Tags and links

A youtube video that explains how to make a blog using google applications.

The official voice of the United States federal government, this site provides current news with complete audio and text transcripts for English language learners, Voice of America. Free and easy to use. Give it a try.

The UTSA MA TESL's new ning site, technology rules!

UTSA IEP study list, this is from UTSA's own Englsih for International Students site. Here, is a page that contains a list of English language learning activities and their web links.

The conversation partner program is something I administrate as graduate assistant at UTSA. Check out the link. If you email me directly at christopher.pope@utsa.edu, I will gladly pair you up with an international or L1 English speaking student for conversation and culture exchange. If you need some experience teaching, or are looking for someone to practice your Chinese/Turkish/Arabic/English with over coffee and biscuits this might be a something to do.

Reading Prompt III

What challenges did Soares face when using blogs with her ESL students, and what lessons did she learn? How does she feel about using blogs with students in the future? Levy describes several types of technologies. Choose one of them and describe how you might want to use it (or have used it), also discuss some of considerations that need to be taken when using this technology with ESL students.

The first challenge Soares had was deciding what type of blog to create: tutor, learner, or class style blog. After that, there were a lot of issues with her students lack of computer skills, and a lack of desire to use the blog. When Soares posted questions to the class there were usually no responses (she noticed this trend in other education blogs from around the world as she started to do research). Other challenges: blogs work better with older learners, students were not consistent about responding, the students responses were too short.

Soraes learned things that are important for any educators that is considering the use of a blog (but keep in mind, she worked with younger students) : apply explatory practices as a teacher (look around the internet at the competition and have students help), make trial blogs, teach students how to use a blog before starting, consider that students have very different levels of computer skills, remember it is classwork, so students like to work on it in class and not at home, and finally it is best to start out working in groups but students should later work independently. Admittedly, it is a lot of things for the teacher to consider and I can understand why some might balk at the idea of using a blog in class.

Levy gives an excellent summary of current CALL technology. It is worth mentioning the core 5, before focusing finally on the most interesting CALL of all, mobile technology. 1 Learning Managment Systems (LMS) are the teacher-centered techs like WebCT and Blackboard, these are very useful but typical of what often scares off educators. A somewhat complicated piece of technology. 2 Audio-video conferencing is summed up best by looking at Sype technology or perhaps Star Trek That is, talking to educators and students via video conferences. 3 Aritificial Intelligence is something I discussed before on this blog, it is great. 4 Speech/Pronunciation recognition is something I have often heard students complain about, native speakers (me) have even had trouble getting "recognized" on some of this CALL. Finally, 5 Mobile technology is surely the most exciting. The mobile phone Thorton research in Japan sounded especially interesting. With the popularity cell-phone internet technology combined with i-pod and MP3 this area of CALL stands out. If motivation and and audio-visual learners are your concerns, which K-12 would be, this technology could help ELLs or main streamed student alike. For higher level ELLs pod-casting is still a great resource, and should be used by the instructor for things like audio quizzes, and pronunciation practice.

Reading Prompt II

*Egbert describes the optimal conditions for classroom language learning. Discuss how blogs and blogging can be a tool for achieving these conditions with ELL students. Finally, describe your own experience creating your blog this week. What topic or topics do you plan to blog about?

Instead of discussing all parts of the optimal conditions list, let me just say that the entire list meets CALL (computer assisted language learning) conditions for blogs to be used with ELLs (English language learners). Here for brevity, I focus on only one part of the list, condition 7, the principle that a blog gives the ELL a working atomosphere with an ideal stress/anxiety level. This principal is met when students publish on the internet via a blog. ELLs (like any students) can be unmotivated at times, and the stress/anxiety to publish on a blog is a great way to keep students working at the skill. Good old peer pressure works here for the good of education, and additionally, the types of discussions that are held can be adjusted to the level of students involved so that not too much or too little stress/anxiety is applied. It really makes a lot of sense to use one with your class.

Working on this blog has been useful for me. I have seen a lot of blogs in the past, but needed some sort of motivation to create one for myself. This assingment is doing that. My focus these past two weeks has been creating a simple interface, that looks cool, and I continue to make sure all my links are up. The links are a good, simple part of the html skills I have been learning recently, so it is a good way to check my skills.

When I think of things to post here, of course professional work comes to mind, publishing work and having my students post their work and writings. Also, as a historian and family man, I would like to see the living history of my own flesh and blood kept on a blog. Embarrassingly, I have also started to think about how to make money using this technology. Not everyone does (or can do) blogs, I am glad to be part of the group that is in the know.