Learning from the Virtual Community

        I joined in a Google Communities named English language learning.The creator of this community is a TESOL certified English teacher with qualifications from Oxford Seminars. And this community is created for people around the world who interested in learning the English. You can feel free to post any questions you may have, the other members of the community could help you to find the answer. This is a community where people with all varying degrees of language proficiency can learn from one another.

        As a non-native speaker, I could learn a lot of new knowledge and informations from this community, such as  specific grammar point (Commonly Misused Adjectives in the English Language; Rules in Using the Apostrophe), culture (Halloween experience in the USA), and using English in daily life(Asking for directions).

        On the other hand, as a future teacher, all the information in this community could be my teaching materials in my classroom. All the knowledge are there, clearly and systematically. What I need to do is digest them first ,and then find an appropriate way to put them out and teach to my student.  For example, if I am teaching adjectives and I want to enlarge my students’ vocabulary, I might only use adjectives part (see the picture on the left side, which is sited from my community) , because the verb part is not related to my teaching plan and that is too much information for my students to digest.

        At last, since all the members are from different parts of the world. I could also ask them about their English learning and teaching situations in their countries and compare them with my in China. I always want to know the similarities and differences about teaching English. Sometimes, it is amazing to find out that the people you never know before have the same idea as yours, and even you all teaching English, but the way people teach is differ in thousands of ways.

The Learner of Today

        George Siemens pointed out in his article, Connectivism: ALearning Theory for the Digital Age, that the foundational principles of knowledge has been changed and is growing exponentially. With the development of technology and networks, the structures and the manners of learning are changing, such as formal classroom to informal one, separate works to cooperative works, or from a small group to a larger group. Seimens(2005) declared that connections between disparate ideas and fields can create new innovations. Thus, he present a new theory as “connectivism”.

        Then, what is connectivism? According to Seimens, “connectivism is the integration of principles explored by chaos, network, and complexity and self-organization theories. Learning is a process that occurs within nebulous environments of shifting core elements – not entirely under the control of the individual”. Moreover, in the video What is Connectivism, “knowledge is networked and distributed, which is increasingly aided by technology”.  Based on this idea, I’d like to describe the individual learner as the airport. The internet is the airplane. And the knowledge and information that people learned from others are the passengers of the airplane. Different airports send passengers to different destinations through airplanes. In other words, the individual, as the starting point, uses internet as a tool to exchange information and knowledge with another individual. Gradually, each individual will form their own routine and systemic social network.

        To sum up, applying technology is the trend of teaching and learning in the future. It is necessary for the learners to cultivate an ability to synthesize and recognize the target knowledge from the large amount of information and transfer them to own use.

Diigo or Scoop.it? That's a question

Both Scoop. it and Diigo are two great tools to create, share, and annotate the websites that you like. They offer teachers a platform to create or join a group and share knowledge with colleagues, students, and others. But, if someone ask me which one is better, my answer will definitely be “it depends”.

        Here is a brief form I made to compare Diigo and Scoop. it:

        As you can see in the form, neither Diigo nor Scoop. it is perfect to meet every requirement. Well, as far as I concerned, I would prefer to use Diigo. I really like the idea that you can highlight the information that you want. Because I have a habit to take notes, and underline the words or sentences while I am reading. This might make feel more comfortable to continue reading. And also Diigo is convenient for me to track down other articles from the whole collection. All in all, the one fits you is the best for you. 
       
 
FYI: I am not very familiar with these two tools. If there are some uses I missed or misunderstood, please comment on my blog, and I will try to adjust my content. Thank you!
 

Want Learners to be Self-Motivated? Internet Makes it Come True

Many pedagogical theories and studies showed that student will learn better if they are being appropriately motivated. But what kind of teaching approach or who can motivate students? Dose it suit everybody? After watching two videos about future teaching through Internet, the answer should be learner themselves.         

The first one is Future LearningDocumentary. Video games was described as “powerful learning tools that have ever been created” in the video. It is amazing that you can always notice that no matter how old a person is, he or she will play the game again and again until reach a higher score or even master the game. During the whole process, the player completes the task independently and continuously. Furthermore, some video games are designed to be relevant with daily life, and also usually present it in a fun way. As a language learner, I want design a video game just like The Sims Games which you have to live in the TL country to survive by communicating with your neighbors, your friends, and your boss. If the player could use the language and vocabulary correctly and appropriately, he might be a successful businessman and rich otherwise he might get punched or lose his job. With the development of science and technology, I hope my idea will come true some day.

Another video is A Vision of 21^st Century Teachers. All the teacher said nothing but holding a white board to show what they want to say. I think this might indicate an image of future teacher. Just as the first video has mentioned, when children are given the permission to the Internet, there should also be an absence of teacher to let students to try to learn by themselves. But by ‘absence’, I do not mean that teachers are unnecessary or disappear in the future. What teachers need to do in the future is to give high quality orders and let computer to do the basic works, which offers students an opportunity to explore the information freely and independently.  

To sum up, online resources are boundless and powerful. Sometimes the teaching activities or materials might not be motivated enough for everyone in the class. But what if find a way to let students motivate themselves in a cyber-classroom? That would be easy to make students study spontaneously and have fun at the same time. Internet tools such as blog, twitter, YouTube, will polish your teaching with fascinating effects and surprising outcomes.   

Using Blogs to Meet Learning Standards

Interacting with others is an effective way to learn language, and because of the power of Internet, interaction becomes more and more convenient and interesting. Blog, as one of the popular internet tools, allows people to share information and their thoughts with each other whenever they want. Thus, as an English teacher in the future, I would love to use blog to build a platform for my students to inspire and motivate each other.

Language proficiency should be accomplished through four language domains: listening, speaking, reading, and writing. In the following, I will describe how blogs could be used in reading and writing. 

 

Reading:

Before starting a new lesson, teachers usually ask students to preview the texts. For example, the next paragraph is an excerpt from Oxford English S1A (Shanghai Edition), Unit 2 Care for hair:

        “Shampoo and conditioner

         Choose a shampoo that suits your type of hair (i.e., oily, dry or normal hair). Apply it after wetting your hair with warm water. After shampooing, squeeze out the extra water."

In this paragraph “shampoo” , “conditioner” and “squeeze” are new words. I could link pictures with new words to help students remember the meaning and have a direct view of them. Besides, I could share links of some course-related reading materials or videos, such as A Brief History of Hairdressing Salon, What Hairstyles Suit What Faces,Barber by Chaplin, etc. Blogs could help students to read the text in a vivid and fun way.

Writing:

After reading the materials, I could ask students to share their tips about how they take care of their hair. Or students can draw(sketch-paint) their favorite hairstyle and other students can make comments. Writing skills can be improved gradually by commenting others' work. Furthermore, this could motivated students before they learn the text, and helps me to make sure that everyone gets involved.

Based on American Council on the Teaching of Foreign Languages (ACTEL), 3 National Standards for Foreign Language Education could be met in blogging this way:  

• Standard 1.1: Students engage in conversations, provide and obtain information, express feelings and emptions, and exchange opinions.
• Standard 3.1: Students reinforce and further their knowledge od other disciplines through the foreign language.
• Standard 5.1: Students use the language both between and beyond the school setting.

To sum up, blogs can be used as a tool for students to communicate for social, intercultural and instructional purposes based on school settings. Blogs can provide a comfortable atmosphere to let everyone speak, and it is easy for teacher to keep in connect with students even outside of class.