Some projects from ePals

            

ePals

http://www.epals.com

              I would like to introduce some projects posted on ePals. ePals is Project-based learning website and it encourage teachers and learners all over the world to development their understanding about projects they are participating in. Through communication with global groups, we can share our ideas and develop our thought about teaching and learning.

1. A National Geographic Project

In this project, students will engage in a collaborative learning experience. Through email exchanges, students will build friendships and learn about the daily lives and characteristics of the local environment of students who live in another region of the world. This unit may be taught to both lower elementary students (grades 2-4) and to upper elementary and secondary students (grades 5-7). Their class is in North Carolina, USA.

2. A McGraw-Hill World Languages Project

This project is designed for native speakers of English who are learning Spanish, and native-Spanish speakers who are learning English. Only classes that meet this description will be accepted. Classes will be paired together for project collaboration so that students have the opportunity to practice the target language with native speakers. Personal interests, values, and beliefs all influence a person’s identity. Culture also plays a role in how humans see themselves and how they identify with the world around them. Through getting to know other people, especially people from different cultures, we have the opportunity not only to gain insight into how others view themselves but also to learn more about ourselves.

3. Education Around the World Project

This project is designed by Ms. Megan Wood, an education student in college at Missouri Western State University. She is a pre-service teacher looking to start a project about education curriculum and systems around the world. She wants to present this information at a conference. She wants to deal with communication (emails, letters, video chat) with elementary schools around the world, Media (pictures, videos, etc.) and contact with students, teachers, and administrators. As a teacher getting ready to go into the workforce, she wants to experience and learn as much diversity in the global education system to prepare herself.

Actually, I could not find lots of language learning projects in this website. However, there are many projects every age groups and interest such as culture, music, nature and so on. Especially, I would like to use 1. A National Geographic Project. Because I will be back to my country after graduation and teach Korean students, I want to apply this project in our EFL educational environment. Without visiting the real classroom of other countries, my future students will be able to communicate with students who live in other countries via email. Through this process, my students will not only learn other cultures and practice their English with friends all over the worlds. 

Connectivism through Social Networking_Classroom 2.0

YouTube video reference:

Alan Levine- New Media Consortium

Classroom 2.0 

http://www.classroom20.com/

           Using social networking, for example, Alan Levine referred to his personal experience that he could put out his ignorance and people who connected with him through social networking group can help or give him an advice for the problem. It takes some time to build up the network, but we can learn more than we expected and share our ideas with them through Facebook, Tweeter, Email, blogs. It is really important for us (teachers) to be able to stay connected to other teachers or learners than are smarter or experienced than us because we cannot know everything. For example, starting to learn new technology applied out classroom (or future classroom) can be intimidated first to know about them as a novice, but it can be very exciting as we learn and discover with help and advice for social networking group members.

             I would like to introduce Classroom 2.0 for social networking cummunity. This is social network for those interested in Web 2.0, Social Media, and useful Technologies in the classroom. It is also a free, community-supported network. Even beginner, anyone can use this community network because many experienced and supportive group members help them navigate and find the information through digital dialog. Participating in the discussions in Classroom 2.0, teachers and learners get useful information about their teaching and learning activities through Forum. In addition, teachers and learners can watch keynote recording videos in Recordings (button located in the upper side option bar).

Today's learner

Journal reference: 

Connectivism: A Learning Theory for the Digital Age (George Siemens, 2005)

http://www.itdl.org/Journal/Jan_05/article01.htm

YouTube Video reference: 

The Impact of Social Software on Learning

       Today’s learner is like an explorer not only for new knowledge itself but also for the capability of increasing their knowledge. Today’s learners use social media such as facebook, twittter, and so on to develop their current knowledge and find the way to increase their knowledge for the future. In this journal “Connectivism: A Learning Theory for the Digital Age (George Siemens, 2005)”, Siemens cited that Art Kleiner (2002) explores Karen Stephenson’s “quantum theory of trust” which “explains not just how to recognize the collective cognitive capability of an organization, but how to cultivate and increase it”. It means that learners are getting smarter to find how to get the information or knowledge, not just the information itself what they want.

       Also, today’s learners express their opinion and share their ideas with others. They know the importance of expressions of their knowledge and its impact. The more they express, the wider their knowledge gets. In the YouTube video named “The Impact of Social Software on Learning”, George Siemens referred to Vygotsky’s statement that “words really give the life to thought” and argued that “our Ability to express ourselves and our knowing increases as we express ourselves externalized our knowledge.” Through the process of ‘externalization’, which is the opposite concept of ‘internalization’, people also can teach and learn the new knowledge and concepts and spread it among others. Today’s learners also know the importance of knowledge’s expansion through interaction with people who want to know it. Therefore, exchange and transfer of knowledge through social media can be a very effective way to expand the learner’s knowledge and their learning. 

Diigo vs Pinterest (social bookmarking & curating)

Trying to use Diigo and Pinterest, I would like to write something I felt while using them. 

<Diigo>

<Pinterst>

-Can you highlight text in saved sites? 
With Diigo, I can highlight text in saved sites. On the other hand, I just chose the interesting website and pin it with Pinterest. 

-Can you use multiple tags? 
Both are good to add multiple tags. It is very convenient for users to find the website or blogs they want to visit.

-Can you copy and paste from original article to appear in comments about site? 
Yes. Both are convenient for copying and past text from original article. However, in case of Pinterest, I have to go into the original website for that. 

-Can others post comments on your site? 
I can put comments on Diigo and Pinterest. When someone feel something about the posts or websites I'm sharing, they can put comments on my Diigo and Pinterest pin post anytime.

-Can you follow others?  Can they follow you? 
Of course. We can share our interest with others! I followed many English teachers boards and blogs, and they also can follow me if they want.

-Can you message people you follow? 
Yes, using Pintest, I can message to them pushing button shaped paper plane.

-Are you offered suggestions for related articles? 
Yes, they show me related articles automatically when I click some pin posts. 

-Would you continue to use either of these?  Which?  Why? 
I would like to use Diigo and Pinterest both. Diigo is so useful to assess to my favorite websites, especially any devices! And Pinterest is so nice to see all the post I've interested, in one site at the same time. 

According to the purpose of using these social bookmarking and curating websites, we can use these tools effectively. It is certain that these website are quite useful for teachers and learners in that they provide various opportunities to access others' creative thoughts about the ways of teaching and learning.

Has “the future” started, indeed?

-reviewing the video clip <The Future Starts Now- 2012 edition (4:40)>

This video clip made me think about using ICT in my future classroom. We have so many cool gadgets nowadays, like iPads, Smartphones etc. The use of these gadgets is abbreviated ICT, which means information and communication in technology. Many people believe that children can learn much better through ICT, but many local authorities struggle to provide our students with these tools. The problem is not that hardware because schools are full of it. The real problem is how to use ICT smartly to improve learning.

In Norwegians’ perspectives, after the oil, people will live off Knowledge. This means that more of use will have to get a good education. If we agree to society benefits from improved learning, how do we reach this goal? Back to gadgets, it would be smart to take advantage of using ICT. Computers can teach us to learn things in different ways and they also make learning advanced concepts easier if that's what you want. For example, instead of reading about DNA molecules and cramming in facts you can't really understand. Then we can visualize, simulate and animate them using ICT. All the information all over the world can be learned at our finger tips.

ICT is a part of curriculum as the basic skills But the curriculum itself is no guarantee because nothing happens if you don't follow it accurately. Therefore it is more important to get actual teachers into the idea of using ICT in their lessons. Increase of using ICT and teacher training can encourage teachers to use ICT in their own lessons.

However, it is more or less premature to paint a rosy outlook on using ICT. In terms of IT devices used in classroom, schools have to spend a lot of money to prepare them for all students’ use. Moreover, according to devices, they are considered to be care regularly with upgrading their own system or maintain its servers to keep a certain degree of quality. In addition, the teachers’ education about ICT would be needed. Bit most important thing is to find and develop ‘appropriate educational contents’ inside the sea of information. Has “the future” started, indeed?

You can learn more about ICT with this YouTube Video clip!

===============================================================

Welcome but somewhat scary Social Media Revolution!

-reviewing the video clip <Social Media Revolution 2011 (2:35)>

This video clip not only let me know about very interesting information about social media but also feel even scary about big power of social media. 

Social Media is about people. Over 50% of the world population is under 30 years old. Social media even impact our offline behavior. Kindergartens are learning on iPads, not chalkboards. In addition, tf Facebook were a country, it would be the world's 3rd largest. But in China, Twitter, Facebook, YouTube and Google are prohibited. IF Wikipedia were made into a book, it would be 2.25 million pages long. and would take you over 123 years to read. Some universities have stopped distributing e-mail accounts. E-Readers have surpassed traditional book sales. Movie-goers buy only 2.5billion in real goods. 93% of marketers use social media for business. How amazing it is!

The most impressive sentence in this video clip is that commented by Erik Qualman: We don't have a choice on whether we do social media. The question is how well we do it.

Most of things are alternated by social media. It is a matter of course that all traditional ways of communication, advertisement, marketing and so one are changing now. And its speed is beyond our imagination!

Social media also has huge influence on English education and is changing our field. The thing is that we need to realize social media’s frighteningly huge influence on us and adapt this environment.

               "Change is bound to be scary to 
        only who don’t want to be changed."

What are the advantages of using blogs for students and English teachers?

Blog can help teachers to develop their own professional teaching methods through communicating and sharing their ideas with other teachers and students. From my experiences, when I have taught high school student for a year in Korea, I used to post some opinion about previous lesson and share it with my students and other English teachers. They were pleased to give me useful opinions for problems, lesson plan and classroom managements. If there were not blog, as teachers and students both don’t have enough time to meet after school, we could have not share opinions for lessons. With this process, I could fix some wrong part of my lesson and improve my lesson to be better.  

Blog also can provide EFL students a good opportunity to express their opinion about previous lessons and their own interests, too. For instance, in EFL classes in Korea, there are a lot of students who don’t their opinions well because of their shyness. Teachers never know their students’ opinions, thought or interest unless students express themselves. In this point, blog is a good way to write freely without feeling uncomfortable. Through students’ blog postings, teachers can recognize each student’s interest and opinions. In addition, students can do their assignment with easy access to the Internet. As they can finish their homework regardless of time and space, so it could be very convenient. And as they can keep their own record for one subject or course, they can open their ‘data’ anytime, anywhere and so do teachers. Teachers also can feel comfortable to give feedback to their students for their assignments.

Performance Indicator - ESL.C.9-12.1.1.1: Students identify and use reading and listening strategies to make text comprehensible and meaningful.