Wednesday, January 25, 2012

Educational Web Resource Evaluation Rubric

An evaluation tool for the educational value of web-based learning resources targeting children K-8.

Evaluation of Web Resources

Web 2.0 & Teaching: Evaluation of Web Resources: Not all the information on the web is trustworthy, valid or up-to-date. It may be too simple or too difficult. Too specific or too general.

Sometimes we don't care too much - we are simply surfing for fun and entertainment. But in education and business it does matter.

To evaluate the web pages you use, try the following questions:

How college professors use Facebook

It's a known fact that students are Facebook-obsessed. But a new survey shows that teachers might rival their younger counterparts when it comes to social media use. Nearly all professors are active on social media, and 80% of them use it as a teaching tool. Check out the infographic below to learn how college faculty are using social media both personally and professionally.

Reading professors like an open facebook, or how teachers use social media
Courtesy of: Schools.com

A MILLION DOLLAR QUESTION IS "HOW ARE YOU USING SOCIAL MEDIA TO MAXIMIZE LEARNING OF YOUR STUDENTS"?

Give me your idea on it.

Monday, January 23, 2012

A Guideline for your Final CALL Assignment -- 30 Marks

Have a careful look at this slideshow of how a teacher used Hot Potatoes into her lesson.

For your assignment, you need to create two exercises for a language test (for any level) using Hot Potatoes software. The test will then be embedded on to your blog with adequate instructions for your students to take the test. You should also provide hints to the questions.

In your introduction, you need to show your reader the significance of your current research work, create a knowledge gap, give a thesis statement.

Your background should tell readers the profile of your school/ classroom, students & teachers, their readiness, their current state of knowledge in using CALL in language classrooms.

Your literature review should explain and synthesize the advantages & disadvantages of using CALL, and how could CALL be best integrated into your educational contexts to facilitate a student-centered learning environment. Students can comment on each other's answers.

Then, discuss and, as your action plan or recommendations, you present the test (as appendix) you designed for your students.

Lastly, write your conclusion.


Happy reading & writing!

Ali Abidi

Wednesday, January 18, 2012

Wednesday, January 4, 2012

Introduction to CALL

CALL (Computer Assisted Language Learning) is often considered a language teaching method, but this is not really the case. In traditional CALL, the methodology was often claimed to be based on a behaviouristic approach as in “programmable teaching”, where the computer checked the student input and gave feedback (reward?) and moved on to an appropriate activity exercise. In modern CALL, the emphasis is on communication and tasks.

The role of the computer in CALL has moved from the “input – control – feedback” sequence to management of communication, text, audio, and video. Few people may realise that a DVD player is really a computer. Future domestic appliances will integrate and merge video, television, audio, telephone, graphics, text, and Internet into one unit as, in 2010, can be seen in newer generations of “mobile telephones / communicators”.

When planning to use CALL, it is important to understand how a language is learned; language learning is a cognitive process, i.e. it is the result of the student’s own processing of language inputs. What is learned is mainly the result of this process and not just explanations, rules, and questions presented by a teacher or a computer. Based on her/his existing knowledge of the topic being worked on, the language and the language acquisition, the student processes the input and fits it into the language system s/he possesses. Language knowledge is not just recorded, but rather constructed by the student.