How can I use ePals in my class?

ePals provides various services for school students. This program and services are specified for helping students with their learning purpose in each area. Their program provides are such as:



ePals SchoolMail®365 is next generation email and communications for Schools and Districts.


ePals LearningSpace® is a safe virtual workspace optimized for K-12 communication and collaboration.


The ePals Global Community™ is the world's largest network of K-12 classrooms, enabling students and teachers to safely connect and collaborate on projects with classrooms worldwide.


In2Books® is ePals' curriculum-based e-mentoring program for students in grades 3 through 5.

                                   

Among these programs,this global community program attracted my interest. It provides worldwide network for working together with classrooms crossing the borderlines. This reminds me my secondary school when I started a pen pal with other country’s friend. I wrote a letter to my foreign friend in English and she also replied to me in English. It was just small communication between the friend and me, because we had just started to learn English, however, this experience gave me countless motivation why I learn and study other language hard. Likewise, I think teachers can use this tool for encouraging and giving reasonable motivation to learn other language. Through communication, students could also learn how each country’s culture is different in communicating each other. Students can learn target culture more vividly through direct communication. Students can also make global friends. I believe this function of this program can pour an infinite of possibilities of learning language.


                                
Second best function that I like is In 2 Books program. I like the idea to teach or instruct students using different approach. This program provides e-mentoring program for students in grades 3 through 5, matches students with adult pen pals, who read the same books, and exchange teacher-monitored, online letters about questions and issues raised by the text. The program provides standards-based professional development and professional learning communities and is facilitated by three resource-filled websites - one for students, another for pen pals, and a third for teachers. I think that this program could give more comfortable environment to learn something. I also like the idea they use adult pen pals who can guide the student through communication. Like this, in second language education teachers can use this tool for enhancing student s language proficiency. We can group three students, two is in similar language proficiency level and the other one is higher level of language proficiency. Though the group-work, the advanced one can guide the rest member students using correction and feedback. This method could be applied to writing or grammar class.

 Fianlly, I think this kind of tool and program can motivate and encourage students learn more actively and it also provide the door to go outside to the world. Teachers also catch up with and fill the need of the students using efficient technologies. These technologies can provide ample opportunity to students which may be not possible only inside of the classroom education.
                          
In my classroom, I will use each tool for my teaching:
1. ePals SchoolMail®365 : I will  use SchoolMail for a active communication with students. Studetns can e-mail school for any suggestion they may have for their school. The students' opinion may be reflected to the school or district's agenda.

2. ePals LearningSpace® : I will use this tool for communicating tool between students. Students can discuss some topic and they collaborate for any group project. I could have them to do some project through this virtual space where they communicate and discuss the issue.

3. The ePals Global Community™ : I will use this tool for a global network and communication. Students can meet some friends in the world and they can communicate and will get knowing each culture. Students might do some projects with communicate with students in other country. They can ask and answer the questions that they may do not know about. (e.g. cultural differences in each country)

4. In2Books®:  I will use tool for enhencing students' writing skills. Students can partner with more capable students. They e-mail each other and discuss some topic and the more advanced student can give some instruciton of correct writing skill or grammar tips in writing. Students may be communicate each other once a week about some readings and they correct each other's writing.

I think the ePals can provide an effective tools for language learning in foreign language classroom. This communication tool have more chance to enhence students' language ability through interesting activities.

How I can use Bubblr story using Flilckr photo in my teaching

I think I can use my story very effectively while I teach L2 learners English
My Bubblr Story: . How I use my story for teaching.



Photo by Marxchivist
http://www.flickr.com/photos/tom1231/254460772/

 For using this story making activity, I can provide more vivid experience and arouse students’ interest in new culture. Learning language means learning the target country’s culture and life style as well. When we comprehensively understand the environment of the target language, we can achieve true learning. Language is a tool to share peoples’ thought and communicate each other. Hence, if we have enough knowledge of the target language, we can be a more successful language learner. I will suggest some examples that I can use in my classroom.


First, I can teach geography using map. Students can visualize the location and the character of each state. I can show the students the map of the U.S.A. and ask them such as: Do you know why is the U.S.A. composed of 50 states? Where is your favorite state in U.S.A? While learning geography of the U.S.A, students can write some story of their interest, with which they can get more focused on language learning.
Second, we can talk about which state they visited until now, and how they felt about that? From the sharing of their feeling and thought, we can be more motivated to learn English.

I can discuss the differences of culture or school life between U.S.A. and their own country. Recognition of the differences between two cultures could enhance the understanding of target culture and motivation of language learning.

Finally, I could have the students create stories or this topic using the map. They may build a story clip according to their own interest. For example, students can make some story of his/her favorate state and why they like the state most, or what is the charactereistics of each state.
Students can put bubbles with text on a series of pictures together about cultrue. Students can text their feelings about foreign culture in the bubbles on a picture. It will improve their ability to make some storylines in English and also enhence their understanding of foreign culture. 
This kind of activity also give motivation to engage in class more actively, also students can grasp the gap between each culture by using visual tools.  

Digital Storytelling and how I could use it

Photo by Philip Wee

7 things you should know about DIGITAL STORYTELLING

While using internet, I have enjoyed telling my story in online space to share with lots of people. We can obtain various areas of useful information or get some chance to rethink about a certain topic which was dealt in some blog posts. Through this Module, I was able to know about ‘Digital Storytelling’, so I would like to describe the basic categories that we should know before we tell stories at online space. I got this information from 7 things you should know about DIGITAL STORYTELLING from internet site.

1. What is it?
Digital storytelling is the practice of combining narrative with digital content, including images, sound, and video, to create a short movie, typically with a strong emotional component.


2. Who’s doing it?
For faculty, to facilitate various learning styles and connect to students’ interest in technology, and, for students, to develop their ability to appropriately evaluate and use online content and electronic tools as a means of personal expression.


3. How does it work?
Most digital storytelling programs promote the notion that users with little or no technical background should be able to create digital stories. Depending on the elements included in the digital story, a student might need a recording device and microphone, hardware and software to manipulate images and video, or tools to take pictures and video. Some digital storytelling applications are available free online

4. Why is it significant?
Digital stories let students express themselves not only with their own words but also in their own voices, fostering a sense of individuality and of “owning” their creations. At the same time, digital stories give students an opportunity to experiment with self-representation—telling a story that highlights specific characteristics or events—a key part of establishing their identity, a process that for many is an important aspect of the college years.


5. What are the downsides?
Many people find that piecing together a coherent narrative is considerably more difficult than they thought, and students not comfortable producing original work are likely to find themselves simply modeling their efforts on digital stories they have come across. Moreover, the multimedia technologies used in digital stories can be extensive, requiring considerable support and storage space for programs or institutions.


6. Where is it going?
The ongoing refinement of multimedia applications will place greater power into the hands of more people, allowing richer digital stories. The rise in digital storytelling will in some ways parallel the emergence and growth of social networking and video-sharing sites—these sites benefit from compelling content, and digital stories need an outlet.


7. What are the implications for teaching and learning?
Digital storytelling can serve as a bridge between these groups, encouraging a historian, for example, to delve into multimedia applications while exposing a computer scientist to the ideas of narrative through family lore.

(Which contents are summarized from http://net.educause.edu/ir/library/pdf/ELI7021.pdf)

How can I use this ‘Digital Storytelling’ in my teaching?

From digital storytelling, we can access each other more easily and it makes our communication more efficient. I can use this ‘Digital Storytelling’ in class communication tool. Students may share their major concerns on learning language and they could encourage each other by sharing their difficulties or success stories in their online space. This kind of sharing may be limited in the classroom activity due to of time issue. Throughout sharing and communicating, I can encourage students and get more detailed information based upon each student’s experiences.

How I might use microblogs for teaching?

How I might use microblogs for teaching ?

Twitter, I heard and watched it from lots of gossip news mainly (J) such as some Hollywood starts’ twitting about their situation. I thought that Twitter is just for technology people seeking for a new-trend of life, so it was always very different story from my way of living. I never used blog or twitter in my daily life. I only use a phone, nevertheless that, I believe that I am accustomed to these kinds of new technology, because I have already heard about that so many times. I followed 5 edubloggers a few days, and I got some interests in this tool. As a graduate school student in education field, I am wondering how I can use these microblogging in actual classroom or for my personal development. I read two articles that can give me some hint or resources.

The first one I read was: 50 Ideas on Using Twitter for Education

This article gives a lot of information that I hadn’t thought about yet. This reading gave a very systematic order of information from the ‘First Steps’ to build an account to the ‘Negatives and Positives’ in using this tool. In the section of ‘About WHAT to Tweet’, it provided really helpful tips for using Twitter in education.

First of all, we have to define the purpose of why we use Tweet. As cooper-Taylor suggested, we have to clarify that “Instead of answering the question, “What are you doing?”, answer the question, “What has your attention?”.  If I use Twitter in my classroom, I have to give them definite reason to use Twitter. For example, if I have a literature class, I can make students to share their opinion of some piece of literature (main characters, topic of this literature, meaning, etc.), and it would be our class’ attention to use Twitter. Another point from this reading was “Ask questions. Twitter is GREAT for getting opinions”. From twitting, our class share their thoughts without any limitation of time to designated or space to meet to talk. Students just can share their opinions in any time and any place. It removes time-spacial constraints and makes a new ‘Chronotope’ (Bakhtin, 1937). It makes a real community to get along with other peers by “Commenting on others’ tweets, and retweeting what others have posted” and “it is a great way to build community”. Final advantage that I found from this article was that “Twitter in the classroom helps people build an instant ‘backchannel’. Thus, even if students feel uncomfortable to ask questions to teacher, they can use Twitter freely in any purpose of their needs.

 

The second article that I read was: Getting the Most Out of Twitter

This article suggests some ways to make Twitter work for the users:

1.      A custom news feed

2.      Check your lists

3.      Attend a conference, virtually

4.      What’s around you right now

5.      Ask questions

I think this lists suggest effective ways of using Twitter for students and teacher as well. I think I can use Twitter as a place for more active communication among students, because “Even the most prolific users say Twitter has become more useful as a way to tap in to the discussions of the day than to broadcast their own thoughts”.

Another effective way of using Twitter is for asking questions, especially “when you don’t know whom to ask”. I think it is very important function of Twitter. If I do not know where I can get certain resources, then I can ask twitters in that area. I can know what is going on in education world in real time. Many information is shared in twitter. There exists no barrier any more regarding time, distance, culture, or race.