Using Technology to Provide Feedback

Week 14: How to Use Technology to Provide Feedback

Rate: 5
All the article called my atention, every single part, word, and idea. It provide us ideas how to use technology in order to provide feedback to our studens, and as in this subjetc our teacher is sending us feedback using a tool in which she can give us a feedback while she is recording the screen of her computer, and also recording her voice, checking our projects and showing us the rubric, so is a really good way to give feedback in a really just grade.

Using technology to record the feedback from your computer is a really good idea for teachers to not just check and make some corrections on the students project, but you can also explain which the mistake is and then student is going to know why did we correct those mistakes. However, there is a tool that we can use, but it you have to pay for it, but it is a really nice tool, we could record the screen and also record the audio. On the other hand, there are numerous of free applications that we can use at not cost.

In my case, I am teaching to a group of 8 students on saturdays, and sometimes they have to send to my e-mail some works, I would like to use this tool to provide them feedback, and save some time for them without been reading all the corrections, it would be easy for them to understand in that way.

Benefits of Project Work

Week 13: Educational Leadership Giving Students Meaningful Work: Seven Essentials for Project Based Learning.- Maximizing theBenefitsof ProjectWork inForeign Language Classrooms

Rate: 2

One of the major advantages of project work is that it makes school more like real life. It is an in-depth investigation of a real world topic worthy of student's attention and effort. the advantages of project work is that it makes school more real when students complete their education and head to the workplace, they will be expected to work with their colleagues, tackle problems, and organize and present their ideas. They must also be able to manage projects and complete them on time. As the article mentioned the idea of the project work is that it should have a purpose for real life, because whenever students have a assessment they will be putting attention on that project just because it will be include in the exam or will be use for the next classes.

Project work is more meaningful when students are aware that they will have real audience, because they will prepare better their projects, their materials, and themselves in order to get possitive feedback from the teachers, and envolve themselves in a possitive way in front of the audience, because, the project works promotes critical thinking, memory and creativity; students will be more prepared for the presentations that they could have in front of real audience.

Students Participating in Classes Discussions.

Week 12: 10 Benefits of Getting Students to Participate in Classroom Discussions
Increase Students Interaction with “Think Pair Share” and “Circle Chats”

When students are talking with each other about content, most of us worry, at least a little bit. We have all heard less than impressive exchanges. For example, four students are in a group discussing three open ended questions about two challenging readings. It’s less than five minutes since they started, but they are already on question three. Or, they are working with clickers, supposedly exchanging ideas about a problem, but the group has already decided on one member’s solution. She just happens to be a student who regularly answers in class and is almost always right. Sometimes the ideas to make students participate are not aplied in a correct way, instructions might not be clear, teacher might have to explain twice the information, and other difficulties are some problems that we might present. We have to be careful at that moment, but it is something that we could manage. 

When students are discussing content, teachers tend to feel powerless. If a good, open ended, provocative question or challenging problem does not raise the caliber of the exchange, is there anything that will? We can prowl around the classroom and maybe ask a few pointed questions, but it still feels like the content is up for grabs. But, we should not feel that student interaction is beyond our control. In this case, teacher actions influenced how students talked about the content, and a simple design decision set parameters that reshaped the discussion of answers.

Participation is, indeed the technique to use in the college classroom. Let the students speak. Both you and they will discover what they should know and how much pleasure that discovery will produce.

Using Mobile Phones in the Second Language Learning Process

Week: 11: Twenty Ideas for Using Mobile Phones in the Language Classroom

Rate: 4

Mobile phones are a really useful tool in the teaching of a second language process that are relativity cheap and increansingly poweful. The Article presents some ideas for putting into practice this tool. However, if we, as teachers, want to apply this method we have to take in consideration different aspects. We have to identify a specific teaching objective, and look for some activities that we can develop with our students. Even if we have to be careful with the use of mobile phones in the classroom, thoose devices provide different activities in which they could be applied. 

There are some possitive reassons to use mobile phones. Mobile phones allow us to use social networks as tools to facilitate authentic and relevant communication and collaboration among learners. They also can have the control over their own knowledge, controlling the medium by elaborating how best to use the medium, and they already know how to use some tools on their devices. Nevertheless, as the use of cellphones has possitive aspects it has some problems, like lack of access to mobile phones. the cost of mobile phones and wireless connection, noise in classes, ect. But in my case, I would use that method in my classes.

I would like to apply 2 ideas on my teaching process: 1- I would like to apply the idea number 8, exchange messages with a person to another country that is learning Spanish for example, and my students may help them with the learning of our language, and they can help to my students with English. Is obviously that I would have to look for a coleague outside the country to organize a project like thisone, but I would like to do it. 2- Using the mobile phone for microbloging on Twitter. (Idea 11) Asking my students to share a tweet in which they could tag my user, explaining a situation that they may be doing. In that way they may practice their writting skills, and they will be practicing outside the classroom. 

Second Language Vocabulary Acquisition.

Week 9: Using Technology to Assist in Vocabulary Acquisition and Reading Comprehension 

Online English-English Learner Dictionaries Boost Word Learning 

Rate: 4

Something that caught my attention ad I want to share about the articles is the importance of vocabulary and the connection with the reading comprehension. Is well known that multimedia and the effects of multimedia software's has relationship between the acquisition of vocabulary development and reading comprehension. As teachers we can take in consideration some principles aspects related to the use of CALL in vocabulary and reading development. First, we as teachers should pay more attention to the existence of various teaching tools. Second, we should introduce multimedia-glossed texts into the vocabulary/reading class. Third, as teachers we should be acquainted with the criteria for software and courseware evaluation. Finally, we should keep up with current methodology and make best use of visuals and multimedia.

Also, there is information about diferent types of dictionaries, and the article provide information about the one that is better for the students that is corpus based dictionaries, that are different to the ones of general use, because the last one is focused for native speakers, and not for foreing language learners. 

Writting Practice Using the Internet

week 8: Process Writing and the Internet: Blogs and Ning Networks in the Classroom; Online Collaborative Writing Using Wikis

Rate: 3

With the use of Internet we as teachers can teach how to practice writting skills creating essays, blogs, etc. To students might practice writting skills by their own without a teacher's feedback, and with help of their classmates, that might help them to notice some mistakes, and thanks to that students can improve their writting skill with some time and practice, students will be on their way to practicing, evaluating and improving their writing.

Some options in which we as teacher can implement that method would be ask to students to write a personalized storybooks for children. Provide them readings for them to read and analyze and ask them to publish on a website or blog their analysis about the reader, the other students have to look for their classmates websites or blogs and read their information, make suggestions etc. Interactive stories, written by their readers: The students read the story page by page. At the end of each page there are two choices for what to do next. When the students reach the end of the part that the readers before them have written, they can create the next page of the story. Those are some options that I would apply on my classes with my students.

Week 7: Using Internet as a Tool to Teach Reading and Writing Skills

Using the Internet in ESL Writing Instruction
L Journal Using Internet­Based Children's Literature to Teach EFL 

Rate: 3

Internet has become an important tool in the teaching process, many english teachers recognize the potential of the Internet for long-distance communication, it enables english learners to communicate with others across the globe. However, many teachers fail to realize that the Internet can be of great benefit not only for long distance exchanges but also for linking students in a single classroom. For instance: when we ask to students to create a writing task by themselves, and then send it to us by email and we can check it and send it back to them, they will be able to practice that skill of the new language that they are acquiring. Three types of electronic communication are possible within a single class: teacher student communication, out of class electronic discussion, and in-class, real time electronic discussion. 

The development of the Internet brought about a revolution in the teachers' perspective, as the teaching tools offered through the net were gradually becoming more reliable. Nowadays, the Internet is gaining immense popularity in foreign language teaching and more and more educators and learners are including it in their classes, obviously we as teachers have to include it on our syllabus, to let know to students  when they are going to use it, as well as the other technological materials.

Using internet as a tool to teach reading and writing skills  we can be able to teach different courses like English Composition,reading and conversation courses, etc. We can be able to ask our students to look for information, write about different topics and send us that information to our emails for we to check it and provide them a feedback. It is can help them to improve and develop their writing and reading skills. We just have to look for a way in which we can apply that tool in our classes, and make sure that our students are going to achieve the purpose of the implementation of this pedagogical technique.