Our website

Our website aims at guiding students from reading to writing. The input: the book "A Christmas Carol" + website(warming up, background, reading quizzes, forum activities,teaching of how to write a summary and bookreport) = book report. Though it was quite tough to build this website(this is my first english teaching website), i enjoy a lot because i can work with nice people: claire, joedy and robbie. They are so tolerant to my idiotic questions. They are really smart and nice people.

Autonmy

Learning with IT can certainly enable studetns to learn with autonmy. They can choose the topic to learning and choose the most effective and comfortable learning speed to them. Moreover, they can also access to different types of online references while learning.
However, teacher's role should not be marginalized. We are always told that teachers are facilitators who enables learning and students are always the centre of learning. I think teachers also take the role as regulators. In modern classrooms, students are highly autonomized. Teachers should help them to choose by giving clear CILOs and learning objectives. Moreover, school teacher should also indicate the core part of learning. At the mean time, teahcers should also provide different kinds of graded exercise or assistance in order to cater the needs of different learners.

Week 8 The copyright

We make use of a lot of material which are protected by copyright during lessons quite frequently. Though we teachers are allowed to use or deal with reasonable portions of copyright works in a fair manner for teaching in a specified course of study, it is still hard to tell what is the reasonable portion. Sometimes we are quite confused about this.
When we have to post anything, eg, a magazine or newspaer article online to share with our students, we may be in breach with the copyright law. So, we can't replace all the hardcopy with the softcopy.

Something more about the EFL IVD experience

As mentioned in the first post related to this article, the project was done nearly 20 years ago. The task is not interactive enough. To most of the teachers and some of the students at that time, online chatrooms and video- sharing platform was unheard. Similar projects can be still carried out now but to improve it, we can add more interactive elements to it like asking students to discuss the film online and create some video clippings about the film

Reading Week Seven

The reading is about how to develop and create a multimedia courseware to conduct langugage lessons. The project was carried out in the early 1990s, which is about 20 years ago. In terms of the equipments just like the laserdisc player and the Truvision Bravado Board, the project seems not updated. However, the experience learnt from the project and the idea it based on is the thing that we have to treasure.

Generally speaking, teachers are more well-trained and experienced in using IT in teaching. In the article, the author mentioned that the research require a vast amount of manpower. Nowadays, with the help of the development of user-friendly softwares and teachers' being familiar with IT, similar teaching strategies can be employed with ease.

I think the objectives behind the project, ie,"develop reading comprehension skills with the help of viewing video, develop active use of the language by learning to imitate speech acts, develop speaking skills in English by imitating pronunciation, stress, and intonation as well as extra linguistic components, bring the learner as close as possible to a real conversational situationm and provide the learner with enough tools so that he or she can understand the conversation, expose the learner to the culture of the language and encourage students to becaome active listeners, gussers, predictors, and risk takers," are still worth working on.

Week 3 Planning tips and samples

There are different planning tips for teachers. Teachers should allocate longer time for on-line projects. Moreover, teachers should make sure that students can access to computer and Internet outside school.
The nature of project-based learning requires effective means of communication, so teachers should set up e-mails to facilitate intra-class communication.
While choosing partners, we should put differences in schedule, level, or goal under consideration. We should find some matching partners. This is also related to the effectiveness of team teaching because the details of goals and activities are concerned. Teachers should provide clear guidelines and timetables for on-line projects to students and the means of assessment should be clearly explained tpo students as well.
Besides, the platform should be hospitable for students' interaction and it should allow students to share their work with other teachers, students family members and community members through the Net.

Week 3 Teaching Guidelines

The authors mention the teaching guidelines of CALL. First, the principle of dual immersion is mentioned. In dual immersion, "students are immersed in learning language skills and technology skills simultaneously, with the teacher providing the necessary structure and support along the way." Moreover, computers are best to be integrated to into the curriculum. To students, their learning experience will be regarded as project-based. Internet and computer is a tool of problem solving and task fulfilling. Besides, they are also platform for students to display their product and interacting with other learners. Yet, teachers are no longer the centre of classroom. A teacher is a "guide on side" who assists students to "organize their projects and to give language-specific instruction as needed during project activities." Finally, the authors points out that students should learn with a purpose. Projects are no longer for the purpose of assessment only. They are designed to solve some real problems in life. Through the Net, students can explore more information, cultivate views to different issues and finally, display their ideas on the platform.
I agree that Internet is an useful tool which can effectively connect students to the real world. Teachers therefor should help students to choose and think critically while they are bombarded with the vast amount of information and ideas.

week3 reading learning goal

The article is talking about how to use Internet for English teaching as the topic suggests. There are four sections: learning goals, teaching guidelines, planning tips and finally, some samples are given. Teachers should help students to achieve active and creative mastery of new technologies, to develop autonomous learning strategies, to co-operate and collaborate with other partners, to communicate effectively with people from different cultures and interpret information from varied cultural contexts and to think critically.

I think the learning goals are not so focused on the skills and knowledge but on attitude cultivation. All in all, the goals are, to a large extent, training students to be citizens in the global village. The vast and border less influx of information and the seems-to-be relatively free learning atmosphere require people to be good communicators and to be highly self-disciplined. Though CALL, students can obtain an environment to interact with different people in the world. Thus, in addition to the above learning goals, I think teaching the net etiquette is essential for communication. Besides, teaching the strategies to make comments politely and positively is also an essential teaching goal. This involves language teaching. Last but not least, teachers should also teach students how to protect their privacy on the Net.

What I hope to learn

I hope to be not so outdated after taking this course. I want to find out ways to make use of the current not-so- adequate IT resources in our school better. As one of the teachers-in-charge of CTV and an English teacher, I hope to fully utilize it for English teaching.

The Elearning System in my school

The e-learning system in my school is e-class. I only make annoucements through it. One thing that I what to mention is the Campus TV in our school. I am the teacher-in-charge of CTV and I found that CTV can serve as an excellent platform for language learning. Students can put programs on it and we can organise different kinds of programs eg News Report, Weather Forecast, Forum on current issues and broadcast through it. This can help to create and enhance the English environment.

The Websites for teaching

As mentioned in my first post, most of my students come from underpriviledged families, their exposure to English is limited.
Online resources can provide me lots of authentic material for teaching. I use videos in youtube quite often.
To find suitable reading materials, the website of Hong Kong Standard www.thestandard.com.hk
the website of Reader's Digest: www.rd.com
The authentic materials find on the Net can also be served as stimulus. The video of chicken a la carte can be a starting point for discussion on poverty and polarization of society: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=993rZrfLBjg
I use the clipping as a talking point and design tasks around it. Hope to use in an integrative CALL way.
Last but not least, our students are asked to subscribe English Builder. I assign my students homework on it and allocate lessons in Language Lab.

My First Blog on New Technologies

Hello, everybody. I am Janet. I am currently teaching in a CMI Band 2 secondary in Shatin. My students mostly come from underpriviledged families. However, accessing to a computer is never a problem to them -- there are more than 200 computers for students to use in our school.

My experiences of technology in the language learning context
I mainly use the online dictionary to learn. I am a person of the older generation and computer was a novice when I was in school. I use online dictionary to learn when I took my first psotgraduate course. Other than this, websites like BBC learning English http://www.bbc.co.uk/worldservice/learningenglish/ or e-notes.com http://www.enotes.com/lit are still websites that I use quite freqently to refresh myself.