Blog #11 E-Journaling

In the article, the researchers had the students record some of their language learning experience through e-journaling. The students were to focus on the strategies that they used in order to complete their assigned speech acts. I think it could be very beneficial for students to think about the different strategies they use when learning, but I don't think it was more beneficial for them to e-journal that information instead of just writing it down. It is nice in a way though that both the researchers and the students have an online resource they can go back and reference. Sometimes paper copies get misplaced or thrown away.

Another way e-journaling could be fun and helpful for EFL students in particular is to give them pen-pals from the states that they can e-mail back and forth. I know they could just do this on paper as well, but e-mailing would save on a lot of postage, the conversations would be quicker so they would have time to write more, and they would always have a saved document of their entire conversation. They could use this to see the progress in their own writing as well as reference things that were mentioned in past conversations.

Blog #10 Wiki Projects

These articles presented two different ways of using Wiki. One was a collaborative project and the other was peer editing. While I see the benefits of using Wiki for a collaborative project, especially when the learners are in different locations, there are some negatives. First of all, when students are in the same area working collaboratively they can bounce their ideas off one another before actually making the change. If you're by yourself, it may be intimidating to add something to a document and even more nerve wracking to change something someone else has written. Plus, if it is mandatory to edit, a student might end up changing something that would have been better left alone.

For peer editing, which was focused on in the third article, I'm not sure what the difference between this and e-mail is. I realize that students would have the opportunity to read everyone's story in the same area, but most likely they will only read one or two or however many they have to comment on. Still, I do find this beneficial because you won't have twenty stories coming through your e-mail.

I think Wiki is something I would like to try with a class and get their feedback. Whether or not the students enjoy this would probably change with every class. I would just read the class and use it accordingly.

Project Proposal

The CALL tool we will be using is Photo Story 3. The purpose is to give students an outlet to be creative with their language skills. They will be using the program to create a digital story. The program allows students to post pictures in a strip and each one can be accompanied with text and audio. The students will have to find the photos online. This will give the added benefit of practicing their web browsing skills. This tool could potentially be used at any level because they are producing the dialogue. For advanced students, the stories would be very complex, but students at that level may be looking for more academic or real world learning experiences. For beginners, the stories would be simple, but they would still benefit from the activity. For the purpose of this lesson proposal, we are going to focus on younger EFL intermediate students. They have enough knowledge of the language to really play around and be creative with it, but they can still learn a lot from their peers while creating a fictional story.

The students will begin by working in pairs or groups of three. This will give them a chance to collaborate with others and hopefully learn new vocabulary from their peers. They will create a fictional story about five pages in length. They will then have to find pictures to accompany their pages. It will be Ok if they cannot find pictures that directly correspond. They will, however, have to explain why they chose the picture they did. After they have posted their pictures into the program and included the text, they will record themselves reading the pages and the voice link will be embedded into the online book. The students will present their stories to the class when they are finished. I think this tool will enhance the students’ investment into the project and improve their computer skills at the same time. Many of us have probably produced a fictional story at some point where we drew the pictures and wrote the text. The difference with this tool is that the students’ photo books will be blown up on the projector for everyone to see. Plus, they will have to use English to search for their pictures online. Additionally, they will record their reading instead of reading it out loud to the class. This will give them the chance to listen to their recording and hear their own pronunciation problems. They can redo the recordings as many times as they want. This will lower their affect because they will not have the pressure of pronouncing everything on the spot in front of the class.

There is no online site link because we are using a program, which will need to be downloaded onto the computers. It is a free program. The students will use the Internet to search for their photos but obviously they would use many different sites for that. One helpful site link is Google Image listed below.

http://images.google.com/imghp?hl=en&tab=wi

Blog #9 Google Tools

This week, in addition to the readings, I also read an online article, which highlighted many educational uses of google. I decided to write my blog on this article instead of the reading this week because I found it particularly beneficial for me. One thing that was mentioned was the fact that google will allow you to do a custom search. I was unaware of this before, but it definitely could have helped me in the past. I used to let my kids look up our vocabulary words for the week online. I would look up the words myself before hand and try to make sure there wasn't any sexual innuendo that could possible be associated with the words before I would give them to them. Still, every once in awhile, one of them would show me a risque picture they found. It would have been really nice to customize their searches and not have to worry about that anymore.

Another tool mentioned was Google Groups. This was explained like an online chat room for a class. This is just another way they could collaborate and share their thoughts. It's also a place where they could post questions for the rest of their classmates and get help if needed. Google Buzz was also mentioned. This is similar to Google Groups except students can also post and share photos and videos. The students can comment on each other's posts. So, one student could post a picture and another student could comment and hopefully the students would get involved in a running dialogue online. The fact that it's online will give them a chance to plan out their responses, which would hopefully lead to more accuracy and fluency.

Blog #8 Banking Lingo Podcast

Basic Banking Lingo

This podcast is designed for intermediate ESL students. It discusses a few common banking terms.



How to Listen

Before listening, review the following list of words used at a bank:


Account- When you keep your money at a bank, your money is placed in an account. You will get an account number that helps you identify your account. There are different types of accounts.

Savings Account – A savings account is a place to save your money. You will mostly add money into a savings account.

Checking Account – A checking account is an account that you can add money to and also take money out to pay bills or get cash.

Interest – savings accounts earn interest. Interest is money that is added to your account by the bank. The bank pays you interest because you keep a certain amount of money at the bank.

Deposit – A deposit is money you add to your account at the bank. When you put money into your account, you say you are depositing money. You can deposit money at the bank with a teller, or you can use an ATM machine to deposit your money.

Withdrawal – when you take money out of your account, you are making a withdrawal. You can make a withdrawal at the bank with a teller, or you can make a withdrawal at an ATM machine.

Checks – A check is a slip of paper with your account number on it. When you make a purchase, you write on the check the amount of the purchase and who the check is for. When the person or store deposits the check, it will be subtracted from your checking account.

Credit Card – A credit card is a plastic card you can use instead of cash or checks to make purchases. At the end of the month, you will receive a statement that shows all the purchases you made with the card. You will have to pay the bank for these purchases.

Debit Card – A debit card is a plastic card you can also use to make purchases. When you use your debit card, the amount of the purchase will be subtracted from your account balance- just like a check.





Next, listen to the podcast:

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http://blschmid.podbean.com/





Now it’s your turn. Use the Internet to search for banks in your community. What kinds of accounts do these banks offer? What are the advantages and disadvantages of each type of account? At the next class, you will report what you have found to your classmates.

Here are some banks to explore:



http://www.53.com/
http://www.chase.com/
http://www.usbank.com/