After reading Richardson, what ideas do you have for using images and programs such as Flickr in the language learning classroom?
Kern gives a broad overview of issues in CALL, with specific examples from three areas and implications for teaching and research. Select and share your own thoughts and opinions on one or more issues that Kern raises.
Using big photos and pictures of things is one of favorite ways to teach and learn langugae. The Richardson text gave many suggestions for doing some thing like that using Flickr technology. For starters, Web 2.0 social networking capabilities like privacy settings and friend invites means you can easily create a virtual class. The ideas Richardson gives in the book, read like a list of our quick share lessons from class: slide shows, virtual field trips, teaching social software, and teach geography (Richardson, 101). Finally, the abliltiy to annotate a picture that Richarson mentions is pretty awesome. What a great way to teach science and history but I can imagine creating language classes, too. How about an Oxford Picture Dictionary created with annotated photographs the class creates?
The Kern article also offers much food for the brain. I especially like that it included quotes from Dr. Mark Warschauer (I learned about him recently). The area which I concentrate on here is CMC. It is an area, which I mentioned in my presentation a few weeks ago, which you think as reached its potential(word processing) or that there is much more future in it. Kern mentions the potential, and I agree with the ideas, here are some interesting things worth pointing out: corpus linguistics is becoming a part of CMC. Sucessful CMC results in schools involve (1)equally committmeted teachers(2)agreement on central focus(3)continual attetion to logistics; I think the first ideal is far fetched but the second two are in the reach of individual schools. CMC and the private/public divide is discussed, and of course from discussing social networking we know how important this idea is and obviously any work in CMC has to consider it.
Teachers are definitely cannot be replaced by computer technology, but it doesn't mean that technology is useless. Such as the live stream video you mentioned, I think it is good, but without an involvement of a teacher, the result may not as good as which with a teacher. After all, teacher is the one who can make some changes for individuals, not the computer. And for the class taught on SKYPE, I'm not quite clear about that.
ReplyDeleteI really like the idea that these photo sharing websites can give students access to people and places that they would have never had contact with before, and that this connection can be used in conjunction with language learning. This kind of activity was limited in the past to what the teacher could gain physical access to, such as slide show photos, videos, etc. Now, thanks to the web, students and teachers can both find photos/videos on almost any subject easily, they can also share their own content for others to benefit from. This kind of back and forth, and its potential for cultural exchange, is an exciting field that we should definitely utilize as ESL teachers.
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