Learn 'how to say goodbye' with Podcast!

    Have you heard Podcast before? It's an excellent tools for teaching and learning a second language.

    What is Podcast? According to the Wikipedia, it said that, "A Podcast (or non-streamed webcast) is a series of digital media files (either audio or video) that are released episodically and often downloaded through web syndication." (Wikipedia, 2011)

    Anyone can make a podcast by recording a audio or video just with a microphone or video camera, a computer, and web. In addition, you can subscribe it, and also download it to your computer or MP3/MP4 player to watch and listen it whenever and wherever you want. Here's a short introduction about Podcasting and its usage which named Podcasting in Plain English.

    And, for our following class, I want to use this piece podcast from ESL Podcast to teach you Saying Goodbye. As winter break is coming soon, you may want to know how to say goodbye to your classmates. In this episode, the host gives detailed explanations about different ways of saying goodbye, and he also explains a conversation between two people who talk about one's leaving because of the summer job.

    I want to you listen to it carefully and design a short conversation depends on the 'goodbye' topic. You can choose whatever scene or people you want, and bring it to our next class. We will share these conversations together and act it out in pairs or groups in the classroom.

    After that, I would like you to choose 2-3 partners of your classmates and make a podcast by yourselves together in gorups. And this will be your final project for this semester.

ePaLs -- A Global learning Community

   

    As you can see from the title, ePaLs is a excellent website which can be used by both teachers and learners as a communication and collaboration tool. These are many useful features provided that you can benefit from it.

• It's a vast information bank that you can find whatever educational information you want from 'collaborate' forum.
• You can search any classrooms of different subjects around the world, and find descriptions and course information about that class. Besides, you can also contact with that teacher directly via messages if you really feel interested in it.
• You can use 'advanced search'  to narrow your search ranges to specific country, langaue, category, class-size etc.
• You can also send and check your e-mail conveniently with other teachers and students.
• You can also make a address book as a contact/friend list, and send e-mail to a group or several individuals.

   
    It's really a easy way to communicateand collaborate with educational people online.  You can contact with people no matter which countries they live or what areas they majored in.

Using Photo Shows in Teaching and Learning

Create your own video slideshow at animoto.com.

    This is a short video of Christmas song i've made using Animoto, which is a digital tool to tell stories using photos, texts, and videos.

    I can use this video to in an English as a second-language classroom. The level of the students will be Grade One children of elementary school. With such a video, I can not only teach students some vocabularies, but also teach them this interesting song which is named 'We wish you Merry Christmas'. In addition, I can also give some extra information about Christmas as an American holiday such as its orign, meaning, and ways of celebration.

    For those higher level students, I can show this video as a model of small project. I can let students to make a 2-3 minutes video to introduce one kind of American holidays using whatever pictures or informations related to it. They can make it by themselves or work as a groups.

    It's a good way to teach and learn by digital materials like this.

American Holidays

 
  Hello, everyone! Next week, in our L2 Culture class, we will learn some interesting Holidays in America. Here's some images of Bookr about American Holidays and we will have discussions about them.


Please choose one of them you like and prepare a short introduction about it.

• You can talk about the origins,  meanings, ways of celebration etc.
• You can also share your experience and thought about some interesting stories or incidents.
• You can find another holidays you like and introduce it in the class.

Objectives:

• Learn different kinds of American Holidays.
• Understand the meanings, origins, and celebrations etc.
• Figure out the differences between students' own culture.

Telling Your Stories In A New Way !

    Everyone has his/her own stories, and today I want to introduce you a modern way to tell stories which is called Digital storytelling. In the Educause article of 7 things you should know about Digital storytelling, the writer describes it as follow: "Digital storytelling is the practice of combining narrative with digital content, including images, sound, and video, to create a short movie, typically with a strong emotional component."(Educause, 2007)

    Nowadays, it's adapted to education and used as a teaching method. in the UH article called Educational Uses of Digital storytelling, it said that, "The topics that are used in Digital Storytelling range from personal tales to the recounting of historical events, from exploring life in one's own community to the search for life in other corners of the universe, and literally, everything in between."(UH, 2011)

     Moreover, not only teachers, but also learners can get profit from Digital storytelling program. Teachers can present a theory or give an instruction with Digital storytelling to create an audio-visual classroom. In this way, it makes courses more understandable and more interesting. In addition, 7 things you should know about Digital storytelling also said that, "Digital stories let students express themselves not only with their own words but also in their own voices, fostering a sense of individuality and of owning” their creations." (Educause, 2007)

    Furthermore, through completing Digital storytelling, storytellers can be given an opportunity to learn and improve own technological skills. Besides, it's a good way to connect content with realistic practice.

 

Photo by Jeff Mottle

    For searching more information, please refer to following links:

        7 things you should know about Digital storytelling

        Center for Digital storytelling

        Educational Uses of Digital storytelling

Twitter - a new way to teach!

    There are many different kinds of free technologies you can use in your teaching. Today, I want to introduce a excellent tools for you -- Twitter!

    Here's an article which can teach you 28 Creative Ways Teachers Are Using Twitter. It contains many functions you can use in blogs, for example, communicating with each other, making comments for others, and following others' posts.

    However, the most important thing is that Twitter also provides you with specific technologies teachers can use in education. One of them is 

2 Really Simple Ways To Send Audio Tweets To Twitter. With this, you can record a short instruction for the assignment or project and send it to Twitter for your students. In addition, you can also use Educational Twitter Chats Calendar as a syllabus. You can schedule each task of specific days for your students to discuss some topics or submit their assignments. Furthermore, teachers yourselves can also search the helpful information of teaching through Twitter. Here's an introduction which can tell you How To Use Twitter's Advanced Search Options to help you search things more effectively.

Useful Yahoo Group -- Learning with Computers

  

Today I found a very interesting and useful group in Yahoo Group, which is named Learning with Computers. There we can meet different kinds of teachers who teach different subjects and courses. And they all there to learn how to use computers more effecitively as a teaching tools. It's like a discussion board that every teacher can ask and answer questions of other teachers and discuss topics or subjects together. Through these ways, we can learn much more experiences and teaching tips with just sitting in front of a computer. I think it can be a powerful knowledge base for my future teaching.