Week 15 Taking Assessments through Technology

This week we are discussing about Assessments and Technology. This article is about how teachers can use computers to asses language, English in our case.

Before reading this article, the first thing that comes to my mind is that, I really do not like to take evaluations in computers; I still believe that the old methods are better and I have my reasons. As a student I have to chance to take many evaluations and quizzes and is really uncomfortable had to face problems with internet connections. Moreover, I know that exist programs specially designed for check the task, and I not believe 100% in that programs, they are been made for humans, and we make mistakes with more reason a software can make mistakes at the time to check answers. Another reason, if students take a quiz from home, they can cheat by opening a new window in their browsers and looking for the answers on the internet. Because of this reason I will always prefer take quizzes in paper with my pencil and eraser than taking that in a computer.

I know that as teacher, I will have to accept that in a future all quizzes could be taken in computer. But,  we have to remember that, like me, not all students could feel comfortable taking evaluations in computers, and is our responsibility look for solutions that can befits everybody.

Week 14: Projects for Learning Language

As we know, motivation is an essential element to learn a second language. The articles required for this week provide us good example to promote collaboration and motivation in our students: Working with projects.

Both articles present steps that students will follow to create a project. Also, it describe how project based learning has helped students to improve their results while learning a language.

As a future teacher, definitely I will use projects to promote the work as a team, in that way, students would feel comfortable to face their challenges by helping their classmates and themselves to understand their target language.

Week 13: Particpation Through Technology

In the articles required for this week “10 Benefits of Getting Students to Participate in Classroom Discussions” by Maryellen Wimer, and “Increase Student Interaction with ‘ThinkPair-Shares’ and ‘Circle Chats’”  by Kristina Robertson, exposed how boost participation through languge learners and the benefits of doing it.

In the first article, the author claimed about the benefits of student’s participation in classroom discussions. Something that I learned from this article is that by listening how students express their ideas, we as teachers can identify the areas where students need to emphasize. Furthermore, when students give us a wrong answer it is an indicator that students did not understand the topic of the class. In the same way, the second article provides two activities that promote participation, which are “ThnkPairShares” and “Circle Chats”. What I like the most from this article is the facts that author explain in clear way the steps of these activities, something that results very helpful at the time to do these activities with students.

In addition, in one of our task for this week, we had experience to participate through technology by giving our opinions about the articles that I mentioned above, in a website called Nicenet. From these articles I learned that taking an online class does not mean that you will not participate in classes.

Week 12: MALL

Imagine using your mobile phone to teach a class or made an activity with your sudents, it sounds a little complicated, and it is when a question emerged: Can mobile phones technology support learning in the second language classroom?

As we know, these days mobile phones are used everywhere by everyone, and students are not the exception. They are constantly sending text messages outside the classroom, taking pictures, etc. as teachers; we have to take advantages of these activities.

The article required for this week: Twenty Ideas for Using Mobile Phones in the Language Classroom by Hayo Reinders, give us some advices to use mobile phones in a second language classroom. There are numerous ways to use our mobile phone as a useful tool to made activities with our students. We can use WhatsApp to create a short story, we as teachers beggins with two introductory lines, then a student continue writing the story with another two lines, and so on with all the students to be able to finish the story. This activity is good for practicing writing skills. Also, students can record conversations, made a blog with pictures and descriptions of each of it, etc. the purpose is take advantages of all the technology taht mobile phones give us.

In conclusion, mobile phones give us numerous tools to use with our students in classes and is our responsability as teachers be actualized with future applications that we can use in order to make the classes more interactive for students.

Week 10: Vocabulary and Reading Comprehension with Technology

As we know, vocabulary plays an important role in the acquisition of a new language. The articles required for this week, gave us an important point of view about vocabulary and the use of Online Dictionaries in the second/foreign language.

The first article “Using Technology to Assist in Vocabulary Acquisition and Reading Comprehension”, present possibilities to enhance vocabulary and reading comprehension with the help of technology. The author shows in the article an overview of the relationship between vocabulary knowledge and reading comprehension. Tozcu and Coady (2004:473) claimed that “learning vocabulary is an important aspect of L2/FL acquisition and academic achievement and it is vital to reading comprehension and profiency, to which it is closely linked”. The closely relationship of this important aspects into the learning process helps students to enhance their goals as learners. Moreover, as was mentioned in past post in the Blog, technology helps in the reading skills and this articles show principles and aids to enhance reading comprehension and vocabulary with the help of technology.

The second article “Online English-English Learner Dictionaries Boost Word Learning”, claimed about the use of monolingual online dictionaries that are not the best option for a learner. The author explained that we as teachers should teach and introduce the several excellent online dictionaries with features especially designed for learners. Also, we need to trained students in the use of online dictionaries in order to get the maximum benefit in the classroom.

In conclusion, as we know the technology help us to teach different skills to our students and it is our responsibility as teachers involve our students with technology in order to get good benefits in the learning process. 

Week 9: Writing Throught the Technology

The articles required for this week, introduce new ways of using technology to teach second language writing skills: Blogs, Wikis and Collaborative Writing.

The first article: “Process Writing and the Internet: Blogs and Ning Networks”, shows how these technological tools can be useful to teach writing skills. A blog is a website with different entries that students can use to practice their writing skill. As personal experience using blogs for writing these entries every week for my Instructional Technology class, I have to say that the use of Blogs in the classroom is very useful to enhance writing skills. I have seen how I enhance my writing skills in a good way. After this class, it was difficult for me try to write a big writing task, even a short task could be a short challenge, but now I write fluently and I can organize my ideas in a clearly way. Also, the article mentioned the use of Ning which is a social networking site, similar to a blog, with the difference that this side has more technological resources, such as multimedia.

In the second article “Online Collaborative Writing Using Wikis”, the author claimed the use of wikis to enhance the writing and collaborative skills of the learners. In this article, I found an example of Collaborative Writing task. The teacher assigned a group of students to write in a wiki, which is an online platform where anyone can add or edit information that has been add for others. Something that really like from the article, was the fact that the teachers provides a clearly description of the task, the steps of the creative process, the prompts and the responses of the students to a challenging task.

In conclusion, I really enjoy reading these week’s articles that shows new techniques to enhance writing and collaborative skills, and I have to say that these articles encourage me to use one of these techniques with my future students. 

Week 8: Teaching Writing and Reading Skills with Internet

After reading the two articles required for this week, “Using the Internet in ESL writing Instruction” and “Using Internet-Based Children’s Literature to Teach EFL”, I learned significant things about teaching writing and reading skills using the Internet.

The first article presents the Internet as a useful tool for teaching writing. Also, the article proposed three basic elements to help to teach writing: Web pages, e-mail connection and creating class websites, these elements have received a lot of attention from CALL researchers in the past. This article help me to understand how to use technology in order to practice writing skills, which in my opinion in one of the most challenging skills to achieve for second language learners. It mentions that is a good option that students practice genres of writing such as essays, letters, description, etc., in order to enhance their writing skills in a good way.

The second article explains how the Internet is useful at the time to teach reading skills because Internet has helped to overcome problems of access and expense. As we know, with the Internet we have a lot of resources, and it is easy to have access to websites where we can find interesting articles for our students. If we want that our students read a book, we can look for a website when we can download the book in a PDF File in order to provide with the students with the material required for the class.

As a conclusion, with the Internet we have a lot of sources to enhance writing and reading skills in our students and it is our responsibility take advantage of these resources. 

Week 7: Employment of CALL for Teaching Different Skills

After reading the articles required for this week, I acquire new significant things in the use of CALL for teaching specific skills in a second/foreign language.

My personal opinion about the articles is that there are useful because it shows us the theory on how CALL is useful to teach speaking to second or foreign language learners. As we know, we can use computers to improve students’ skills, but the article written by Julia Gong, explain the advantages of the use of CALL in teaching speaking skills. We can see how the use of CALL in a second/foreign language classroom creates situations that stimulate interest, allows dialogue and communication, enhances reactivity, etc. these situations made a perfect environment to develop in a good way the speaking skills of our students, because sometimes students are afraid to make mistakes in front of others when there are practicing with someone else; in that way when their practice speaking with a computer they leave their fears behind and develop in a better way their skills.

Another thing that caught my attention from the articles, was the fact that it provides some examples about how us as teachers can use the technology to develop our own material, and also the author mention how a common TV show, like The Simpsoms, can be useful to teach grammar or listening to our students.

In conclusion, we as teachers have the tools to make our classes more comfortable and entertaining for our students using the technology, in order to every student, develops in a good way every skill of a second/foreign language class. 

Week 6: Is Technology a Problem?

After reading the two articles required for this week, I learn significant things of each them. The first article made me think about if technology is producing a decline in the critical thinking and analysis of the students. Now a days, we see that students does not have a reading habit, they tend to spend a lot of time in their social networks instead of reading a book; it may be fault of schools that does not enhance reading programs or students have a lack or parents supervision about their studies habits. Whatever the problem is, we see that our students are surrounded by a technological society that does not permit the produce of critical thinking and the analysis or circumstances in the environment in which students grow.

As we know, the introduction of technology in the classroom could have negative effects in the learning process if we do not have a control of the use that students have of the resources. However, the growing use of technology can benefit our classes. We as teachers, need the technological resources for our classes, for example to project a video about the topic of the class or make a forum to discuss some doubts of the class, but we don’t have to depend of technology, because it does not “cover” all the necessities of our students.

Even though technology could affect the learning process of some students, we have to know that not everybody learn in the same way and it is our responsibility as teachers identify the learning personalities of our students.

Week 5: Integrating Internet in Language Learning

When we talk about Internet, we imagine a World with unlimited educational resources that we can integrate in our classes. The article “Call Me… Maybe: A Framework for Integrating into ESL, introduces a new perspective about the use and applications of Internet in ESL.

While for some, the Internet is a resource that does not help at all to education, for other people, the Internet is a useful learning tool that we can use as a medium of instruction, or as a source of content. However, the Internet has had an accelerated growth in recent years, and now it offer numerous tools, such as mobile applications, websites, etc. in order to make the learning process a good experience. In that way, we realize how useful it can be in order to practice, teach and learn a new language.

Something that I learned from this article is that the Internet can help to reduce the anxiety in students, promotes learners autonomy (because they are responsible of their learning), increase learner’s motivation and engage students in the learning process; and is our responsibility as teachers that our students achieve that.

As a conclusion, this article is useful because it shows different ways to apply Internet in our classes (as a medium of instruction, or as a source of content). It provides good examples of websites that can be useful in our classes and also the article open the doors to Mobile-Assisted Language Learning (MALL), and provides examples that how mobile devices can be useful to support our lessons. 

Week 4: Postcasting and lessons

As future teachers, we have to know how technology works. Also, we have to know, the hardware and software that we have available for our classes and how to apply them in our daily life. After reading the two articles: A reflexive enquiry and Integrative CALL into the classroom: The Role of Postcasting in an ESL Listening Strategies Course. I have learned significant things about the use of postcasting that I will apply in my future career as a teacher.

These articles reminded me an experience with a virtual course in the current semester at University. I am taking British Literature, in this class is mandatory to upload a comment and discuss about a topic that the teacher provides at beginning of the week. Initially, it was strange take a virtual course, we can’t see the teacher and he upload the indications, but now, is easy to us use our technological resources as cellphones, laptops or desktop computer to record the comments. In this course, we apply postcasting, and it is an amazing experience, we discuss and learn even without the physical presence of the teacher or classmates, we only heard and comment every post after reading about the topic and it is really interactive the learning process that we are having.

As a conclusion, I can say, that from these articles I learned that we as future teachers, have the responsibility to learn how the technology that we have available is useful in order to develop some main skills like listening in our students and made of postcasting or whatever form to learn a nice experience.

Week 3: Autonomy in Learning Process

After reading the article "Effectiveness of the Integrate of ICT Tools and Activities to Foster Awareness as the First Stage to Reach Learning Autonomy". I found some interesting aspects of the use of ICT tools in the Learning Process. First, I have to say that this article caught my attention since I started to read it. I found pretty interesting how students develop their language profency in all of the skills of the Second Language and create awareness in their develop as learners.
Second, another thing that caught my attention from the article, is the number of authors who are quoted in the article (for me, that is important because it shows that it is a true research), and as they see that the use of technology not only improves student's profiency, but also helps to grow student's motivation and autonomy.
Thirdly, there is an aspect that we as future teachers have to take into account and is the fact that we have to provide useful explanations and find good strategies to help students to understand every topic and get concerned about student's progress. As a conclusion, I have to say that this research encourage me to do my best as future teacher, to strive to create good strategies to help students in their progress as learners, and of course, all this takin advantage of all the technological resources available to me.

Week 2: Technology for teaching

After reading the article "Computers and language learning: an overview". I learned significant things that can help me for my future career as an English teacher.

My initial reaction after reading the article was that there are many uses of technology in education that I did not before. However, I found very useful information about software that is helpful in the learning process. 

Something that I learned for this article was that we as future teachers of English, we can use the thousands of resources that these softwares provide us for teaching a class. We can use them to create discussions among students; even we  use them to correct grammatical errors or to create exercises for students to practice what has been seen in classes.

In conclusion, I can say that we as future teachers of English need to be in greater contact with technology, since this gives us many resources to make our classes more interactive for students. However, so that students can enjoy learning through technology, we must train us in its correct use so that the experience of learning a new language can be rewarding for each student and we as teachers can feel satisfied with the results in our class