Blog Newbie

I have never considered myself a techie-type of person and therefore was a little intimidated when I approached the different “things’ but gradually found myself enjoying tackling each thing.  The amount of information has been overwhelming and quite often I needed to learn to prioritize the relevance and practicality of these tools.  I also felt that I needed more time to digest the information to gain a deeper understanding. 

As mentioned in my Voicethread on final two thoughts, I will explore podcasting, and join Classroom 2.0 and Twitter.  Continuing my Google Readers and utilizing Google Docs are also something I will stick with. 

Thank you to Shelley.  I hope to participate in the future online courses of simlar nature.

I found Classroom 2.0 a potentially great network place to find teachers who have similar concerns or interests in our practice.  Due to the nature of the subject I teach, less commonly taught language,  it wasn’t easy for me to find many relevant resources while exploring the site.  But as time goes by, I believe more resources will become available. 

As to Twitter, I found it less applicable than Classroom 2.0 for at least one reason: my students are too young to follow me on the Twitter.  It is a potential networking tool in terms of professional development.  Twitter can be used to follow master teachers’ twits and to share my expertise.

Tech comfy NOT tech Savvy  is a post done by blogger Angela Maiers.  The article again confirms the belief that just because our students are born digital natives does not mean they are digitally literate.  What is important in navigating the digital world isn’t about how fast they can access the information but how well our students can critically examine the web information.  In Angela Maiers own words, “it is about looking critically at the content of a web, understanding how and why that particular media is being used to shape thinking and behavior, and most importantly having the competency and the confidence to communicate our own ideas and thoughts to this incredible space.”

It took me a while to get a grasp over the “flakes.”  I appreciate the idea of compiling useful Internet resources in one page or one location to be exact.  I however found it somewhat disturbing because except for the locations I have no control over the content to be present on my pages though some might see this as an advantage because this allows the readers (students) to pick and choose.

I have found some nice resources for my own topic which is Mandarin Chinese, primarily podcasts and video clips.  These can be a great add-on to my curriculum!

This is another exciting find that I cannot wait to share with my students or use for my own professional development.  The collaborative nature and its portability make it versatile.  Students in my classroom often time need to work together to create plays which involve creating, revising and editing lines.  Using Google Docs will allow them to continue to work on their projects after class.  Students sometime sent me “wrong” files because they did not save the files correctly after they had worked on them, or they simply just got confused.  With Google Docs, there will be “only one” file and less likely wrong files will be sent.  Oh, no!  With Google Docs, there is actuallyy no need for “sending a file.”

Another idea that came to my mind us using Google Docs to have my studets work on pre-reading projects.  Materials can be posted on Google Doc for my students to work together to find out the definitions of vocabulary, semantics of passages or even analyze syntax or sentence structures.  The options are endless.

As to professional collaboration, Google Docs will allow me to post articles I write and invite those who I believe can edit or revise my articles for me, all done online.  This feature is really handy as I am involved in a book-publishing project and am looking for someone to edit my articles…

This is a video clip found on YouTube.

I have been using YouTube for my class for a while, and appreciated the rich and quality contents I have been able to find on YouTube.  Compared with DVDs or CDs, the video clips on YouTube do not always provide consistency in visual quality and I don’t usually have a precise control of the relevance of its content.  But it is always easier to find some up-to-date materials for instructional purpose.  Besides, it is free.

I have never explored the option of posting on YouTube because there hasn’t been a need yet.

It was really fun, the most fun so far, to broadcast my first podcast.  I did not have trouble finding a topic or audience.  Shelley was right on: The real work lies in “planning, writing, editing, developing quality content, rehearsing and creating meaningful assessments.”   It will not be hard to record the podcast as long as the podcaster has got enough preparation in advance.   

In terms of classroom implications, I think this podcasting can be a great tool to have my students podcast something for the class to listen to and to answer some questions, all done in the target language.  I might use the podcast to connect with the students at my sister school since time zone difference is going to make Skype almost impossible to happen between my school and our sister school.  Definitely, this is one thing I will try after school starts.

I explored several Chinese podcasts because I wantedt to check out the potential for incorporating these podcasts in my teaching.  I was pleased to notice that one particular podcast: ChinesePod.com podcast  looks pretty promising.  I like this one in particular because it is done in a two-person communication format instead of one-way broadcasting.  Learning a foreign language needs many contextual cues so that students can understand how to use it.  Besides communication isn’t always a one-way street.

I don’t use iPod so I haven’t really had experience of listening to the casts in a “portable on demand” fashion.  After the exploration with some discoveries, I however found pod-casting can be a useful tool in my practice as a teacher and as a life long learner.  I do not think I will incorporate the podcasts in my classroom everyday, but pick and choose topics that can be an extension of my curriculum because most Chinese podcasts are not created to go in sync with my curriculum.

After some browsing and probing, I decided the LibraryThing isn’t going to be my Thing.  Don’t get me wrong, I do love books but I don’t love books so much that I need to use an online library thing for book reviews or forming reading groups.

As to the classroom implication, I cannot foresee much of it due to the subject I teach and the age of my students.

I just created a new account at Delicious to organize some of my website favorites and found this experience extremely helpful.  I have been bothered by the so many favorites/bookmarks I have collected throughout the year and eager to find a way to make these favorites more accessible.  Delicio.us  seems to be the answer.  The collection of my bookmarks do not seem to be popular because I needed to create the tags myself.  In order to make them accessible to my students, I either create a tagging system that is unique enough for them to be able to quickly locate the sites, or copy the URL of my account and give it to my students.