Classroom usage of the podcast.

http://oclspodcast.libsyn.com/index.php?post_id=365436

This podcast is about Aesop fable, Ant and grasshopper.
It is told with vivid tone by excellent story teller, which might make students have fun to listen. I think I can use this podcast for my young students in listening, and writing class.
In class, students can listen to it and teacher can stop it in the middle of story and have students imagine the rest of story by themselves and at final stages, students can see how their wring is different from the original one listening to the rest of the story. Or Students can write the brief storyline after listening a whole story. For less proficiency group of students, teacher can give them questionnaires which contain key contents of the story ahead of listening and let them get familiar with the questions and answer to the questions by themselves listening to the story. And also, since this story is recorded by professional storyteller with vivid tone, it would be good for practicing intonation and pronunciation.

Mod 8:Sites(iEARN & Chinswing) for a global cooperation project

As sites for global cooperation project in my class, iEARN (http://www.iearn.org/)could be used matchingly with Chinswing(http://www. chinswing.com) in class. At iEARN, culturally different people
from all over the world can have ongoing online project with globally important issue and get enormous amount of knowledge or information about the global issue or life. People here can exchange their ideas on interactive forum and discussion Although it’s really excellent site for global communication and collaboration, there is a little disadvantage that discussion is performed by posting comments, reflective statements and responding to others. Especially for my future young learners, it could be a bit boring. Here, Chinswing which is a voice based message board for debate or discussion can be used to fill the weakness that iEARN has, encouraging students to have more active and fun discussion with people all over the world. Because at Chinswing, students can exchange their opinions by recording their voice messages to topical discussions. Students can communicate and share information with others more conveniently or lively instead of simply typing text.

Mod 8:Useful sites for global cooperation(iEARN&TakingITGlobal)

iEARN (http://www.iearn.org/) has enabled young people to engage in collaborative educational projects using internet and other technologies. These projects both promote learning and address issues which are globally important. Users can meet people from all over the world through a unique project- based learning network. The users can use mail (password-protected to insure security and a global sense of community), and attend international meeting where participants are able to meet face-to-face and have exchange experiences. And also, the users can join ongoing online projects. After selecting a project participants meet through the secure online interactive forums.


In classroom, teachers can provide students with wonderful opportunities to work collaboratively with culturally different people around the world through the project this site introduces. And also, teachers can get multiple educational sources that they could use in classroom. For example, as for folktale project which is currently ongoing at the site, there introduces lots of useful educational resources such as the following: power-point presentation about how to write folktales, graphic organizer(e.g.story map), teacher guideline, writing process, etc. And also students can have interactive forum after writing and read folktales around the world.

TakingITGlobal (http://takingitglobal.org/) is an international non-profit organization with mission to inspire young people. This site is led by young people for young people. On a variety of levels, young people around the whole world try to create positive social change in the world by providing them with information, connections, resources, and knowledge. This site provides people with opportunities to learn global issues and discuss it. Through open forum or discussion board, people can not only reflect and express what they face in their every day life but also have open discussion to share possible ideas on how to affect change and take action around today's major challenges: from poverty, violence, diseases (e,g.AIDS), education, to environmental issue. One of the best parts of this community is that it is available in multiple language.(English, French, Spanish, Russian, etc.). And also, people can explore world visiting country site. People can dedvelop cross-cultural awareness and self-growth through the use of Information and Communication Technologies.

Mod 6 : Plurk Vs Twitter

I prefer “ Plurk” to “ Twitter” in terms that plurk provides more visual services. I can use emotion icon and color verbs to emphasize my feeling. This visual things make me fun doing that and feel like using it more. Besides, I can share video, pictures with people. And also, there is karma service that twitter doesn’t have. The more active my network is, the higher points of karma I can get. With the higher karma score, my influence with Plurk also can be higher. .

When it comes to Twitter, it looks easy to use. I couldn't find much fun of using it though. It can be said more functional than good looking. But, one thing that l like about Twitter is I can see what people are doing at once. Because people’s message are arranged neatly in one page. On plurk, I need to scroll next to see the messages of all of people. This merit enables it to be used for academic purpose. As an example, it can be used to compare each of students' thought on certain topic.

Plurk has a great potential for better technology, in terms of a relatively new service made after twitter. Even now this is doing very good though.

Mod 6: Microbloggin in Education "Twitter breaks down barriers in the classroom"

This post( http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20080319-twitter-breaks-down-barriers-in-the-classroom.html) introduces lots of benefit of using microblogging and also a little of weakness such as technology problem(not perfect yet, still in progress).

Among many benefits this post says, I want to stress that this work as a medium to promote interaction and strong connection between students and teachers. And also, microblogging can work well for good connection between material and the “real world’. Through micorblogging, students and teachers can get to know better or get closer to one to another and also, students, out of class, can share interesting ideas that suddenly occur to them, or come up related to the material from classtime. Not to mention, it will encourage more dynamic classroom atmosphere, and arouse more respectful and productive interaction between teachers and students by turning the classroom into a community.

Mod 5

http://www.eslteachersboard.com/cgi-bin/articles/index.pl?read=3218

This short post"Quick Tips to Teach Social Skills to Shy Students" introduces one of very important skills for teachers to lead a successful classroom.

Working as an English teacher, one of the most challenging moment was facing very shy students in class. As a teacher of language, I had to arouse and encourage student’s interaction and participation to develop their better language skills. But, when facing students who were struggling with shyness and reluctant to say out loud, I couldn't successfully encourage them to join the class activley and give proper feedback for better participation. The author stresses the importance of eye contact and teaching shy students the skills to assert themselves. And also, he emphasizes teachers keep it in mind that shy students mostly like being called by their name. Lastly, he introduces class activity( role play) which let students know and undersand each other better. And also,through this activity, students can know how to greet and compliment someone, start conversations and continue conversations.

Social networking group

I like the http://www.classroom20.com/photo, which is the most active cite that I have found. I can see lots of useful categories here. I think I will be able to get most all of the information that I will need for class. Most importantly, I think I can learn lots of new technology skill. Frankly, I am really poor at technology. I have tried to avoid using technology as much as possible in my previous classes. But I know that It is definitely true that with the assistance of technology, learners can have more diverse learning environment and feel more fun learning. This cite looks useful and good. But, I was, at the beginning, a bit overwhelmed by too many information that the cite provides. It will take long to get familiar with them. But, it deserves taking time and taking my energy.

And also, through communication with the user of this site, I can get a lot of updated information, current educational issues, or practical advices from real world experiences of the users.(most of them seem to work as teacher or used to work or to plan to be a teacher)

P.S. I was very sick yesterday. Sorry for the late post!