersting website for ESL/EFL teachers and that is http://esl.about.com/.
My God! This website provides number of activities, quizzes, lesson plans, articles etc. on grammmar, reading, writing, listening and speaking, business English. I have simply fallen in love with this website.The best thing is that if we get registered to this website(which is absolutely free), it send us the latest stuff(all mentioned above) regulary, which I have started to receive.

Another good thing about this site is that it has presents all material according to the various level of profeiciency,(beginner, intermediat and advanced level).

I think all ESL teachers must visit this website and add this as their favourite feed.

Teachers 2.0: Teaching In the Digital age

This is an amazing website for those who really wanna know more about the use of teachnology in the classroom. There are 316 members of this group and the number is still increasing, where most of them are teachers.This is the group of people from the field of education who aim to help each other to use new teachnology and enhance teaching and learning process.
I have joined this group due to the following reasons:

1. It's a whole world of knowledge on the use of new teaching tools. There are many topics like " How are you using technology in your classroom?, etc dealts with.

2. There are many useful articles related to teaching are potsed.


3. I already feel that I need to learn alot about the use of teachnology in the classroom.Through this group, i would be able to do my modules better for my LAI 598 class.

4. There are links to other edu blogs too.

5.I would also get wonderful ideas on how to improve my blog by adding colourful features as done here.

I would be benfiting from this group as a learner and be able to use the knowledge gained from here to improve my teaching strategies as a teacher.

I have decided to be in touch with this group for all the benefits listed above.And I am sure there
is more to discover.

I would suggest you guys to try and visit this site .
http://teachers20.ning.com/

Today's Learner is Like a Branch of Tree

After reading, Siemens, article on Connectivism: A Learning Theory for the Digital Age. International Journal of Instructional Technology and Distance Learning,
I come to this opinion that today’s learner is like one branch of a tree. Like the tree branches are connected to each other, today’s learner is also connected to other individuals through technology which works like the tree trunk. As, Siemens, in his article says, “Nurturing and maintaining connections is needed to facilitate continual learning”, the tree trunk, provides the food and water to all its branches for their growth , in the same way, technology like computer, internet, blogs, IPods, mobile etc. has connected all the learners together and provides us with instant information for our healthy growth.

“Learning and knowledge rests in diversity of opinions”, (Siemens, G. 2005, January) Technology provides us the platform where we share our opinions, learning, experiences etc. in other words collaborate and communicate and through this sharing more learning takes place. The best thing about technology is that this learning is rapid, and instant, like Siemens says in his video on Networking Is learning, no matter wherever we are and whatever subject or field we want to get knowledge about, we get the current and quick information through technology.

This learning process is continual.And the tree which represents society in this analogy grows as the result of all the learning in this process, and it goes on and on.

Here I would also like to state that many people blame technology for bringing distances between human beings and state that people do not have time for each other as they sit in front of computer all the time. But honestly, I think the correct use of technology has brought us closer, e.g. we can talk and see our loved ones through computers, can email them, send the cards to express our love for them etc.

References:

1.Siemens, G. (2005, January). Connectivism: A Learning Theory for the Digital Age. International Journal of Instructional Technology and Distance Learning,


2. The Changing Nature of Knowledge http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YMcTHndpzYg&feature=PlayList&p=3E43054A8703F57A&index=0 Retrieved January 10, 2009.
3. The Conflict of Learning Theories with Human Nature
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xTgWt4Uzr54&feature=PlayList&p=3E43054A8703F57A&index=2 Retrieved January 10, 2009.
4. The Network is the Learning
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rpbkdeyFxZw&feature=PlayList&p=3E43054A8703F57A&index=4 Retrieved January 10, 2009.

saima in Pakistan

Use of blogs in higher education

In my view, teachers can use blogging for various purposes.

1. They can post assignments, syllabus, new announcements for students etc. this would enable the students to respond quickly.

2. In my experience as the incharge students' affairs in my country, i had to communicate with the presidents of many students' clubs. I used to find it very difficult to announce any event, discuss any matter or communicate with these presidents and secrateries and would call them all the time and then they would come to my office, which was the great wastage of money and time.Now i think i would be able to use blogs as the plateform for all such functions. it is a big relief from all those headaches, i used to have.

3.Another big advantage of blog is that it provides a kind of discussion forum to students and teachers.Through this forum the students can teach eachother and can share various ideas and useful links.

Hello

Hello every one!

Happy new year to all.