This is the audio I put together for Tech Task #7 using Garageband. I found this to be a frustrating experience and my finished product is not what I had intended on doing at all. I was planning on mixing two songs together, but I couldn’t make it work the way that I wanted it to, so I just completely changed my plan. I put together clips of 9 different songs where the word “love” is mentioned. I wouldn’t mind putting more editing time into the recording sometime in the future.
Here is a discussion topic that I want to throw out to anyone, especially those interested in additional languages. What are some ways that technology could be used to enhance the learning of an additional language?
As a French teacher, I want to be able to provide as much assistance and provide as many resources to my students as possible. Some of the ways that I’ve used technology in teaching French as a Second language are:
Being in ECMP 355 has given me so many new ideas on how technology could be so beneficial to students learning a new language. Some of the ideas that I brainstormed are:
If you have other ideas, please add them to the list!
I find technophobia to be an interesting topic. I didn’t know that this was the correct term for describing people who avoid using technology for various reasons. I’m positive that all of us have encountered at least one “teacher technophobic” in school either as a teacher or as a student. As for me, I saw countless teachers when I was in elementary and high school who avoided technology completely. Even our Information Processing teacher taught us the old traditional skills with computers. For example, most of our classes were spent practicing typing. I think that the main reason that some teachers avoid technology like it’s the plague is because they don’t have enough knowledge or understanding to use it comfortably.
I found this article by David Wetzel: how-to-avoid-technophobia-in-the-classroom-a114967 which offers solutions that could help these types of teachers. This article focuses on the idea that teachers need to ask for help and not to expect that they will learn everything all at once. This is lifelong process since there is so much to learn, and there are new programs and strategies that are introduced constantly. Teachers are always saying that “there are no dumb questions”, so teachers need to demonstrate this by seeking help from co-workers or even students. Wetzel commented on how much students like to be teachers themselves and demonstrate their own knowledge. I think that this is a powerful tool to make connections with students. Also, this is telling the students that teachers aren’t perfect either and are learning at the same time as the students. I find it inspiring when I see teachers of an older generation who are so excited to learn basic things about technology that they just learned. I hope that I can play a part in sharing what I’ve been learning through this class to my future co-workers as well as others in my life who scare away from technology.
I found the advertisement for “Study Booth” while reading a blog about cell phones in the classroom. If you have 2 minutes, watch the demo video on the website and tell me what you think about this study tool. Myself, I don’t see a lot of benefits to it since I think it would be less work and just as convenient to have notes on paper instead of typing all of the questions onto a computer and setting times for the questions to send to your cell phone. However, if students don’t see it like I do, at least they’re studying!
I just remembered seeing this clip in EPS 300 last year and I like it for two reasons: a) I think “The Office” is an amazing tv series and b) I can relate it very well to an experience in my Internship.
I will focus on my second point 🙂 This fall, I took on a French 9 class as the class that I would teach throughout the semester. Since it was their first time in the High School, my co-op didn’t really know what to expect from them. Very quickly she found out that they were the most unique class that she had seen in her 15 years of teaching experience. These 18 students thrived on rewards. But these were not rewards that I would have expected from teenagers (who were for the majority all males). They wanted stickers whenever they did something “good” that was worth a reward. So I went out and got a bunch of stickers with encouraging French messages on them, and they were so eager to get as many as they could. They thought they deserved one if they were the first one done their assignment, if they were the last one done, if they wiped off the white boards, if they were quiet for five minutes (that was my favorite one), and the list went on and on…..
I’ve heard both sides of the debate of giving students rewards or incentives. I found that with my experience with those particular students, that that was what kept them working hard and having a higher level of participation in my classes. In this case, I think that it was a harmless reward that didn’t have negative side effects. Would I put so much emphasis in other classes? Probably not, but it depends on the students at hand. If I run out of stickers, I could always start giving out “Schrute Bucks”!
Here is the “Door Scene” task created by myself, Angele, Ben, and Evan.
Here is the Mastercard “Priceless” Commercial that I put together on Photo Story 3. Enjoy!
Teamwork
I thought that this picture from Flickr was just adorable. The look of determination and frustration on the little boy’s face made this quote go perfectly with the action of the picture.
This weekend, I learned something new…from eight 9 & 10 year olds. At swimming lessons this weekend, the first thing someone said to me was about their new Kinect game. Not knowing what it was, I asked what that was. The jaws on eight young faces dropped in shocked horror. They could not believe that I wasn’t into the current phase. Everyone in my class either own a Kinect or were planning on getting one in the near future. Am I that disconnected from new technology that I wouldn’t be familiar with this gaming system? Or can I make an assumption that this is more popular with children and young teenagers?
I was determined to know more about this console, so I watched videos, and read some reviews about it. Then I found out that it has only been released since November, 2010. That makes me somewhat relieved that I haven’t been blind to a popular phase in young people. During my Internship this Fall, I had never heard any of my High School students mention the Kinect, even though their conversations often led them to talking about other various video games. This makes me suspect that it is geared to younger students than High School levels. Please correct me if I’m wrong.
During my research, I found an amusing parody about the Kinect….Check it out:
The video I chose to view for Tech Task #3 is by “Michael Wesch “, an Anthropologist Professor from Kansas State University.He talks about the effects of media and shaping the future of education. He begins the video by describing his experience of a trip he took to a small village in New Guinea. He explains how he essentially had to become a child to learn about this different culture since he was in a complete culture shock. Several of the villagers went out to become “literate” and came back with the plan to map out the area, create census, and change several other things about the village. It completely changed the village, and according to them, they didn’t like what the culture had become and still struggle with it today. During this trip he learned that, “When we try to use media, media uses us. No way to opt out of media. It changes everyone. “ He continues with the thought that, media mediates relationship, so when media changes, relationships change.” He also showed clips of a popular video that his class created collaboratively where students hold up signs that depict what students are really during class (Example: I just spent the whole class on facebook). Overall, I found that his message was that we need each other to learn, and new media changes the way that we need each other, so therefore changes the way we learn.
I found it interesting the way that he incorporated the story of his trip to New Guinea to give us a more “eye-opening” picture of what new media does to our way of life. I agree that learning is done through more than sitting and having information blurted to us within the compounds of 4 walls. Through education classes and Internship, it is very obvious that students are better able to engage in what they’re learning if they can trace it back to the time they first learned it. If every class is done by lecturing in the same classroom, it’s hard to recall what was being said when the information was initially shared. Also, I agree that the majority of the time we learn something new, it’s from each other. Even if it’s the teacher passing on new knowledge, it still counts as interaction to help you learn. For this reason, when media is the center for new knowledge, you learning from other people, shifts to learning from media. Therefore, it affects your relationships.
However, I don’t agree with everything he says. He makes it sound as if our whole way of life is affected when we start using a new type of media. In some situations it might, but overall, I wouldn’t say that me using a new cell phone is going to make my relationship with my parents go down the drain.
As a side note, I found it very interesting that Wesch is the one who organized the video that I’ve seen many time in education classes. It fit in nicely with the topic of the lecture.
What does everyone else think about media changing your relationships with other people? Do you think that’s a little too exagarated? Please share your thoughts….
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