Questions and Answers Animoto

Throughout this course, we have been taught about various uses of technology in the classroom.  As part of my future as being a student teacher (possibly) in Cawley Middle School in Hooksett, New Hampshire, I posed some questions to my cooperating teacher.  In the Animoto posted on this page, you will see some of those questions and answers.  In case the video moves too quickly, here are those questions along with their slightly more specific answers. 

Technology is just a tool. In terms of getting the kids working together and motivating them, the teacher is the most important. Bill Gates

Some questions and answers…

Question 1: Who benefits the most from the use of technology in your classroom? DS:  The students. Question 2:   What do you use technology for in your classroom? DS:  Reading Comprehension Checks, Grammar exercises, Educational videos, Video clips (usually as lesson openers), definitions, visuals, publishing, listening exercises 

Question 3: Is technology an important asset for ESL students? DS:  Absolutely. Question 4:  How do you feel about using technology to teach more difficult concepts? DS:  It usually makes things easier.

Question 5: What is the best use of technology when trying to teach students who speak different languages? DS:  Students benefit from the amount of visual aids on the computer, students who are literate in L1 benefit from translations of content area materials Question 6: How should technology not be used in a classroom? DS:  It should not be used when not appropriate. Technology is a very good tool, but just a tool. Students still benefit from other types of instruction.

  Questions and Answers

Journal #2 Reflection

Journal Reflection #2

Nakamaru, Sarah. "Investment and Return: Wiki Engagement in a "Remedial" ESL Writing Course." JRTE 44.4 (2012): 273-291. http://www.eric.ed.gov/PDFS/EJ976469.pdf. Web. 2 Dec. 2012.

As per the requirement for this course, we were requested to reflect on two different articles that dealt with technology in education or more specifically education in an ESL environment. This was definitely going to be one of the hardest things which we had to do. In one such article, an education discussed how wiki engagement could be used in a writing course for ESL students.
            One of the largest issues for ESL students tends to be writing. American English has so many rules and so many more exceptions to those rules it is difficult to know how to write properly. People must wonder why the use of a Wiki would be beneficial then. In the creation of a wiki, students are going to be a bit more formalized in their writing as it is meant to serve as an informative guide about a specific subject. It is important that students gain the experiences that they can with more formalized writing because they are going to be using it more and more often as they get older. The other issue that the author discusses is the difficulty with maintaining engagement in a school environment. This is not merely something that is an issue for grade level students, college students and their teachers face this issue as well. The teacher (who wrote this article) wanted to utilize the creation of a wiki for remedial purposes so that students could perhaps learn to write better.
            Why is this so important then to those of us in a technology class and those of us who plan to be future teachers? Technology in the form of a wiki is most likely going to be something that a number of us will use in the classroom and help our students to learn. We do not want to be lacking in skills in using technology so that students get left. We want to make our writing intelligible enough and clear enough that any student regardless of their academic or language knowledge can understand the material. In addition, the importance of engaging our students should be a constant worry. We do not want our students to be nodding off or simply ignoring what we are trying to teach them. Thus, the use of a wiki and being aware of what we need to do to make our students succesful by using this type of technology and bringing good and solid information to the forefront of our students minds.             This article meets the requirements of understanding both #1 and #2. 
1)  Demonstrate the understanding of how technologies can effectively promote student learning.
2)  Evaluate and use a variety of current technologies to ehnance content instruct to advance students' technological literacy. 
            Students can quite easily benefit from the use of a wiki.  If a wiki is done well, it serves the purpose of teaching people information that they may not know to begin with.  Having students use a wiki and create their own wiki articles helps them to practice their writing skills and use them in such a way that they may be able to help others to learn new information. 
            I have learned from this article enough information so that I might be able to get a better understanding of how a wiki might actually be a great idea in my classroom.  If I were to be teaching grammatical points, it might be a fun idea to have my students contribute their own articles to the wiki so that other students who may be more limited in their language skills can see how their fellow students created an understanding of a certain topic. 

One Final Reflection

Final Blog Reflection

Part 1:
I must say, I am going to have a hard time with this part of this final reflection. I do not know if there are certain course objectives that I have either met or not met throughout this course. I say this because so many of the things that were discussed in this course were either things I already had knowledge about or there were things that I learned that were somewhat new and built upon. I think that this class has made us more knowledgable about what we need or can use as future teachers with the world that technology has opened us up to. Technology is something that is either hit or miss even when it comes to us digital natives. I feel like I have gained more of an appreciation for what is out there in terms of technology. There are certainly tools that I will continue to use in the future when it comes to working with my students. I think I will build a wiki, use vokis, etc. for my students. I just do not know if there are objectives that were either met or have yet to even be learned. I feel as though I am definitely more well-rounded in terms of the technology that I have learned about. I definitely think I was less aware of the different technologies that are out there for teachers to use and I look forward to trying to use them in my own classroom. I just think that I can adequately explain in a blog how what I have learned will help me in the future and where I stood before I even took this course. I definitely think that this course should be one that is required and should be done before any other course work. The reason I mention this is because one can use any number of these different technologies in other courses or even in our free-time towards working with students. I apologize ahead of time if this does not seem to directly answer this question or if this is what was expected in terms of this series of questions.


Part 2:
This question is equally difficult and equally challenging to answer. Technology (as I alluded to before) is either hit or miss. There are going to be certain circumstances where using technology as part of the curriculum and lessons that we do with our students and other times where it is not. There are definitely certain age brackets where technology may not be a benefit. However, the users of technology continue to get younger and younger. I am not sure how many of you have heard about the young baby who was looking at a magazine and kept expecting it to react like a tablet computer. There are so many barriers to technology, i.e. money, availability, and proper teachers. Kim, with regards to the knowledge base you have, it is not surprising how much of this stuff seems to easily be taught to us. Technology should be used in such a way that we can help our students and hopefully not make them feel inadequate. I still remember that way back when I was in at least second grade that was one of the first times I used a computer (I even remember it was an Apple IIE and a dot matrix printer.) I do not think that technology should always be integrated into what we are teaching. It is matter of appropriateness and the usefulness of it. We should do whatever we can to try and overcome these barriers, but it is not vital. We have to be aware of what happened B.C. and B.G. (before computers and before Google.) It is imperative that we think of those what ifs. ESL teachers can certainly benefit from using technology so that our kids can be taught grammar in a fun and entertaining method, but it is not vital for our students.