My experience of using blog

I wrote Chinese journals in blog to write down what happednd in my life before using Blogger this semester. This was my first time to use a blog to write down and do reflection on what I have learned in class. I wrote about three journals each week. There are more than 25 posts on my blog till the end of the semester. I wrote down my thoughts, experience and criticlal thinking of technology I have used. Theses journals are valuable to me. When memories fade away, these journals will remind me of what type technology might be useful for a particular setting.

As a prospective Chinese teacher, I may have students at intermediate to advanced level write weekly journal on the blog. I could take blog writing as the free-writing assignment. Students can write whatever they want to write, and I give them comments mainly focusing on meaning instead of forms. I could also invite my friend who is teaching EFL in China to join me. That way, American students who are learning Chinese and Chinese students who are learning English can correct each other’s journals. Student may easily get motivated to write when they know there are audiences looking forward to reading their writings. I believe this will be a good way to do free-writing and language-exchange by using blog.

'Makeuseof', a new method of editing photos in to comics

As teachers, we frequently find us in need of making interesting pictures, no matter in powerpoints used in classes or in handouts, to help students keep being interested and focusing in class. However, other than powerpoints, we don't actually have much of option to manipulate pictures. Now I have found a new method to do so: 'Makeuseof'. 


'Makeuseof' is a website that helps people to create comic strips out of their own photographs; enhance photo effects; add speech bubbles and text; and embed ready comics onto blogs or social networking profiles. 


To do so, it is fairly simple. All you need to do is register on their website: makeuseof.com; and start editing your photos as you like. There are many projects that are very interesting for teachers to do with the help with the website and present in class. For example: the teachers may keep the habit of taking pictures of their students when they are taking apart in course activities and presentations. At the end of the class, the teacher may choose one picture about each student and make all the photos into comics or video clips and present it to the students. Maybe the teacher can even post the video on websites, like 'youtube', so the parents of the teachers may appreciate it together with the students. 


To sum up, this new website: 'Makeuseof' is able to help teachers to edit photographs, make comics, and even make video clips. Therefore, it can be great help for teachers to keep their classrooms interesting by presenting funny pictures. 

Second life, might not be that suitable for teachers after all

The on-line 'game' Second Life has generated a huge fuss among people. Due to the nature of being a language teacher, I naturally considered the possibility of integrating this software to my teaching process through some approach. Therefore, I started my own experience in Second Life, only to find results that are not that optimistic. 


I have to agree that the introduction videos about Second Life is very cool. Just think about the fact you are able to experience the world without even going into the world is very exciting. After a rather simple design and tutorial about how to walk around, chat, sit and fly (!!) in the world, I directly started my exploration. 


The first impression of mine about this game is that it is not as easy to get started as you may imagine. One of the main concepts in the game is to communicate with other people. This is actually a great point that can be integrated into foreign language education. However, when I start talking to other virtual people, I was not responded warmly. The reason is rather simple, people tend to be less bounded by the morality in the virtual universe, and thus are more cautious about conversation with each other. 


The second thing I noticed about this game is that the lagging is quite problematic. The internet speed in my house is not very fast, so the problem might got aggravated. I wonder if other people are experiencing the same problem. However, judging from the animation in the welcome videos, everyone might be facing the same problem. It it not logical to require a free online software to be as fluent as a PC game that is from a disc or downloaded to the local computer. The only point here is that it might not be easy for students to use this program to practice language. 


In summary, I would like to say that Second Life might be a good choice is the goal is to relax and kill time, but it was not designed to meet the needs of educational purposes. Having students going into Second Life community to practice language might seem like an interesting idea in the beginning, but turns out suffering from serious problems mentioned above, beside the possibility of getting addicted to it and abandon study, which is the last thing we would like to see. 

Pixton: the World's best way to make comics

Everybody likes comics. From the most famous 'The Simpsons' to the nerdy type 'P.H.D', different kinds of comics are appreciated by different group of people. Integrating comics into classes in a very interesting idea, but not a practical one, considering the amount of work and effort one need to put into. But not now anymore!

The appearance of Pixton has changed almost everything we know about this field. Pixton brings the techniques that were normally used by profession people in the comics field to ordinary lives, and makes comic-drawing much easier than before. 


As can seen in the demo on Pixton's website, after a simple online registration process, you can get right started with the comic production process. The first things you might want to set for the whole comics is probably the main characters. The website has provided many different types of characters for your choice. If you are not satisfied with any of them, it is totally fine to start fresh and build your own characters from scratch. The best part of this software is that the characters are built in part and thus these parts can be reused easily in the future production. Therefore, you will be experiencing something that you can never get with paper and pencils. 



The website has integrate lots of functions to make your creation process easier. Many of the functions, like enlarging, rotation, are well known by people while using other software, like powerpoints. Thus, it is very easy to get started with. 


Imagine this, the students from a Mandarin course come to the class with their projects on drawing a full set of comics with all the conversation between the characters in Mandarin and present it to each other. In the process where they may read the comics drawn by each other, they are also reading Mandarin which is embedded in the conversation between characters. How cool is that! 

Skype: the education is just one click away

Skype, as a software for phone calls and communicating with friends, has been well know by people all over the world. It is probably one of the largest on-line communities for people to stay connected. Also, websites that provide online education services, particularly language education, for students and teachers have been introducing skype as one of the main communication tools between teachers and students. This idea has been carried out extremely successfully. 

However, the new program by Skype, Skype in the classroom, which is specifically designed for education, is not well known by people. This program, 'Skype in the classroom' is a free global community that invites teachers to collaborate on class projects where they mgiht use Skype, and share skills and inspiration around specific teaching needs. Teachers can easily join this community after the simple log-in process with the Skype account they already have. Afterwards, they are allowed to post any thing they maybe looking for help about online, and people will be able to see and perhaps respond.

The requests are in the project section. Right now, there are altogether 1941 teachers involved in the community and 28000 projects have been founded. Browsing the project names, you will be surprised to see how diverse the topics may be. It can range all the way from looking for people from Honduras to Skype with and learn about their lifestyle, to finding people to Skype with to understand how the weather condition in a particular region may impact their lives, to 7th grade New Jersey history class teacher interviewing people for the perspectives on the civil war. For each project, the request is specified for class or any individual person; the student ages, category of the subject and the communication language to avoid confusion. 

In summary, the program 'Skype in the classroom' is very helpful and beneficial for teachers looking for help that maybe found online. As a perspective teacher, I strongly encourage any one that might be involved to get look into this program and hopefully benefit from it. 

Classroom 2.0: a free, community-supported network

Classroom 2.0 is an excellent website for teachers who work in this technological society.
This website is a free, community-supported network. It's not only a supportive comfortable place for beginners to start using Web. 2.0, soial media and participative technologies in classroom setting, but also help educators who have been familiar with technology share experience and get new ideas. Users can find interesting discussions by tools (such as Google earth and PowerPoint), by subjects (such as arts, math, and foreign languages) and by areas (like elementary, Pre-K, and professional development).

One of the technological problems I did not know how to solve is that how to download Youtube videos. There are tons of great videos on Youtube.com which can be perfectly used in teaching. However, Youtube.com is blocked in some schools. Also, even though some schools can have access to Youtube.com, it's always safer to download the videos ahead of time. To seek for the solution to my problem, I typed two key words "Youtube, download" in the search bar of Classroom 2.0. To my surprise, there were a list of answers poping out. Some teachers suggested a website called Zamzar. I tried it and found that it is an amazing website. I just needed to paste the URL of the video, choose the format I prefer and leave my email address. After haft a minute, Zamzar sent me the converted video and I could easily download it.

If your problem has not been asked by other teachers, you could post your own questions on Classroom 2.0. I believe that there will be many experts willing to help out. I love Classroom 2.0, and I will definitely keep using it.

Lore: another excellent free "blackboard"

When this website was introduced by Mimi and Anna for the first time, its name was Coursekit. Now, it has a new name: Lore. Although I like the old name better, the convenience the website provides stays the same. I remember that when I student taught in a high school last semester, one day, my cooperation teacher looked depressed and asked me if there is anyway she could upload assignments' instruction and everyday's powerpoint slides so that students could download them for review. I asked her why the school did not provide students and teachers with the class management system like "Blackboard" used by NYU. My CT told me that due to budget cuts, the school cannot afford this kind of class management system any more. We tried different websites, but none of them was designed for classroom education. As a result, we were not satisfied with any of them. From then on, I noticed that how important a free class management system it is! After Anna and Mimi introduced several wonderful websites like Lore to us, I sent my CT an email and shared what I learned in the class. After trying out two of them, my CT called me and said she was so excited to find such useful websites!

I chose Lore to use for my own class. I am teaching in a language school at weekends. Every week, I teach kids Chinese songs, and we watch Chinese vedio together. Parents usually ask me if I can send teaching materials to them so that they can help kids review them. Although I would like to share all the teaching materials with them, I cannot say "ok, no problem". The reason is that some files are to big to be sent by emails. Now, I upload all the textbooks I use, songs I teach and many other stuff on Lore. Parents can easily download these documents. In addition, some of my adult students use Lore as a good community to discuss their learning experience with others.

In a word, as a teacher, I really benefit from using Lore. I want to thank my educators for introducing such a fantastic tool to us!