Week Five

In video clip – Using Technology to Teach Reading, the technologies used in it are Computers, internet, web sites, Kurzweil, Excel, WebQuest, videos. Teachers used computers, internet and web sites to improve students’ interest and confidence in reading and they used them to find useful information and write reflections and reviews. Kurzweil is used to listen, read and then write their own ideas on certain events. Students also used Excel to graph some of the statistics of different battles in the civil war to better understand it. WebQuest is used to help students search the right place and get the right information. Students also watched the videos like the Gettysburg’s battle and learn in detail about it.

All the technology-related activities can greatly help students improve their interest first and they can become more focused on what are they doing because of different technologies adopted. By using the all the technology-related activities, students can gain a deeper understanding of the historic event and they are also trained to develop their own ideas and opinions of the history. In this way, they can form their own opinions and write freely. In the end, they can get more confidence in reading and writing and make great improvement later.

To better understand the historical event, the teachers did bring other subject areas into this lesson and this proved to be very efficient. They first used cartoons in the course. Students were shown some cartoons and then asked to make cartoons and in this process, they can improve their understanding of the thing they are going to describe. By sharing with others, they can also learn more. Music and songs were also used during the class. Since songs they listened represented a great part in that history, so listening to these songs would greatly help them understand the history at that time. Politics was also mentioned in class and actually politics is always part of history. By reading and learning the different politics, they could relate to what they had learned and got a better understanding of the fact.

As a teacher in the classroom, I found that students could get more interested and gain more confidence in what they have learned. By using the different technologies, the students were greatly inspired and they got access to the materials in various ways, which definitely enhanced their understanding. The different tools used in the class will also broaden students minds and they did not only understand what they learned, they could also apply the way of learning and thinking in their future learning and lives.

In the video clip—Using a Class Web Page for Learning, the teacher used one very useful tool for teaching French, the WebQuest. She first explained all the steps to students and let them research for some information related to French language and culture on their own. In this way, students are taught not only the language itself, they also learned the research skills using the internet. The teacher also attached the WebQuest to her class web page in which students could get their homework and sent E-mail to teacher if they met with problems. In her class web page, she put two languages there, the French and the English and students could freely choose to use either of them. After students had done with searching, they would need to summarize it and then present it to all the others, using PowerPoint, video or other medium. In this way, students can greatly improve their interest in French learning and get to the language and culture in an easier way.

This teacher is really creative in using technology in her language teaching and she is speaking good French WebQuest is indeed one very useful tool. She attached to her web page and she is really using it in a very effective way for students to learn language and culture. She emphasized the reading and wring and also helped students to learn much about the French culture. Besides this, I think she also needs to put more multimedia materials on her page, so that in this way, students can make improvement in their listening and speaking at the same time. Besides asking students to make a presentation in PowerPoint or video, I think the teacher can also ask students to record their brief oral presentation of their search result in French and then upload it in her web site. In this way, students would benefit from the project in all dimensions. Since the teacher has her own web site, she can also list a lot of E-books which fit students’ level and they can read widely. She can also conduct a weekly test online and that would be easier for both teachers and students.

I think students became quite interested in this way of learning French language and culture. They could do their own research and find out whatever they like and then use it in their project. They also challenged themselves to do an excellent job. But I think some students might feel this task is overwhelming to them. Some said they had never written that big before, so this task might be too difficult to some of them according to their level. They also wanted to use online dictionary to translate or even wanted to write in English first and then did the translation, which are not ideal methods in learning a foreign language.

Usually when we mention about the foreign language learning, we usually picture reading a novel, remembering words or articles, or writing a piece of composition. But nowadays, technology is playing an important roll in foreign language learning and it has more potentials. Technology can make language and culture learning an interesting thing. Rather than only reading books to find information, students can get all that information from a variety of resources, like digital videos, internet resources, etc. Technology can also ensure that students learn the pure language. Rather than only following teachers with accent, they can learn the language directly from native speakers online. They can watch, listen to their language or even chat with native speakers through the internet, or telecommunication. With technology, students can acquire many resources in diverse formats and broaden their minds. Technology will definitely make foreign language learning more interesting and effective.