Week 4-6 Reflections







Podcasting (Week 6)

Maybe you wonder, what Podcasting is about? Podcasting provides a means of publishing audio programs via the Internet. It is a wonderful tool for English learners who want to getaccess to "authentic" listening sources about almost any subject they may interest them. Teachers can use them to generate speaking and listening activities adapted to the students' needs and contexts. I would like to use it for speaking because students can recreate real life conversations according to their interests. In our institution, for example, students have to work during the year with projects based on the school needs. For that reason, I think podcasting might be a good tool to make public those projects not only in Spanish but also in English. Although the High school where I work do not have intenet connection, I can record my students in the classroom, edit the audio and the publish it later as Stanley (2006) recommends in his article Podcasting: Audio on the Internet Comes of Age.
My introduction message podcast in Podbean

 
 


Interesting links to know more about podcasting:
  • Podcasting: Audio on the Internet Comes of Age
http://www.tesl-ej.org/wordpress/issues/volume9/ej36/ej36int/


  • Podcasting for ELT
http://www.teachingenglish.org.uk/think/articles/podcasting-elt











Wikis (Week 5)

  
Wikis have become innovative tools for teaching languages because, among other things, they provide extra reading practice for students and encourage writing as a process.In addition, wikis may help to correct writing mistakes because they permit collective editing. Some researchers have found other applications for wikis in Teaching English as a Foreign Language. For instance, wikis may serve as tools for brainstorming activities, group discussions, and knowledge base creating. Research studies in this area have shown that “the use of wikis has been explored as a teaching tool in schools, colleges and universities” (Raman, Ryan, and Olfman, 2005; Parker and Chao, 2007; Konieczy, 2007, in Hazari, North, and Moreland, 2009, p.3).To sum up, Wikis as web tools to teach English as a foreign language might help students to improve and integrate skills such as: writing, reading and speaking. In my case, I would like to implement classes wikis in class project because they allow collaborative writing. For sure my students will feel free to write through a wiki project.

WIKIPEDIA
WETPAINT

WIKIPATTERNS

Blogs (Week 4)



Many people could ask what is a blog and why is so important to blog. Most people defining blogs use terms such as diary or journal, reflecting the personal nature of the early weblogs. Perhaps the most interesting feature of blogs in TEFL education is the ability of readers to comment on posts, making it a forum for interacting. It can work perfectly with classroom discussions based on topics of interest to our students. Now, why blogging in TEFL education? Using blogs to facilitate group work is clearly appropriate and an excellent medium for student-centered learning. In addition to the usual benefits of group work, students using blogs seem to be more attuned to their assignment and to their group members. According to my teaching context, I would like to use blogs to promote because they might help my students share ideas more effectively. 

Links to interesting resources related to Blogs:


  • Schoolblogs (a rich resource for discussion of educational uses as well as tools)
http://www.schoolblogs.com/


  • Weblogg-ed (a blog on using weblogs and rss in education)

1 comentario:

Albis Tovar dijo...

Hi Maurely. When you state that podcasting is suitable to develop speaking skills and that students can recreate real life conversations; a very important question crops up: to what extent podcasting conveys natural conversation clues? I ask you this because I consider that recording an audio file is a very hard work. Mostly if you take into consideration the natural flow of speech. For instance, if you have a script you may have the tendency to read it whilst recording. So it may not sound natural.What do you think?