EMERGING TECHNOLOGIES

WEB-WRITING 2.0:

ENABLING, DOCUMENTING, AND ASSESSING WRITING ONLINE

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http://llt.msu.edu/vol12num2/emerging.pdf

The use of internet has made some changes in writing. Nowadays there are more tools that encourage people to write, such as blogs, chats or social networks. So, teachers have to be able to use this new technologies in order to motivate and develop students writing skills. Another thing that teachers have to deal with is that they have to link the informal way of writing that this technologies use to the development of more formal or academic writing.

There are many technologies that encourage and facilitate writing and composition by offering assessment in writing and editing. Another use of this technology is electronic portfolios to gather students works.

Writing Online

There are many online editors, most of them offer only basic functions and not the full features of a Microsoft office word processor. Most online editors often save documents auntomatically in the computer in order not to lose the information, and many of them are specifically created for posting blogs or other pages.

Google has a tool called Google Docs for online text editing, it offers a maximum of 5,000 documents or presentations for online storage and supports 48 languages.

What is good about Google is that it can save the changes made off-line, it gives you the option to save the changes to the the google database and the local computer, so using Google Docs you can have access to your documents anywhere and also share them.

Another thing are electronic portfolios (e-portfolios) for collecting works, sharing things and adding multimedia files, and you can also control the acces to it. You can use wikis, blogs or Google Docs and it is a way to give students more responsability in their writings and assessments.

There are some tools to give feedback in grammar and spelling, there are some text processors available in many languages, such as AbieWord (a multilingual word processor), some of them called Automated Essay Scoring (AES) also provide assessment and scores, on the other hand, Grammar checkers are usually designed for native speakers, but there are some programs designed for language learners such as BonPatro, a french program in which users enter a text and they receive the text with suggestions in different colors indicating the type of error, it gives some explanations but not the correction, so it requires from the student a reflection on the problem and the correct answer.

Reflection

Engaging students in writing is not an easy task, especially if we are talking about writing in an L2, because students often find it hard expressing themselves in another language, they get complicated with meanings and sentence formation, apart from that, we have to take into account that the society we are living in is moving fast and every day more people have access to technology, so we have to take advantage of this when we have the opportunity.

Web-Writing is a very good way to approach writing, because as the text says, it gives you the opportunity to copy and paste and move whole sentences from one place to another, so you can edit and store it online and you can also have access to it everywhere there is internet and a computer available.

Web writing is especailly good in an L2 because you can get more immediate feedback on spelling, grammar or synonyms and it can also be funnier because you can choose different types and colors of letters and you can add pictures as well.

On the other hand, I think that the idea of e-portfolios is very interesting because it gives students the opportnity to save and storage their works, they can also be more creative and it is a way to see their own progress on writing.

I must say that i had never used blogs, but i think that is a very interesting tool that can be used to encourage students to write, because you can personalize your page, add some gadgets, give it your personal touch and make it funny.

Activities using a projector

Here there are some examples of using the projector for classes:

1. karaoke: playing the music in a radio and projecting the lyrics on the board.

2. Story: Listening to a story and support the activity by projecting pictures so that students can ahve a better understanding.

3. Descriptions: show students pictures of famous people that they know and are interested in, and ask them to describe what they see and also.

Labor Day

On what date other countries celebrate the Labor Day?

http://www.history.com/minisite.do?content_type=Minisite_Generic&content_type_id=341&display_order=1&sub_display_order=4&mini_id=1060

Who was the founder of the Labor Day?

http://www.history.com/minisite.do?content_type=Minisite_Generic&content_type_id=349&display_order=2&mini_id=1060

http://www.dol.gov/opa/aboutdol/laborday.htm

Why the Labor Day is celebrated?

http://www.history.com/minisite.do?content_type=mini_home&mini_id=1060

When was the Labor Day celebrated the first time in the United States?

http://www.dol.gov/opa/aboutdol/laborday.htm

http://www.history.com/minisite.do?content_type=Minisite_Generic&content_type_id=316&display_order=1&mini_id=1060

Can Free Reading Take You All the Way? a Response to Cobb

This is an article taken from the website Language Learning and Technology.

Summary

This text deals with the usefulness of free reading and it's also a critique to Cobb's view.

Cobb said that free reading was not enough for students to acquire the vocabulary needed to understand an L2 reading, he said that free reading did not give learners enough opportunities to acquire high levels of vocabulary and that it required a minimum of six to ten exposures to a word family to be acquired.

On the other hand, Krashen have said that free reading contributes to the acquisition of vocabulary not only in the second language but also in the first one. Free reading can promote vocabulary although not the appropiate for academic purposes.
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I think that free reading is good to encourage students read, because it is easier to learn vocabulary in the context of a sence or a paragraph than learn isolated words. I believe that students would feel more motivated if they are reading something they are interested in, so we can support learning through different ways

Mind Map

I really think that techers have to keep up with technology... years ago there were no the technology that exist now, so as techers we have to find different ways to teach different students and i think that technology is a good way to do that.

However I don't think technology is the only way, because we can't always rely on that, so that's why i put a balance in the mind map, because we need to learn how to use technology and give it a good use.

I think technology is wonderful, i wish i were more gifted to use it. with technology there is no limits, you can integrate the majority of the skill, and i think learning through technology is very interesting to students so it will be more motivating to them to learn anything. But i don't think teachers are replaceble...

what are we doing in here?

Website for practising listening skills

the web page that I choose is:

http://www.eslpod.com/

I like this site because I think it's very useful for teaching english and practicing listening skills in English, Apart from the audio, the site provide the transcription of the dialog.
First the dialog is heard very slow and then you hear it faster.

There are several topics like, for example: relationships, daily life, business, travel, shopping, etc. but one of the bad things is that if you want to have a guideline of each audio, you have to subscribe and pay, but anyway there are a lot of material you can use for free.

Despite this site is very good for listening activities it is not complete, let analize some important aspects to see disadvantages and drawbacks.

Interaction: I think that this site and this kind of listening activities don't allow much interaction between students.

Authentic audience: I think that this activities do encourage authentic audience, especially when the topics are of interest to the students.

Meaningful activities-student: i think that meaningful activities can be created from this recordings, trying to use topics that are interesting to the students and that are according to their level, abilities and age.

Exposure to variety of language: it doesn't give students exposure to different types of language

Right amount of time, feedback: this kind of tasks need a certain amount of time, so the teacher has to be able to consider the time for listening to the recording and also for the students to respond, feedback is also possible to be given after the listening

Motivating: this activities should be prepared taking into account the different interest of the students so i think they can be very motivated and it requires attention from the students to comprehen what is said

Student-centered: this kind of exercises can be student centered if they count with the technology to work by themselves, to manage the time and the activities.

Multimodality: i think i doesn't involve much multimodality, bacause it only emphasizes listening skills.

Comfortable enviroment: i depends on the student's ability because there may be student's that can feel frustrated when they don't understand what they hear.

Integrate skills: this page doesn't integrate the 4 skills, just the listening part

clear objective: there can be clear goals or objectives in this type of activities.

Autonomy: since the recordings are online, the students can work in an automous way, the can play the recording, go back, stop, etc, they ca also work from the computer lab or their houses if they have internet access, they can download the file and play it on the radio.

Appropiate personalities, styles, inteligence: this site doesn't give opportunity to work to all personalities, intelligences or styles, because there are some stdents thar are more viual or that need to see something written, so we have to find the way to integrate all different styles maybe with different activities to all preferences
All this said, i would say that thsi site is very helpful when you want your students to improve their listening skills, but this site fail in integrate reading, speaking and writing. Maybe a way to include speaking could be creating a group discussion about the recording.

Teacher support is needed in this kind of oral activities specially if the students don't have the transcripts of the audio, teachers can be helpful in clarifying concepts.

A way to use this page coul be

1st have your students to listen the recording and make some notes (repeat it if necessary)
2nd give them the opportunity to discuss and talk about the topic and what they understood
3rd give them the transcript of the podcast nad play the recording again.

Hi

This is my first experience using a blog...

Finally i'm in Easter Washington University (EWU) here in the US... the university is huge, it's like a city, there are many buildings and it has a big gym with a lot of machines and also a big ice skating area... i love ice skating!! there are also squirrels running everywhere here.

The university is located in Cheney, a small city that remind me Casablanca, because it is a very quiet place, maybe bacause there are not many students yet since they are still on vacation and will start classes on september. I have to say that people here is really really nice and the teachers are very kind... i really like this place.

Go Eagles!!

bye... greetings to everyone

love,

Pau