My picture book for flipped lesson

My Storybird link

Mary's one fine day

            I made short picture story in Storybird. As they provided nice drawings, teachers can make their own teaching materials especially based on reading. My story is about the day of mole mom Mary and her two sons. I refer to Michigan English Language Proficiency Standards for K-12 schools, especially R.5.2.c restate fact and details of fact.

             Making this story, I tried to put useful expressions frequently used in daily life. The target students are from pre-school students to elementary third graders. As my target students are young, I focused on their ability to restate the fact and details. Through making their own story, students can use the words and expressions I used in this material. 

            Students will be able to make their own story with very short sentences and beautiful drawings. They can review what they have learned through the lesson. I will give them an reading quiz to ask them what they have read in this story.

The review of "Flipping Your EL Classroom: A Primer" written by John Graney

I would like to review the article named Flipping Your EL Classroom: A Primer written by John Graney. Teachers are bound to be frustrated when the teaching material or instruction they prepared do not work well. The author of this article suggests that teachers bring students assignment into the ‘flipped’ classroom and their instruction parts move out of the classroom to help learners engage in more cognitively demanding activities with the teacher present. The frustrated student, the confused learner, the student in danger of tuning out gets attention and support when they need it (Bergmann & Sams, 2012). Like all good homework assignments, these activities still challenge students to use what they have learned. 

The author of this article argues that teachers can break a flipped classroom lesson into three parts: work at home, work in class, work after class. In exemplified lesson, it is intriguing that teachers insert a quiz into the video which students are supposed to watch at home. Then the teacher sets up activities and prepare some needed materials.

According to the author, what happens in the flipped classroom revolves around the learners' needs. The activities help learners elicit the misunderstandings and take the students deeper into the subject. In addition, the author refer that by moving instruction outside of class, learners gain control over their learning. Students who cannot follow or understand the teacher’s instruction are able to review again and again until they understand well. They can use Internet and freely find more required information.

As video are closely related to the flipped classroom, the author also introduces some way of choosing video materials for class. First of all, as the flipped classroom becomes more popular, better instructional videos should become available, such as finding an Existing Video in YouTube or TED-ED. Creating a Video also can be a good way to use video material for class. With regard to other nonvideo Options, the author advises that the videos are the important part of flipping, but teachers can use a variety of resources for the initial exploration of a topic.

In conclusion, teachers can encourage their learners find their answer, changing the methods of teaching, so-called ‘in flipped classroom’. And they are also responsible for explaining the instructions well and making their learners get involved to their class. 

Serious game _ Third world farmer

I played the serious game. According to Wikipedia, a serious game or applied game is a game designed for a primary purpose other than pure entertainment. The "serious" adjective is generally prepended to refer to products used by industries like defense, education, scientific exploration, health care, emergency management, city planning, engineering, and politics.

I chose Third World Farmer. It helps students experience some of the hardships of farming in a poor country. This game provide us the opportunity not only to know the English language but also to think about poor countries’ farming conditions including unexpected bank corruption, lack of basic necessities, disasters people would encounter or economic disadvantage. It means that this game is designed not just for language learning. Through this game, students are able to think about the poor countries and difficulty of farming besides the language learning.

I have played this game three times. The more a student plays games, the more he can get more points to buy utensils or farm plants. Clicking the person or items, students can see the details of the picture they clicked. The instructions and explanation are provided and students can buy necessities for their farm. Reading the instructions, students can learn vocabulary and expressions about farming and economy.

In addition, in the end, it provides ‘annual report’ including data such as plant they put or items they bought. The most interesting thing is that they also provide the information about some natural, social or political reason for the farming result this year such as bankruptcy, big fire and so on. Through this annual report, students can expand their vocabulary knowledge and be aware of some natural or social phenomena around the third farming country.

With regards to my learning objectives, I have chosen Michigan English Language Proficiency Standards, especially for reading and comprehension, R.5.2.c Restate facts and details of text. According to Kyle Mawer's task types, I can assess ‘story telling’ including narrating a game story or writing the narrative of a game. As an activity, I would like to have students play this game first, and then, have them to write what they did including the expression they’ve learned in this game. In addition, they are supposed to write about the reason why their farming was not successful reciting the reason presented in the ‘annual report.’ 

The potential for Twitter in Education

The potential for Twitter in Education

[1] Twitter: Potential for Use as a Pedagogical Tool?

http://www.atelier.net/en/trends/articles/twitter-potential-use-pedagogical-tool_430928

This article is intriguing because it introduce some controversial opinions about the use of Twitter for the purpose of education at students’ and university’s respective perspectives. It argues that there is still some way to go before Twitter becomes accepted as a pedagogical tool in its own right.

Twitter as a ‘complementary’ pedagogical tool

Oliver Ertzscheid mentioned that Twitter is ‘one piece of the puzzle’ among a range of tools that can be used in the classroom. Twitter use as a pedagogical tool depends on the particular type of learning, such as for a class on the sociology of networks. However, in terms of the use that might be made of Twitter during actual class work, academics are basically seeking ways to expand their audience among the general public and are much less interested in using the platform in an unnecessary way with their own classes.

Overall Twitter use differs according to the users

I totally agree with this article. University administration and students seem to use Twitter for the different purpose. In terms of what they use Twitter for in the university context and discovered that they find Twitter useful for different reasons than the staff, the vast majority of students wanted to receive practical information on their classes via Twitter. On the other hand, events at the university were being widely publicized on Twitter, despite the lack of interest on the part of the students in receiving this type of information.

[2] 30 Ways To Use Twitter For Education

https://www.hashtags.org/platforms/twitter/30-ways-to-use-twitter-for-education/

This post realizes for sure the benefit of using Twitter for the purpose of education and deals with specific and effective ways to using Twitter in education. I would like to introduce this writing to all visitors on my blog including my LAI 590 classmates.

First, it introduces Initial Steps for using Twitter. From making Twitter account to following interested person or twits of topics. Second, it explains the way to use Twitter with good online manners such as reading a rules, posting original things, separating public and private things and updating and so on. Third, it mentioned several ways to use Twitter as ways for effective communication and professional learning. Among these effective ways, using Twitter chat to be related to topics I’ve been interested. For professional learning, it advises to exchange idea and look for a mentor. Finally, it recommends some ways to apply it to the classroom setting. It contains building a community, giving assignments, providing materials and receiving feedback. 

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."