Week 3 Reflection

This week was very baffling for me as I am also attending workshop for Health and Physical Education curriculum review and racking my brain hard but at the end of every successful work one feel very satisfied and relief.  The 3^rd week’s tasks were creating a page on delicious and adding our links; discussion on aural/oral skill building; and read and comment on past sample project. All of these tasks were gearing towards to building our competence in web skills.

   

Firstly, I am particularly glad to get introduced to delicious.com, a social bookmarking page. When our computer cannot display enough bookmarks it is of tremendous benefit to store our favorites and important websites for our references and to share with others.

Secondly, in discussion on aural/oral skill building, it was very enriching going through article and finding approaches to listening and speaking using CALL.  I realized that there are thousand and plus interactive websites that can help build learner’s listening, speaking, writing and reading skills (LSWR). Such websites are called web 2.0 tools. A properly graded tool can bring much benefit to learners and also to teachers through collaboration and creation. It was also great exploring VoiceThread which is a great tool to develop speaking and other skills as well.

Lastly, Reading a sample project like the one our finale project will look like was infact guiding experience for me. In the project written by Aleyda Linares from National Pedagogical University, Honduras tries to find a technological solution to overcome her students’ problem in speaking English and grammar.  She makes her debut blog for her class and a gmail account for all students to collaborate learning from website for first time.  It was interesting to learn how she copes with those students who were novice on using internet and later on becomes motivated to use blogs and other websites.

All those three tasks were really contributing to our web skill building and I enjoy doing it despite of racking my brain and other chores that I have to do. 

Week 2 Reflection

Week 2 made be really busy, with awaited festival, writing assignments and the regular classes. It was just difficult to catch all my mates who are very active, enthusiastic and prompt in Nicenet and Blogs.

This week’s strengths were finding search engines and writing learning objectives in ABCD style. It was very rich experiences going through many good web sites and exploring it. My selection of engine was “SweetSearch” and it was so nice have discover such engine beside our favorite and popular “Google”. What makes Nicenet unique is the quality of search it makes which is approved through experts and caters the search to different category s of learners. It also has different hyperlinks on the home page to navigate into different source of ones need and areas.

What I had to drudge this week was to understanding the new concept of ABCD style of constructing learning objectives but it was worthwhile doing it. The kind of learning objectives is based on different domains of learning and caters to different abilities and types of learners. No doubt, this learning is going to be fantastic and enriching. I hope many more are stored in our course where we can be enlightened at the end.

Looking forward for greater challenges and trying to remain ever young to learn and not to lack.

See you all next week...

Web 2.0 Tool for Developing Speaking Skills

I particularly thank Paramita, my E-Teacher course mate having interest in Web 2.0 tools and I do love sharing it to all my friends. The tool I am sharing is called "Audioboo". I believe some of you already know about it, nevertheless go through it once, I have given detail description of the tool, how to use it and a sample lesson plan to be used in Blended Classroom.

           www.audioboo.fm

Description of the Tool

Audioboo is a software developed for mobile application. The web site for the tool also allows equal usage of the application, however, recording and sharing is easier in the mobile application. This tool enables users to record audio and upload images that can be shared in different websites.  Aduioboo has a very clear and smooth interface and is very easy to use in the classroom. It can be used to create voice discussions within classroom and also search knowledge base articles and browse public issues in any area of discussion. However, it is only by creating an account that one will be able to post private issues and follow existing issues or discussion in the website, otherwise the user is limited to recording.

Functions and Affordance

This simple tool allows teachers and students to communicate ideas and information. It can be used in classrooms for developing speaking skills and assigning homework and other tasks. This application allows students to create voice discussion, and share information with images they want. In classroom it is best used for interviews, storytelling, making news and voice message or instructions.

Audioboo provides the functionality to pause while recording thus giving extra time for students to think and organize their ideas to present them better.  It has recording features that can be reverted to re-recording if a student thinks something is not worth publishing, thus enabling a second chance to prepare for better recording. Both these features greatly help learners to practice speaking and acquire competence over spoken language. It also boosts students’ confidence and prepares them to be good speakers. These features completely allow students to make self-correction, and also make necessary changes to their recording before the final copy is published. Such repetition of work makes student more reflective and better performer.

The second noteworthy functionality is the ability to leave comments over the recorded files. Comments can be either made by recording voice or text. This helps to reflect on others’ speaking and contribute to discussion. From the teacher’s point of view this helps provide suggestions and feedback to students.

While publishing the content, this tool allows the functionality to choose and select a category of the topic of recording. This facilitates search/browsing and easy retrieving of all published recordings.

One disadvantage is that audioboo allows only three minutes of recording thus hindering longer content for discussion and presentation of elaborate activities. Secondly, recordings are not threaded and comments posted may not be responded to at the same time-it lacks synchronous discussion.

How to Use

1. Create an account on Audioboo at http://audioboo.fm/ using your e-mail address and real name to make it easier for your friends and teachers to know who you are. You can also use a profile picture.
2. On the website, click on the record /upload button, which will open another window where you can start recording or upload recorded file.
3. Click on the box that says “get your mic ready?” for a new recording (Note# for the first time, you will be asked to allow access to computer’s recording settings. Click on “Allow”)
4. Now you can start recording by clicking on the green start recording button. You can pause recording or end recording by clicking on Pause Recording button. And Preview Recording button will allow you to listen to your recording that will help you to make decision on publishing the recording.
5. If you are not happy with the recording, you can delete the recording by clicking on Restart Recording and that will enable you to record new recording again.
6. When you are happy with your recording and ready to publish it, click on the green Happy? Add a Title button.
7. Now you can give a title and tags to help you and others identify it. You can also add an image and location. When you are finally ready, click on the green Publish button that will appear on another screen.
8. Once the file is uploaded, you will get a link to embed, share and email the recording. You can also play it to listen to your recording in the Audioboo website. To save the recording in the website, you need to sign up and log in to your account that will also help you to receive comments.

Sample Task

Topic               : News Broadcast                                           

Level               : Intermediate

Materials         : Computer with net connection, head phone and microphone.

Objectives        : Students will be able to;

-          script the news for recording

-          interview different people

-          create news using Audioboo and share to class

Introduction

[Teacher can get students to create their own radio news broadcasts. This could be a regular show that they produce together in small groups. They could collect the news together, decide what items they will include in their news broadcast and then script it.]

Activity

-          Teacher divides students in 4 groups of three members each and assigns different roles to members like data collector or reporter, editor and news reader. [Data collector (reporter) collects news and the facts, editor revises, checks and corrects news to finalize for broadcasting, and the news reader gives a voice to record news.]

-          Teacher assigns each groups different news category (e.g. sports, crime, fashion, local news, etc.) and ask them to prepare draft script of the news. Students can refer to news bulletin or listen to news in the internet to learn more about news broadcasting.

-          Students are asked to carry out their own responsibility and make a first draft of the news. They are expected to review the draft and make final write up for recording the news. Students are also reminded to use appropriate language and grammar.

-          Teacher asks students to use Audioboo to record their news and publish it in the website or they can also share it on Facebook group if the class has one.

Closure

Once the news is published, each group is expected to leave comments on every other group’s output and the teacher might open a free discussion in the next class.

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I Hope you all liked it. Thanks for reading. 

Advantages of Web-based Learning

Learning from the internet should be seen as a transition from traditional to modern, 21^st century teaching and learning skills. Like machine has replaced carts and bulls in order to get better yields in lesser amount of time or reducing effort. Using computer and internet is similar to that of educating in completely new and fascinating ways. One major advantage of the Internet is the amount of resources it makes available to its users. Access to all the tools and services of the Internet removes hindrance faced by learners. Moreover, not only does the Internet expand the amount of resources available to the user, it also makes the process of acquiring materials much quicker than traditional methods. In addition to increasing resources, the Internet also fosters and enhances various skills of its users. Communication skills and writing skills can be directly affected through its use. Depending on its incorporation in classroom activities, it may also contribute to the improvement of skills related to critical thinking, problem solving, and group work. Even cognitive learning can be done better on the Internet; the learning includes facts, data, knowledge, mental skills and test. And information transfer and cognitive learning can be achieved faster, cheaper and better online. Learners can learn during her or his peak learning time; at learner’s own pace and speed; can focus on specific content area; can do self evaluation and learners can interact more with teachers and peers.

No doubt that internet expands the resources available and decreases the time and location dependencies that can be limiting factors in schools. It offers powerful and varied ways for students and teachers to interact, manipulate data, and conduct research. However, Internet is not an approach to education, but rather a tool that can be used with almost any educational theory. It makes additional information resources available, it enhances dynamic communication, and it makes collaboration easier by reducing the need for collaborators to be in the same place at the same time.

My new blog...for the first time

It is a great start and yes, I already started feeling of learning. Well, I have heard about blog often but never used it somehow. So, this is the place where we can create, share and collaborate our information, knowledge and skills.

Although I have had a module during my MA on online learning and I do have few stuff to share with all my friends here, especially this web skills participants about the Web 2.0 tools. Hopefully, I can keep on posting few from next time but as an introductory about web 2.0 tools, it is an interactive tool that are very good for teaching learning purposes. Teacher and student can create, collaborate, and  share knowledge through web 2.0 tools.

More next time….and do keep posting all of you….

Sanjiv