A comment on Mrs. Yollis’ Classroom Blog Post: Learning how to comment!

At Mrs. Yollis’ Classroom Blog, I found an interesting post that describes how to comment on the classroom blog for students who might be unfamiliar with the world of blogging.  The post starts with a kind explanation about the aspects of blogging and what students can do in the space. It also presents some tips for creating a quality comment and provides a lot of beneficial information with interesting images and video. The instruction seems to be easy to follow and clear enough for those who are “novices to the world of blogging”.

                                                       

                           

 Since this is a digital learning space, it is necessary for students to be able to compose a comment in order to participate in the class for their learning. Thus prior to the assessment of students’ activities, giving them a clear instruction of how to utilize the blog is one of the tasks that teacher must to do for students’ effective learning. In terms of that, I found Mrs. Yollis’ post very valuable for me to develop my own digital learning space more efficiently as well as for her students.

(To view the post, go to
http://yollisclassblog.blogspot.com/2011/08/learning-how-to-comment.html)

Students are Eager for Digital Learning!

     K-12 students today are using Internet for most of the time they spend a day. They blog, play games, write a letter, listen to the music, and watch TV online. These things happen all the time in students’ lives and the Internet is always involved in their digital activities.

     However, students still want to learn things more digitally, getting away from taking classes in which technology does not exist and makes them to merely pay attention to teachers. This is not the way of creative learning that we expect from our educational system either. What we really need for today's digital learners is to provide them a digital classroom. In this type of classroom, learners will finally be comfortable and happy with learning and thinking creatively. 

     Therefore, it is an important task for teachers to be able to plan their lessons involved in technology so that learners could consider learning as an interesting process of constructing knowledge, just like playing with the Internet. We can only make it possible within the active engagement of technology.  The video, A Vision of K-12 Students Today, has a great inspiration in students' desire for digital learning.

(To view this video, go to http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_A-ZVCjfWf8)

Roles of Technology in Language Teaching

The first chapter of Brave New Digital Classroom emphasizes on the reasons why we need technology in L2 curriculum. I strongly agree with what the book suggests in terms of the role of technology in L2 learning. As Blake says that “Language learning is assisted through social interaction of learners and their interlocutors”, I also think that technology is a very essential tool for communicators who want to share information and their ideas with other people over the world. Since learning L2 is not just understanding of the language but also requires intercultural communication with others, it should especially be integrated with digital technology. According to the book, the most obvious reason why we need to pay attention to the development of technology in L2 classroom is because “84 percent of teenagers today use the Internet primarily as a tool for communications through instant messaging and text messaging”. In other words, today’s students are already accustomed to use the Internet for almost any kinds of activity they do in their daily lives. This means that engagement of technology in our L2 classrooms is a great opportunity to gather students’ attention to digital learning world thereby students can be encouraged to enjoy learning and find their interests on it. The main points of this book are very much alike to my own thoughts on L2 learning environment, and I found this chapter very effective for those, who are currently preparing for future L2 teachers, as a reminder of the importance of technology in L2 curriculum.

Tips for Web Safety

As the world is getting be globalized, Internet becomes a largest tool that almost everyone uses for information and commutity. It provides everything humanly impossible in temrs of resources, technology, knowlege to enrich our lives. In other words, using the Internet is inevitable for us to survive the modern world because it is just another means of communication and also the reason why you are at the computer right now.

Then, does the Internet always satisfy us? The answer might be NO. Internet is definitely a greatest tool for most of us, but not for those who do not aware of the danger lurking in it. In order to keep yourself safe against any risks of cyber crime, you must keep the following tips in your mind when you use the Internet. These tips are not only important for language learning at this space, but it helps you to protect yourself from privacy invasions in general use of the Internet as well.

•  Do not fill out forms and enter contests on commercial Web sites

• Do not provide information when registering for Internet services or software (i.e. file-sharing, instant messaging, e-mail)
• Do not complete a personal profile for an e-mail or instant messaging account
• Do not give personal information to strangers in chat rooms or through instant messaging

Please don't lose your privacy due to neglect of those tips and just adhere to them. For more information about web safety, refer to the article; Protecting Personal Privacy Online .



Reference

Safe Passage Know the Risks- Privacy Invasions
www.media-awareness.ca/...risks_privacy.cfm

Blogging Guidelines for ESL Students

Using a blog for learning and teaching language becomes more and more popular among the ESL students and teachers. Thus, it is required for them to make clear understading  of how they are using the blog and what they could do in this digital world. Here are tips for those of you who want to take advantages of this blog.

COMMUNICATION

Since communication is one of the aims why are learning a language, it is important to use this space as a tool for sharing thoughts and experessing feelings about any aspects of learning language. 

•  Students engage in conversations, provide and obtain information, express feelings and emotions, and exchange opinions
•  Students understand and interpret written and spoken language on a variety of topics
•  Students present information, concepts, and ideas to an audience of listeners or readers on a variety of topics

CULTURES

Beyond the language learning, having communication with people from various countries here would help you to get a better understanding of cultures and have more insights to the cultural differences and similarities. Learn more about cultures! 

• Students demonstrate an understanding of the relationship between language and culture
• Students demonstrate an understanding of the relationship between the products/practices and perspectives of the culture studied
  

STRATEGIES

Utilizing a blog in learning will allow students to gain technical knowedge as well as knowlege in the language. Also, this is a great chance for students to find their own methods and materials that would be effective for them the msot. For example, they could do any acitivities such as reading, writing, listening, viewing, and even replying on the bolg, and this would enable them to learn deep into a use of technology and to find their intersts on a particular learning method.

• Students use a variety of technological and information resources (e.g., libraries, databases, computer networks, and video) to gather and synthesize information and to create and communicate knowledge.
• Students find the best way for language lenaring while they approach different types and methods of participation (e.g., writing journals, posting comments, and watching video)  at the blog.
  

References

ACTFL National Standards for Foreing Language Education
www.actfl.org/...FLNCATEStandardsRevised713.pdf
Teaching Writing Using Blogs, Wikis.../ Standards related to digital writing
digitalwriting.pbwiki.com/rds+related+to+digital+writing