Learning Management Systems: The wrong place to start learning

This paper talks about the use of Learning Management Systems (LMS) and it also tells us about the drawbacks of this system. Due to the emergence of new technologies, the use of elearning becomes a new learning method to our new generation. However, in the advocating of elearning, we have to rethink about its drawbacks. Just like LMS, it may create a new kind of learning to our learners but the content of LMS may be too broad. It cannot provide a clear direction for the learners about how to explore different kind of knowledge and what to learn. As an educator, it is important for us to understand the use and the advantages of the system and make a good use of it to benefit our learners.

Learner Autonomy and Tandem learning: Putting Principles Into Practice in Synchronous and Asynchronous Telecommunications Environments

This paper has described three different approaches to learner autonomy which are: an individual cognitive, a social-interactive, and an experimental-participatory perspective. It also shows us examples of how various combinations of technology and pedagogy can lead to different degrees of implementations of learner autonomy principles.The idea and the implementation of tandem learning are very new and impressive to me. L1 and L2 learners were combined together to a tandem pair. It encouraged the learners to be responsible for their own and their partner’s learning. I think it is a very good idea to combine L1 and L2 learners together. However, it is crucial for us to teach learners to take up their own responsibilities in learning. When implementing this kind of technological language learning, school or panel heads and subject teachers should try to integrate it into the syllabus or part of the curriculum. Then teachers can do this kind of learning with students in class and this enables teachers to monitor closely to the progress of students.

Copyright

The introduction of copyright in the course is very useful as teachers do not have much knowledge about copyright and we are not aware of the importance of it. We copy exercises and assessment tests from supplementary exercise and download music and videos for teaching whenever we need or want without knowing whether we violate the law of copyright or not. It is important for us to pay a certain respect to the copyright of the one who create or make the exercises or videos. The introduction of Fair Dealing helps teachers and educational workers to use materials without violating the law and preserve the right for students to learn more. Yet, teachers should also obey the law of copyright so as to set a good example for students.

Practical considerations for Multimedia courseware development:an EFL IVD experience

The article gives us a successful use of interactive videodisc courseware for English language teaching. There are several aspects that have to be carefully planned, they are the design considerations, objective setting, instructional design and implementation. The use of interactive videodisc courseware is a very new idea to a language teacher like me. A good pick of movie can arouse students’ interest in learning English, especially good for students who have short attention span. Through watching movie, students can learn authentic and real life English language. However, the implementation of IVD involves a lot of manpower and resources. The IVD may not be affordable for ordinary schools. Teacher training is also crucial.
In my opinion, some schools fail to use CALL since teachers do not have enough knowledge about the manipulation of CALL. Without knowing the real use of CALL, it is difficult for teachers to make good use from it. That’s why teachers treat the use of CALL in an ad hoc manner.

Theory-driven call and the development process

I support the systematic approach from Meskill and it is impossible for anyone to develop any CALL materials or fully utilize it without a solid knowledge of technology and the use of media. How can a teacher create and make effective use of CALL without a comprehensive knowledge of different software and useful resources on the website? The “fit” between the computer’s capabilities and the demands of language pedagogy is another important issue.
My school has advocated the use of CALL for many years, however, there is no practical use of CALL for language teaching. The use of CALL is just a dish on the menu, that’s meant it is just an item on the teaching schedule. Instead of using the software in MMLC for teaching English, teachers insist in teaching English in their own way. They treat the use of CALL in an ad hoc manner. Thus, teachers’ IT training about the effective use of CALL is imperative. How can we, as teachers, use and develop CALL more efficiently and effectively for the language need of the students?

Response to Language learner behaviour in a Virtual Environment

As a second language learner, there are more benefits than shortcoming about online learning to me. For a self conscious person like me, it is a torture to speak in front of people or speak publicly or even to answer a question in a second language. You may be afraid of how people react to your non-native accents and the sentences you make. Even thought you know it is a good oppotunity to practice the language, it is difficult for you overcome your fear. Therefore, I welcome the use of online learning and make it as a good learning tool. I have used a chatroom form a useful website to communicate with English learners from other countires. It was fun. They would not tease you or discrimate you if you used bad English. Most important of all, you can learn from them and have a chance to brush up your English.
Yet, a chatroom manager is needed to give technial support and prevent users from using any foul language and giving harsh personal comments to pinpoint anyone in the chatroom.
The paper mentioned about virtaul environment can work as scaffolding: giving anxious students more confidence to embark on conversation in the target language. I think helping anixious students to be confident enough to speak in public is a hard job. Could anyone give us some concrete and vivid examples or activities about how to help those students?

The Plan

The plan is from Alice, Charlotte and Shirley

Our plan for evaluating the website

Description of the website
The website we chose is from British council. It provides different kinds of learners/users with a wide range of activities. As our target groups are upper Primary school students to junior Secondary school students, we only evaluate the resources for children from the website. There are games, songs, stories, writing practice and lots of activities available for the children.

Practical criteria

The evaluation criteria we apply for evaluating the practicality of the website are language use, time and classroom management.

Pedagogical criteria

There are five pedagogical criteria which we use to evaluate the website. They are comprehensible inputs, opportunities for output, feedback, motivation and learners’ needs.

Technical criteria:

There are four technical criteria for the evaluation of the web site, including appearance, media use, structure and function and help options.

Is it necessary for us to state the operational description, learner fit and teacher fit approaches for all the criteria?

Planning tips

I wrote this post on 24 Jan, but I wrongly post it in comment.
There are nine planning tips suggested by the author. The first one is time control for implementing the on-line projects. Setting time limit for the project work is really crucial. Otherwise, students may spend too much time on surfing the net or collecting information or looking for colorful pictures but not the relevant information. Other than this, monitoring is the most essential part. Just as what the author mentioned clear guidelines and concrete timetables for the projects are really necessary. As a matter of fact, there is a rapid development of IT for primary as well as secondary. Almost every student can get an email account via school intranet. For my school, there is specific place or folder for students to upload their work on the school server and submit their work. In this way, teachers can keep track of their students’ progress easily and take the advantage of using emails to give students comment. We did try doing on-line project with our students for the subject – Liberal studies. It was quite a successful one since both teachers and students had attended some workshops about doing this project. Thus, the whole process of the project was quite smooth. However, the tips for partners and team teaching may be difficult to implement at school because different teachers have different timetables. It may cause the problem of time clash.
January 29, 2008 6:52 AM

New technologies

hi everybody,
you're welcom to leave any messages here.
charlotte