I guess that everyone, who reads this blog has some kind of connection to the English language. And maybe you’re even interested in education.

So just let me take a wild guess: When you read the headline to this article, some clear associations came to your mind:

CNN the Cable News Network TV NEWS 24-hour news coverage newscaster in well-fitted suits

You might have thought alot of things. But I am almost sure that the main thing was NEWS.

And that is exactly what my dreamproject is about: CNN – Classroom News Network.

It will all be about reporting, structuring, writing, and presenting news. During a variable period of time (1 week up to several years) students of grade 10 and higher will create their own news channel.

One main goal of this project (besides teaching new media, of course), is to confer as much responsibility and as many decisions as possible to the students themselves. In order to get them interested in the topic, it needs to fit into their lives and give them the possibility to shape their own learning experience.

CNN – students choices

What kind of media will we present in (“ordinary” newspaper, webpage, blog, video/audio podcast, mixture)?

What kind of news do we want to cover (politics, economics, science, sports, arts, etc.)?

Which styles do we want to use/include (interview, documentary etc.)?

Design?

Concrete Lesson Plan(s)

grade: 10

english: 2*2 lessons/week

room: computer lab (fully equipped)

Lesson 1+2

• introduction of topic “News”
• Brainstorming

• students are divided into 4 groups. Each group takes a closer look at one of the following pages

1. nytimes.com
2. thesun.co.uk
3. guardian.co.uk/news/blog
4. perezhilton.com

• While looking at the different news pages, the students create a short power point presentation about their page, taking the following aspects into account:

1. name
2. layout

1. topics
2. language (formal, colloquial)
3. etc.
4. what we liked
5. what we disliked

• homework: finish short presentations

Lesson 3+4

• students present their results
• decide on/discuss about which type of news page/blog they want to create
• make a list of topics they want to cover (e.g. sports, politics (local/international), music, movies/DVD releases, science)
• form groups of 2-4, who will concentrate on one topic (less extensive topics, such as DVD releases require less students than more complicated topics, such as science)
• Internet research (teacher helps groups to find results – how to use google etc.)
• Groups decide on one specific topic, they want to write about

Lesson 5+6

• teacher informs students about plagiarism + quoting (simple rules)

• research and writing articles

• homework: finish articles, send them to teacher via email (correction)

Lesson 7+8

• creating an account on wordpress.com
• decinding on a layout (accordinh to which style was chosen in lessons 3+4)
• students edit and upload their articles

Further lessons

• include other types of texts, e.g. commercials, interviews etc.
• include self-made videos
• write articles about a certain topic, related to the regular English curriculum
• long-term-project: each week another student has to write an article about a certain topic (related to the topic currently discussed in class; self-chosen topic; current school-events; etc.)

Advantages of this project

• students are motivated, since their work is published online
• are able to work quite independently
• chose own topic according to personal interest
• quite variable, can be changed depending on available time and students’ interests
• students get to read, write, and be creative
• The whole curriculum might get included/taught
• new media is usually fun for students

LESSON PLAN: ANGELINA JOLIE

Introduction

• Media: OHP, Students get so see several pictures related to the life of Angelina Jolie (and Brad Pitt). Teacher shows one picture at a time, starting with pictures of cambodia, a chateau in France, etc. slightly adding more detail.
• Students guess, what this session will be about

• 3 minutes

Warm up

• collecting associations/brainstorming
• media: Blackboard

Listening comprehension

• students listen to podcard 1
• collecting new information on blackboard (adding to brainstorming)
• pass around worksheet, students listen to podcard 2; fill out gap-worksheet: fill in gaps, mark unknown words

(worksheet available at: http://www.eslpodcards.com/usa/jolie.pdf)

• compare, explain unknown words
• answer questions (true/false, questions)

Homework

What do you Like/dislike about Angelina Jolie? Justify you answer.

Since I was not able to take part in the fieldtrip to Steinmühle, my task was/is to interview a student (grade 5-13) and get some information about his or her experiences with and thought about the use of new media at school.

The interview was very interesting and contained many different thoughts, which I will present in the following.

Student information:

female, 18, grade 12, advanced courses Biology and Art, basic course English

Current situation

Used Media: blackboard, OHP; rarley: Projector (Physics), TV (Biology), audio, Internet (Biology and Maths)

Used Media in the English Classroom: blackboard and OHP; rarely: audio (more frequent use in grades five-eight)

Teaching media competence: All students have to participate in a Computer Science class in grade 7, where they learn the basic concepts of Word and Excel. About one third of all students choses ecology as a subject in grade 9 (WPU). These are the only students, who learn how to use PowerPoint.

Internet Research: Although noone seems to have great difficulties to find information via the internet, students are not aware of problems or complications with unreliable sources etc., wikipedia is accepted as reliable source of information by all teachers (who often use wikipedia themselves), students are not taught how to work with search engines etc.

Presentations: Students usually get to chose the media they want to present with. Many students use PowerPoint, although teachers do not mark the design/use/arrangement of slides. Even though many students found their way around PowerPoint themselves, some do not know how to work with it.

Email: Some teachers use emailing in order to inform their students about tasks or further reading and students can ask questions via email. Although some teachers tend to overuse this device, whoich can be annoying sometimes, it is a very good and handy way to stay informed and get help with homework or studying.

Teacher knowledge: Most teachers do not seem very interested in the use of new media. Of course, there is a huge difference between older and younger teachers. “Elder” or more old fashioned teachers hardly ever use other media devices besides the blakboard and OHP. Younger ones at least try to include a media method change here and there but often fail due to missing knowledge about how to get things started (even when trying to switch on a TV and/or DVD player).

Requests for the future

Used Media: more frequent use of PCs/Internet and the TV, especially because the school is fully equipped (several computer labs, internet access, flatscreen TVs in many science classrooms). Basically, new media would be welcome in terms of method variability, preparation for the future and global learning.

Used Media in the English classroom: The projects and methods we already discussed in class, such as Email-”Pen” Pals, Blogs, Chats, Video Conferences etc., seemed very useful and motivating in her opinion.

Teaching media competence: She wished for a (more intense) teaching of Internet and PC competence e.g. working with different programmes (besides Word), such as PowerPoint. Although many students taught themselves how to work with such programmes, a teacher guided class would reach every student and give a better overview. Since she was not aware of certain problems that come with Internet researches, I would suggest teaching students how to do a proper internet search and what to careful about.

Email: Although some teacher already use email very efficient, she wished for a broader use, such as providing an Email-address-list for every course to make things easier.

Teacher knowledge: In order to educate students properly, teachers need to know their way around media devices. She clearly criticized the missing knowledge about PCs, projectors etc.

Overall

I was able to get quite a good insight into the media use at this girls current grammar school. To be honest, I was very disappointed about what I heard. New media is rarely used and students – although they would like to do it – do not learn anything about proper Internet and PowerPoint use. These two competences are the most important (in my opinion) for students to learn, since they will definitely need them in their future lives.

But I guess these circumstances are due to the fast growing field of New Media. Most teachers were probably never taught 1. how important this type of education is and 2. how to use and teach it. As the student said, it is mostly the young and/or science teachers, who use media devices such as PowerPoint, Internet, Computers etc. Without “talking prejudices” these are the teachers, who partly grew up with computers and learned how to use them in uni and/or are interested in the field of science and technology.

This might just be a gathering of thoughts and theses, but however, as soon as we get to teach at schools, something has to change – because we are aware of these problems and know how to solve them (or at least google for answers).

This week’s task was to inform ourselves about the use of computers in our old grammar school.

One could think that, since I just graduated 3 years ago, not much has changed since then. But going back to my “old” school, teaching as an U+-Kraft, I realized that many things were done in order to improve media skills of teachers and students, and the improvement is still in progress.

First of all, I would like to introduce an excerpt of the Schulprogramm, which was introduced in 2006:

Die Nutzung moderner Informationstechnologien wird auf vielfältige Art unterstützt. Für alle Schüler findet eine Einführung in die Nutzung der Computer des Schulnetzes sowie den Gebrauch von Standardsoftware statt. Dadurch wird der didaktisch und methodisch gezielte Einsatz dieser Technologie in allen Fächern sowie beim Selbststudium unterstützt. Ein Internetforum dient allen Schülerinnen, Schülern und Lehrern als gemeinsame Kommunikationsplattdorm in uns außerhalb der Schule.

Als Entwicklungsziel in diesem Bereich ist die räumliche Vergrößerung und inhaltliche Ergänzung der Mediothek beschlossen. Des Weiteren streben wir an, den Schülerinnen und Schülern eine Schulung zum Erwerb der ECDL (European Computer Driving Licence, Europäischer Computerführerschein) anzubieten.

Auszug aus dem Schulprogramm der Winfriedschule Fulda

The school has 2 fully equipped computer labs, which are used in many classes (e.g. Maths, Geography, Biology). Moreover the school provides a “Mediothek”, where students have all day internet-access and can use the numerous PCs whenever they want to.

My own experiences

• Learning Software for Geography (grades 5 and 6), Maths (grades 11 and 12) and Biology (grades 12 and 13)
• Computer classes in grade 9 (twice a week) and 10 (three times a week for 1 semester)
• learning the skills using Word and Excel
• How to do Internet Research (English, grades 12 and 13)
• frequent use of the “Mediothek” for research purposes

What I missed

• How to use PowerPoint
• Internet as a means for communication
• more frequent use of the Internet as information platform

Conclusion

Overall I can say that I am quite confident with the use of New Media at my old grammar school. Although it could have been “more”, I believe that the teachers did everything they were capable of in order to prepare us for our future life with New Media.

I am sure that New Media will play a bigger role in the future since a new “Mediothek” has been built 1.5 years ago, including more PCs and school-wide internet access.

The possibility to do a presentation in the Abitur also enforces the need for a more intense work on the students’ Computer skills.

]]> http://mboonyaprasop.wordpress.com/2008/12/08/new-media-at-winfriedschule-fulda/feed/ 3 mboonyaprasop http://mboonyaprasop.wordpress.com/2008/11/27/exploring-science-locally-sharing-insights-globally/ http://mboonyaprasop.wordpress.com/2008/11/27/exploring-science-locally-sharing-insights-globally/#comments Thu, 27 Nov 2008 20:40:43 +0000 mboonyaprasop http://mboonyaprasop.wordpress.com/?p=164 ]]>

Image taken from scienceacross.org

The tagline quoted above refers to the international project “Science Across the World” (SATW), which caught my attention when searching for a project that combines both of my subjects – English and Biology – and of course – new media.

What?

Science across the World is an internet platform that enables stundents from all over the world to work on similar science projects and exchange their reasearch progress and results.

How?

After having payed a one-time fee of 30€, a school has access to all the information and possibilities “Science across the World” has to offer. Teachers (or students) get to choose from a wide range of interesting research topics which are designed for every age group, fit most science curricula all over the world, and can be carried out in every country.

Topics include:

• Chemistry in our Lives
• Global Warming
• Keeping Heathy
• What do I eat?
• Plants in our Lives
• Biodiversity

After having decided on a topic, students and teachers can work with the provided information pages where they can find an introction to their topic and gather ideas for their own researches.

While working on their topics, students and teachers can get in contact with schools form all over the world, who are currently working on the same subject. The students can exchange their information by writing Emails, discuss on the SATW platform and create school webpages related to their topic. After having completed their researches, students can compare their results with other nations, which – in most cases – will be very interesting due to the different ways of living in other countries.

But even if there should not be another school currently working on the same subjects, students get to use the SATW platform, which provides several topic data and hotlinks.

Why?

• multicultural communication (in English, via the internet)
• multicultural exchange of research proplems/progress/achievements
• getting an insight into other cultures and ways of life
• getting an insight into actual scientific work and exchange between scientists
• independent work (own goals, own time management etc.)
• motivation
• introduction of the internet as information platform
• introduction of English as (scientific) lingua franca
• …

My opinion

I would not have chosen this project if I would not support the idea myself. I am positive that students would enjoy working on these up-to-date and intercultural topics, doing research themselves and communicating with students from all over the world. I truly believe that a project auch as “Science Across the World” would enhance every Biology class – and my students English abilities.

What I especially liked about this project was the use of the internet as a means to an end and not just to use new media because it’s “cool” and somehow demanded in the curriculum. Here, students actually use new media the same way it is used by scientists – as an infromation and communication platform.

Overall I can say that I would be happy to use such a device in my future classes, even if it is alot of work for both students and teachers. But I think it is definately worth it!

For more information click here.

Way to go or What the f***?

Communitication via the internet has become more and more important during the last couple of years – especially for the “younger” generation. While writing letters and talking hours on the phone was quite common during my teenage years (meaning: not long ago!), chatrooms, messengers, forums, and cell phones have outrun the old ways of communication by now.

But in order to stick to this seminar’s topic “New Media in the FOREIGN LANGUAGE CLASSROOM”, my emphasis will not be placed on the students’ sparetime use of these technologies, but how they can enhance the foreign language learning process.

Netiquette

Before (or should I say B4) using any means of internet communication students should learn about the core rules of talking online.

Since all their activities will be supervised by a teacher, some dos and donts will naturally be adopted. General rules like “Do not use swear words”, “Respect your dialog partner”, or “Pay attention to the content, style and accuracy of your written words” should always be taught, not only when refering to internet communication.

But students should also be made aware of the fact that – even if they adhere to the rules – their communication partners might not. Reading – and memorizing – colloquial language and incorrect grammar could lead to a degradation of students’ English abilities in both oral and writing tasks. Therefore teachers should not only advise the students of these probabilities but also teach them the correct words/expressions for the wrong ones they’ve heard via the internet.

Communication Tools

All communicative tools introduced in this week’s virtual session could be used in the English classroom, especially in order to get in contact with students from other countries. The communication with native speakers and especially the use/learning of colloquial/chat language might be enriching and motivating for our students. Although there are disadvantages in learning colloquial language, students might feel more advanced and comfortable to talk if they know about certain expressions.

Syncronous devices, such as Chat Rooms, MUDs & MOOs, and Video-Conferences can preferably be used during classes, talking to other students (from other countries), etc.

Due to the probable time difference (Germany-US) or different time schedules (Germany-UK) of foreign students, asyncronous devices might be more profitable. Writing Emails or opening forums or newsgroups are very reasonable – and easy – ways of learning, improving, and practicing one’s English.

World English

The least part of our students will study English in their future. But probably a great amount of them will have to be able to communicate in today’s lingua franca. It should therefore be one of our main goals to teach our students not the “perfect, flawless English”, but more a “understandable, international” English.

The ability to talk to people from numerous countries is another, very motivating aspect for learning English, which our students learn through internet communication.

Abbreviations

Although many abbreviations might sound funny or odd, I truly believe that they could help students to learn the English language. Not only will our students experience that abbreviations like “ASAP” or “24/7″ also occur in the daily language use (oral communication, not via the internet), they might also find some of them helpful in order to take notes fast and easily (w/, b/c, etc.). And of course, they help them to memorize the much talked about “connotations” and lexical items.

Overall I think Internet communication is a very good method in order to motivate our students and introduce them to the field of English as an international world-language. If supervised by a teacher, who makes them aware of colloquial language use and the principles of (network) etiquette, students will be able to learn English in authentic communication situations, talking to people of their own age, finding new friends – And still have some time to think about their answer.

I’ve just learned that Maja the Bee is not a bee! She’s supposed to be more of a hoverfly instead!

Picture taken from flickr.com (shrtbutfast, 2007)

What will they try to convince me of next?

That there’s no happy place called Who-Ville?

That there are no Dumbledores and Weasleys, who protect muggles from You-know-whos?

Pur-lease!

…to my “commentator”!

Since it’s getting cold and unpleasant outside, I got some high spirits for you:

When I typed my headline for this week’s topic, I was honestly quite tempted to say that I’ll just go with the first option, not only because it fits so nicely to my last name.

‘Cause isn’t it a real blessing

• that we can do research while sitting at home, eating lunch, or lying in bed?
• that all the world’s knowledge is accessable just via the little screen and keyboard in front of us?
• that I just have to move one finger in order to get an answer to a question?

But isn’t that the pitfall?

• that we can get all information – right OR wrong – in just a second?
• that we can get all information – ALL OF IT!
• that we might not be able to evaluate which ones are false?
• that we spent too much time gathering little bits of information about unimportant stuff, not staying focused on the actual matter?

These are some serious problems our future students will have to face when doing their first internet research (and the second, third, fourth, tenth…).

But how are we going to teach them right?

Since I have attended several university courses, where I was supposed to learn how to find my way around the internet, I can recall from my own experience that “learning by doing” is the method that I would recommend the most.

But how can that be done?

• doing presentations (maybe not allowing wikipedia to be a source, limiting the sources to educational (.edu) sites, etc.)
• free, half-guided, and guided searches
• Web Quests
• Constantly pointing at/down-grading cases of plagiarism, weak/wrong sources etc.

• why not do a library-rallye, working with actual books, and maybe introduce children to this (maybe) almost forgotten opportunity?

All in all I think having the opportunity to use the Internet for research is a blessing, since it offers fast information. Life just got alot easier. But still, you have to be aware of the “side-effects” and our students have to as well.

In this week’s class we worked through the online-session’s practical by developing different posters in groups. Our blogging task was then to create an entry about one of these posters.

I chose the second task since it seemed necessary to me to somehow support the old fashioned way of teaching through “Drill and Practice” a little bit. It appeared to me that this method is easily forgotten or even discredited, so that it might need a little closer attention.

Task 2: Why is drill & practice software still distributed? Do you think it is useful?

First of all, I have to say that since Drill and Practice Software is still distributed, it is quite obvious that it might still be relevant for today’s English classes, so let’s find out “how”, “when”, and “why”.

The group which prepared this poster did quite a good job in seperating the pros and cons of Drill and Practice software. I will use their outline in the following comment.

Pros:

• Time Saving – I do agree on the point that students might learn faster with Drill and Practice Software than with some other methods/devices (plain vocab lists, worksheets etc.), just for the fun part of sitting in front of a computer, seeing pictures and being able to click and scroll and type and rewrite. And, without a doubt, there is an immense learning effect if you are able to see, hear, read and write (all at the same time) what you are expected to learn. When it comes to time in-class I do not consider this method to be very time saving. Since in most schools the whole class has to switch rooms in order to have computer-access I would suppose that the whole period will have to be dedicated to the software-exercise(s) when just a few minutes would have been enough using another method (but would it have been as good?). It does take some time to get the students seated, to start the computers and programs, to introduce the pupils to the software and tasks and to get them started. Depending on what you aim for as a teacher, this might be an adequate expenditure of time but it might also – when used incorrect or not thought through (media competence, lesson structure!) – be a waste of time.
  
• Easy Access – see arguments above.
  
• Vocabulary Practice & Basic Grammar Practice - I totally agree with these two advantages. Drill and Practice Software definitely provides a great and easy way to help students to memorize new (and revise old) lexical items and collocations and practice basic grammar rules (over and over again). To be honest, I believe this method is (one of) the best to train these skills since they do need constant repetition in order to be memorized, learned, and finally adopted into the active (and effective and long-lasting) lexicon and language use.
  
• Basic Knowledge Achievement – Overall, the arguments mentioned above do also adhere to this point made.
  

Cons

• Lack of Context – Of course, the usage of pure vocabulary lists does lack context. But when I recall the Drill and Practice Software I used at school, it was always nicely designed so that the students did have a context. Just imagine a picture of a classroom where students have to name all the furnishing and class room supplies, such as “desk”, “chair”, “exercise book”, “ruler”, etc., doesn’t that help to 1. memorize the vocab and 2. learn them context-related?
  
• Lack of Application Abilities/Possibilities – There is no doubt that neither the Drill and Practice Method, nor the according software should be used as the exclusive, every day teaching method. Therefore the sporadic use of this technology, when teaching vocabulary, grammatical structures, geographical details, history dates etc., is adequate, possible and -in my opinion- advisable.
  
• Only useful for a certain type of learner age/preference – This argument is surely true. But doesn’t it apply to almost all methods used in school? Learning with vocabulary lists, Grammar-rules-worksheets, translation exercises, listening tasks, or roleplays also only apply to a certain learner type. It is the mixture of all of them, which addresses the whole class. There will always be certain students that do not respond to a certain method while others prefer it. Therefore a teacher has to offer a variety of teaching and learning methods in order to achieve the best learning result for all of his or her students.
  
• Financial Aspects – Without a doubt either the school or the (ambitious) teacher has to be able to affort such a software. It might be more expensive than copied handouts, plain paper or chalk. But since it is very useful and computer training should be taught in every school (and computers should therefore be available), it might not be an impossible purchase. If there aren’t enough/any computers available – that would be another topic and Drill and Practice Software should be the least problem in this case.
  

Summary

In my opinion, Drill and Practice Software can come in handy, especially in the Foreign Language Classroom, when learning/teaching

• vocabulary (esp. word-fields)
• grammar (basic rules)
• history (dates, places)
• geography (former colonies, cities etc.).

Of course, Drill and Practice (software) should not be the only method used in the EFL classroom, but it should be included in the method pool of an English teacher. Used in order to support the learning process and fill the gaps of other methods (which do not believe in memorizing and numerous repetitions), Drill and Practice can do good work for the student’s language learning achievements. Just as any other method or exercise, this software should be chosen wisely and well-founded since it is not suitable for every mandatory topic in the English class curriculum.

It might be old-fashioned and other methods might sound more modern, mature, cosmopolitan, enduring, or thought through, but there is no way around the Drill and Practice method in today’s EFL classrooms – and we should be happy to have at least some adequate and interesting software in order to make memorizing easier and more fun for our students.