Future Digital Teacher

Some ideas using media & technology for teaching.
*Internet social networking can tie students outside of the classroom. Social networking such as Ning, Gather or Facebook, which allows users to join various small groups within the sites. Teacher or any students can create a group. They can share school stuffs as well as personal interests.
*Google Docs allow users to share their documentation works! It is a good tool for cooperative learning. Students can do a group project at home without having an extra meeting outside. It may not promoting a group discussion, yet it is quite a tool to create one document by group of people.
*Podcasting can be used for improving student's speech skills. Since it is an audio file, ELL students can make a short audio record without worries to show their faces. They can listen to other student's audio files and make a comment on it. Eventually, they will be promoted to improve their speech skills to publish their own podcast.

Google even more!

To be honest, Google applications provide more convenient tools for the users, but I don't see educational chances of using them. It will be nice to introduce those applications to the students. Students can use those applications for their own purposes since those are designed user-friendly. But I don't feel it is necessary to teach ELL students how to use those tools. I'm also concerning that the services come from one certain company. I can recommend ELL students to customize their portal homepage in order to grasp more reading chances based on their own interests. I can also encourage students to upload their works to Knol to share the information.

Wikis

It is interesting that wiki has two sides of advantage and disadvantage within one character-collaboration. Wiki is a good tool for quick collaboration, but it does not guarantee the accuracy of information because it is edited by anonymous.
On the other hand, I liked PB Wiki. I like the improved tools for controlling distributions. It is managed by certain groups of people who are officilly invited to the group. PB Wiki might be used for 2nd language learning as an on-line activity in reading and writing.
Many teachers/faculty "ban" Wikipedia as a source for student research. I basically agree with them. The information which has uncertain features should not be used for academic purposes, but I would allow students to look it up as an unofficial source. As Wikipedia is a work of collaboration, it must have included some useful information in it even though "determination of values" is an our job.

Desire 2 Learn

I like to use web-based software for the academic purpose because it provides easy-to-use course tools and on-line communicative environments. I realize that it is very convenient to have an on-line learning tools for courses in terms of communication. I can pose questions anytime to the course instructor or even to the whole class, and I can get feed-backs from all without time constraints. The benefit for on-line community is that I don't have to wait for next class time to get some responses from everybody, and I can have open discussions as well, which I prefer most of the times. This way is better than e-mail exchanges because all course discussions can be stored in one spot, which enables students to access to those records way much easier. In addition, I can access to various files on D2L; it has content of course materials, drop box with feed-back function, downloadable quizzes, and grade tap which includes class averages information. All those facilitate or replace well a lot of physical interactions in classrooms.

Google Docs & ZOHO

I liked ZOHO document service better than the Google one. As far as I found, ZOHO provided more functions and options in its document programs. It was also very similar to MS office programs. Both programs were very easy to use even at the first time, and offered enough functions to create a basic document.
I couldn't find a way to print Google docs directly from the web page, but I was able to do it with the ZOHO one. Also, document export button allows you to save your documents as different file formats in ZOHO, whereas Google only offers pdf file format. ZOHO certainly gave me more options to choose font styles, sizes, colors as well as design aspect of options. Yet, I was not satisfied with my chart in sheets because I wasn't able to specify labels directly to the chart, to add more information, or to adjust any font styles.

RSS

It is a revolutionary way to get information over the web. The idea is awesome that one can get updated notice or the information piece by one log-in. I would like to use it for class for keeping up information from different web-sites. ELL students need to know background information and vocabulary from the different fields of studies. They can add something they're interested in reading, but I would recommend useful sites for them because I'm afraid to have too many reading list at one time. RSS is a good way to approach information at once, still it is reader's job to choose what to read.

iPhoto

Calling to Jim, originally uploaded by Kay0610.

Smart Board was actually smarter than me! It was a very interesting tool to play with. I wish I have more chances to learn how to use it.

Trading Card - K

Multicultural Education

"Multicultural education is a field of study and an emerging discipline whose major aim is to create equal educational opportunities for students from diverse racial, ethnic, social-class, and cultural groups. One of its important goals is to help all students to acquire the knowledge, attitudes, and skills needed to function effectively in a pluralistic democratic society and to interact, negotiate, and communicate with peoples from diverse groups in order to create a civic and moral community that works for the common good."
Banks and Banks (1995)
There are many ways to use online image generators as a supplemantary tool for multicultural education.

Hello, Flicker!

Flicker is a good image storage that I can use in the ESL classroom.
There are many cultural topics in the ESL classroom since students are from different cultural backgrounds. ELL students can use real pictures to introduce their cultures to the classmates by actually showing it. They also can develop using computer skills while playing with it. It is important to know basic skills and to familiar with it because many English tests are Internet-based in nowadays.

Diversity

The use of 3rd party tools are not directly related to language learning; however, we still can use it as supplementary learning tools. Students can use those tools for their portfolios or presentations. Teacher can simplify or edit images for appropriate learning purposes. In language learning, it is possible to create a lesson for teaching "instructions" as using those tools, too.

I miss my old times in Shanghai!

CHINA - Shanghai - Pudong by night, originally uploaded by Franck - フランク - 法兰克.

I used to work there in 2005. I would say that was the most tough times in my life so far. It was a logistics company that I worked for, and I still remember the phone ringing sound which ever stopped. I didn't know that I would miss Shanghai at that times...

Are you a member of any online communities?

Yes, I am.
I was recommended to join facebook to keep in touch with some classmates. I've had facebook account for about an year, but I'm still not good at using it. I check messages on e-mail account, not on the facebook. I just don't get used to open my privacy in the online world. I prefer to have face-to-face interactions, to meet people with the real identity. There are so many good things about having online communities, and there are many reasons to keep offline communities as well.

IM422/522: Information, Techonology, and Learning for K-12 and 5-12 Education

Instructional Techonology and Media for Learning by Smaldino, Lowther, and Russell, 9th edution, 2007.