Friday 27 January 2012

webquest--- project for teacher to choose

http://questgarden.com/author/create/preview.php?u=139013&l=139013-120209050232&pt=student&p=introduction




Web quest provides a project for teachers to choose to enrich their lesson, it is easy to find many different web quest online, and the levels of those web quest are different, thus teacher can choose proper project and use them in their lessons.



Quest garden is a website that people can use it to make their own web quest. It is easy to make a web quest in quest garden. Since this website provides details about how to make a web quest and provides some samples for beginners to refer.

How to use:

1.      Teachers can use this to find suitable project for their students. Teachers can use this project to enrich their lesson. If teachers find a similar topic web quest with their lesson, they can use this web quest in class, it will be fun and attractive for students, maybe they just use one task or one part of this web quest, but in this way, teachers can motivate students to learn English.

2.      Teachers can use this to practice students’ four skills and co-work skill, since web quest provides many tasks for students to do and some tasks are designed to work in pairs or work in groups.

3.      Teachers can use this to encourage shy student to speak English in class, since some tasks are group tasks, thus students can play a small drama and if students focus on playing games, they will forget to be afraid. Therefore, this can motivate some shy students to speak English or show themselves in public.
Advantages:

1.      Web quest can motivate students to learn English. Since students need to do tasks or a project, in this process, they will learn English and find interesting of learning English.

2.      Web quest can promote students to work together; students will learn how to interact with different people or how to get along with their peers.

Disadvantages:

1.      Web quest is not suitable for non-native speakers. Since if we design simple project, it cannot achieve the goal. But if the project is designed difficult, students will lose their patient to do this project.

2.      If teacher want to use a web quest, he/she must do many work to adapt it and add to omit some part or find the suitable way to introduce this web quest to his/her students.

3.      Students will be lazy if they can find the answers on the Internet. Since web quest is online project. Therefore, some students will be lazy and find answers online rather than think by themselves.

Monday 23 January 2012

Make you own presentation with your voice



My brain shark (http://my.brainshark.com/Home.aspx) is a website that students can upload their own documents (e.g. ppt, word, photo, video and so on) and add voice to these documents. Students can make their own presentation or small video at home. This website provide teacher a way to practise students' speaking skill.

How to use:

1. teachers can give students homework (e.g. making a presentation about themselves), and then use this website to add their voice to their presentations. And then send this presentation with voice to their teacher. In this way, students will have chance to practise their oral English.

2. teachers can use this website to correct students' homework. Teachers can use red pen to mark where students' mistake in word, and then add teachers' voice to explain why that is mistake and how to correct it.And then send this word with teacher's voice to students


Advantages:

1. students can practise their oral English and it is easy for students to use. And it is fun to attract students' attention.


2. this website can motivate students to do homework. Using this website to do homework will be fun and easy.



Disadvanges:

although this website is good, I also find some limitations as listed below:

1. the lazy students will ask other people to help them. For example, lazy students will ask other people to write the draft for them and they just read the draft. Although they also practise their oral English, they do not use their brain to think about this task.

2.the time of record is short. Students or teachers can not record a long voice to a document.

Monday 16 January 2012

Todays Meet for language learning in China

Todays meet (http://todaysmeet.com/) is a website that teacher can creat a online room for students to discuss and express their opinion online. It is very convenient and easy to use.

(Picture 1)

From picture 1, we can see that teacher can creat their owen room online and decide keep this room for how long time.
(Picture 2)

From picture 2, we can see that after teacher creat an online room, teacher can give the link of  this room to students and then students can join this room and express their opinion online, other students and teacher can see their opinions. while students can use other name (e.g. English name, nick name, etc.) instead of their true name to join this room.


(Picture 3)

From picture 3, we can see that this website or this online room is easy to use. Students just need to write their opinions or answers and then click 'say' and then other people can see what they say.

Advantages:

1. Obviously, this website can create a online room for students to share and express their opinions and at the same time teachers can collect students' opinions.
2. This online room can give a way for shy students to express their opinions. In China, most students are shy and do not like speaking in the class, this online room can let them speak out their opinions more freely.

3. Many students like learning through computers, thus to acertain extent this online room can motivate students. And this is new for Chinese students, students always like new things and interesting things, especially new technology or interesting website.


4. Also this online room can store information. After collecting students' opinions or answers, teacher can store these information in his/her computer and his/her can analyse these opinions or answers after they go home.

5. Students can practise their writing skill by using this online room, since they need to consider grammar, spelling of vocabulary, completence of sentence and so on when they type their opinions or answers in English in this online room.


How to use (in class):

1. Teacher can use this online room to practise students. For example, if today we learn past tense, teacher can use this online room to let every student write a sentence using past tense or change present tense into past tense.

2. This online room can be used to find mistakes. For example, teacher send a reading material to students, let them find mistakes in this reading material and write these mistakes in this online room and teacher can collect answers easily.

How to use (outside class):

1. Teacher can leave some homework for students and collect the answer in this online room and ask every student join this room by using their true name.

2. Teacher can collect students' opinions about the hard extendof one text or a exam and which part or which question should be explained carefully.

3. Teacher can use this online room to collect students' opinion about teaching strategies.

Limitations:

It cannot be denied that todays meet is a very useful link for students to express their opinion. However, if we want to use this link in the language learning classes in China, there will be some limitations as listed below:

1. It is diffcult to ensure that every student can have a computer, an ipad or a smartphone. In China, government provides computers to many schools, but in other words, every classroom only has one computer for teacher to use. While in few schools, they have computer rooms, however, their computer rooms are always used by many students, thus every student only has few time to use computer, maybe they can use computer only once a week.

2. If teacher uses computer room, students will play computer games rather than listen other student's opinion. Because teacher does not control their computers. Computer games are always more attractive than this online room or teacher's questions, thus students will answer without thinking carefully and be perfunctory to teacher's questions or tasks.

3. Teacher cannot response students in time. This website provide teacher a online room for students to express their opinion, teacher can collect students' opinions and read these opinions after class. However, teacher cannot response students in time.

4. I cannot sure that this website can be used in China, since the Chinese government limit many websites and Chinese people can connect to these websites, such as, facebook, twitter and so on. Therefore, I cannot sure that we can use this online room in China.