Listen to Me

Podcast is an online tool for people to get information they they want. Unlike broadcast, podcast bring a lot of convenience to people. They can create podcast just with a microphone and a computer. They can download the podcasts to their computer and listen to them whenever they want, not worrying about missing a podcast. They can also transfer podcasts to other devices, such as ipod, thus they can listen to it wherever they want.

I listened to The Legend of Sleepy Hollow on BBC World News for Children, and I realized that it is a great tool for practicing listening. In my future teaching, I will mainly use podcast for teaching listening to advanced level students. For example, I can ask students to listen to a podcast, and try to write down the story they have heard. Such activity will be mainly applied to teaching advanced level English to adults. I can also ask students to retell the story after they have heard it.    

Tell Me A Story

     I have made a short story, The Story of Fun, with the online tool, Storybird. It was fun, and I just love it. 

     With such tool, I can teach vocabulary by putting words together and making them into a story or dialogues. It will help student learn vocabulary, because it offers student context for learning. In addition, I can use it for grammar teaching, making stories based on the grammar I am teaching, ehlping students  learn the correct use of certain grammar. 

     I can also encourage my students to make stories with Storybird.It can be a very good way for me to check whehter my studetns have learned wellor what kind of help do they need. Besides, it can be a very good tool to encourage creativeness, avoiding boring styles of teaching and learning, making students get interested and excited in doing homework. 

I use videos for teaching. It's cool!

     

     I created a video,My Christmas on Animoto. It is a very short video, and not very clear, because I did not upgrade my account. But anyway, I had fun making it, because it was simple and the instruction was direct and clear.

     Videos can be widely used in education. For example, they can be used for introduction of a topic. And it can be very interesting and attractive, because they consist of music, pictures, backgrounds,and texts. In other words, it can arouse students' interest in learning effectively. For another example, they can be used in vocabulary teaching. With the combination of pictures and vocabulary in a video, students can have a better understanding to the new words.

    Besides being used for teaching in class, video can also be a kind of homework. I can ask my students to make videos based on what they have learned, and present them to their fellow students.I will also encourage students to create videos for other areas.

Games Can Be Serious

The game I played was Third World Farmer. The game requires people to experience the life of poor farmers, earning money and raising kids. All I do is to make the family survive from year to year. I played it for twice, and I found it uneasy, even frustrating sometimes, especially when I just realized that a kid somehow disappeared (I guess he died. Oh God...I am so sorry.). I grew up in a big city, and I have never experienced such life. This game gave me an illusion of struggling to live a little bit.

Comparing to casual games, such serious game might do a better job in improving students' ability of solving problems. Instead of simply enjoying the fun given by games, such games might actually offer students opportunities to solve real problems.

With this game, I can teach counting numbers in English, because there are plenty of numbers available in it. Besides the numbers, I can also teach other words appear in the game, such as hen, pig, and corn. In addition, I can make a competition based on this game. For example, students will be asked to play the game individually to see who survive the longest time. The winner will have to present his/her "blueprint". To see whether the objectives have been met, I can just ask students to present their solutions, in which target words will be used.

Learn Through Play

It is important to make learning fun, especially for kids. Therefore, applying game to teaching is an amazing way to reach that goal. According to the article THINGS YOU SHOULD KNOW ABOUT GAMIFICATION, gamification is the application of game elements in non-game situations. Through games, children will be able to comprehend what they are learning or have learned, apply knowledge to problem solving, as well as enjoy learning new knowledge or skills.

The game I played was Polleke's Blue Room, and I played it for twice. It is a nice game for teaching, because it supply many English words for players, which is good for them to learn vocabulary. It also provides many sentences. Therefore, it will be a nice tool for grammar teaching, either.

When the teacher use this game for teaching, it would be better if the teacher pretends to be a person "who needs help". Standing in front of the classroom, the teacher controls the game which is shown to the whole class and asks "what should I do next". Students will have to tell the teacher what should be clicked or dragged. In other words, students have to help the teacher finish the game.

Walk through is necessarily used in such activity, especially when students are stuck in the game. However, it does not mean that the teacher should show the walk through directly to students. Instead, the teacher learns the walk through, and orally offer hints. Images, on the other hand, are not necessary in this activity, since the teacher can use the pic in the game for teaching.

To assess whether the objectives are achieved, the teacher can use pictures to make an Q & A activity, either asking students to speak the names of pictures, or asking them to make sentences on the pictures.

Car and Tunnel: What I Saw From The Two Videos

   
     The two videos, Educational Change Challenge and A Vision of 21st Century Teachers, has given me the ideas of the reflection of class to the outside world, as well as the importance of using technology in teaching and learning.

     As a place where students accept education together, a classroom is just like a tunnel that connects different parts of world. In the classroom, students learn knowledge, share experiences,and join activities, in order to build values, find themselves, and develop connections to the outside world.In other words, a classroom is never a simply little safe room for students to stay. Instead, it is a locker room for football players to prepare for games.

     Technology has been playing an important role around the world, and it is also essential in current teaching and learning, without which teaching and learning will lose relevance to the society. Technology can make teaching and learning interesting and efficient. For example,teachers use use tools such as PPT and Prezi to present knowledge. For another example, students use iPad to take notes and track the schedule of classes. Applying technology to education can also help develop both teachers' and students' competence of using technology, as well as develop a sharp sense of discovering and learning new tools.