Second Life

 I really enjoyed the presentation on Second Life. It brought back a lot of memories from Karen's Pedagogical Grammar I class. I didn't like the use of SL simply because I wasn't familiar with the controls. As mentioned before, it has a high learning curve and requires a lot of time for teachers and students to fully become accustomed to its controls. Time, that could be used elsewhere on better programs.

 I'm getting excited to finish the final project. I feel like I know what I want to say and have already done the background research to talk about it in my paper. Ironically, this goes a long quite well with my APP research, so the information has been infront of me for a couple of months now! I am also excited that we will be meeting in class physically again following Thanksgiving. I feel that this will enable us to discuss what we have learned and what we hope to continue to do with the information we have gathered.

Edmodo

 I found the presentation by Dr. Bibbee really interesting. The Edmodo website would be a viable alternative, with some flaws, to D2L. I like the fact that things are kept confidential from other students. I also found it pretty interesting how chatting section of the website was color coded per each student. I really think that would make organization of chats really easy to follow with regards to questions and comments from students. I think I'd like to use this website if I were to teach online again, for organization purposes relating to homework and PowerPoints. Even in a classroom context, I think it would still be useful. For practicality though, I will stick to D2L since I have been using for over one year.

 The CMC project in my group with Xu and Dira is coming along well. I'm excited to finish it so that I can begin to focus on the final paper. I think I am going to enjoy writing it since I took so much pleasure from the observations! I really enjoyed seeing the technologies used in a CALL-based classroom environment. Looking for links and correlations to CALL pedagogy will be an easy thing to do for me since the professor's use of CALL was pretty limited in this lecture class.

Mobile Learning

 Today's demonstration was better than last week, in my opinion. I really found the use of Ipods in a class to be very interesting to hear about. Along with ebooks, these types of technology can increase access to authentic materials that could help students increase their knowledge in language learning. It also made me think about the article by Pensky (2001) that discusses digital immigrants. I would be somewhat concerned for slow typing and usage of such materials though, especially if students aren't familiar with them. So, I think time and access would be the two biggest concerns with these types of emerging technologies.

 Regarding Emergent and Established CALL, I found the discussion to be very interesting in regards to the views of Esther. I think that emergent CALL is hard to identify just because we don't know exactly how new some programs or technologies are. So, would that make them 'emergent' to us? lol. Established CALL is very easy to understand and I would think that programs like PPT, MS Word would be very established for most of us.

 Karen's demonstration was very well performed. I learned a lot about MOOs and found the fact that she did her demonstration on Adobe very interesting. I'd like to it next year when I take Esther's online culture class. Good job, Karen!

Week 9

 Tonights class was great. I really enjoyed the lecture from the speaker from ISU. She brought together a lot of things that we have been covering in the course. I really liked the framework that she creaed for CALL and how it was divided by proficiency according to teachers. I think that would be an interesing thing to compare with the TESOL standards. What do you all think?

 I'm excited to be done with the final project. One more week of observing and the final interview. I can't wait to see the conclusions I make. I think it will be interesting to see the final work done by Esther and Dr. Bibbee. I wonder when the final product will be published?

Mid-semester post! C'mon people, we're over half done!!!!!!!!

 Well, it's Sunday morning, 11:01 AM and I am in Jazzman's Cafe and it's quiet as usual, which is nice and why I come here to work on odds and ends. Sunday's are great, I love the tranquility of waking up at 7 am and making coffee while being freshly chilled by the autumn breeze that makes me quiver..... anyway, we're half done with class and I thought I'd share my perspectives on it so far.

 Before this class, I'd done some research in CALL in the methods classes the year before. I truly didn't gauge at that time the immense propects and possibilities that CALL offers to us as teachers. Nor did I take into consideration the enormous amount of added responsibility it would bring on the part of a teacher. I suppose I was thinking in the R phase of the RAT proposal; CALL was just another tool to use to make activities and to make time pass in a more 'fun' way for the students. Now that I'm in a CALL class, I see where I way wrong with that thought.

 I really enjoy the fact that we all have to teach and demonstrate the use of a tool. Last weeks presentations were excellent and am happy to say that I will be incorporating them into our group project. I think this hands on experience is great for our learning and for understanding the various details that go into planning a lesson, even a mock one, using a CALL tool.

 The relationship of CALL with teaching pedagogy is probably the most beneficial thing I have learned thus far. As stated above, I never thought that it would be so important on 'how' to use CALL in class. The RAT proposal is a great thing that I will always be thinking about when I make future lessons, even in this class. I think it's a good 'golden rule' to utilize in this regards.

 The final project seems interesting. The observations that I've been doing have been very repetitive, but I've been learning a lot from them. Writing field notes and my own thoughts is a great way to visualize what I am thinking and I can't wait to go back to day one and start identifying patterns that I see in pedagogical relationships with CALL. It will be quite the experience, I think.

 As it's the beginning of week 9, I'm getting a little bewildered at the D2L discussions.... I like the fact that the class is going online, but I'm starting to feel like I have to start talking about things just for the fact that I have to. We've dsicussed this a couple of weeks ago, and it's just my own opinion. The ramping up of the requirements just doesn't seem to be more practicial as if I had more to say than I did before. I really enjoy using the blogs, I think they're more personalized and I enjoy reading the reactions of students from class.

 The CMC project is turning out to be an interesting thing. My group has an outline of the three lessons that we are going to do and what we will incorporate into each one. We are sticking to the 'travel' theme and we are going to do some things similar to the Trackstar project that I did; although they will be fundamentally different.

 Overall, I think that the things we are doing and learning in class are beneficial to our overall learning of CALL and teaching in general. It will be interesting to see what we all take away from this class in the way of implementing certain aspects of it into our own current or future classes.

 Happy mid-semester

  Jesse

Jing and Windows Video Recorder

 Xu's Jing presentation was great! I found the program to be pedagogically sound with various audiovisual activities that could be employed in a class with recorded videos for online or hybrid classes. The fact that it's free really adds value to the program and makes it attractive to classrooms whose budgets are small and or nil.

Mandiy's lesson about Window's Video Player was really neat also! I remember using this program to make videos of my travels in Korea. I uploaded some of them to YouTube and here are the links if anyone is bored and want to see me rant: http://www.youtube.com/afsjesse1#p/a/u/1/gZrv4QdcvyU and http://www.youtube.com/afsjesse1#p/a/u/2/Loww0gWS1LE.  I really like this program because it's easy to use and is great for authentic material creation for any ESL teacher. Plus, it requires minimal time in many cases, in my opinion, to make quick videos of pictures or class demonstrations.

 I'm very excited to do this next project and to use many of the programs that we have learned like Podomatic, Hot Potatoes, etc.... I think the first web-task project that we did will greatly aid our creation of this next project.

Fried, Boiled, or Mashed Poratoes?

   Yesterday's class was pretty interesting, especially since we were in a different lab. I liked the presentation of Hot Potatoes. I think this tool will be very useful for the CMC project that is due in a few weeks. Combined with Trackstar and other programs that have been done over the semester, I think all of our groups will form excellent lessons.

 Dira's presentation regarding MS Word was very itneresting. I didn't know about some of the features that he showed us. I liked the comparing one, I think that would be a great tool for both students and teachers. Nhon's presentation was also really good.. I showed us how we can utilyze free software on the internet to conform to the demands of our various classes.

 I was hoping we could have showed off some of our lessons that we made. I really had fun with mine and am really eager to further explore the potential of Trackstar.

Synchonous class :)

 I found this weeks class period to be really fun. I enjoyed seeing how Adobe Acrobat Connect utilizes multimedia technology to bring a class together. I personally found the 'raise hand' option to be really fun! I think that the synchronous way of online classes is most beneficial, especially for a language class. It gives more attention to the students and provides vital feedback. The chat box was also interesting to utilize while Esther was speaking. I was wondering if chatting while listening to her amounted to talking in class, as in a disturbance. Interesting, right?

 I'm getting excited to have classes online like that. I think it'll be a great learning opportunity for all of us. It was also interesting (but unfortunate) that some people had trouble talking, or getting online. This goes to show that there are still quirks in the system and that the reliability of technology should always be critiqued.

Trackstar and Observations

 I really enjoyed learning about Trackstar yesterday. I think that it's a good way to unit various ESL resources into one commonly placed lesson plan. I'm about to begin my creation for next weeks assignment and I have been pondering all morning what to include in it. More importantly, I'm considering what content or grammar objectives I will have. I think I am going to have a little bit of fun with this project.

 Youssouf's demonstration was simple and to the point. I was reminded that almost any website can be used for specific language purposes, especially websites like about.com that congregate fact-based information about several subjects. I was glad to see Youssouf enthusiastic about technology for a change! I still think that there are pedagogical implications that need to answered when using a site like that, especially for grammar activities. Like I said in class, I believe that most activities should be content-based and overall, communicative. The vast majority of activities online are still in the grammar-translation mode. Although, this is slowly changing for the better, I think.

 I'm preparing for my observations, mentally. I will be observing a Spanish class in the GLL. This class meets 4 days a week. I am also observing two other Spanish classes that meet just as frequently. I personally think it's too much to do in a given amount of time. I will be researching for my APP as well as for the CALL class. The only difference between the two objectives is that the class observation is more broad based, meaning that I'll be looking at all aspects of language teaching with technology and not only listening.

 I was excited about conducting an interview at the conclusion of the observation. I'm not so eager about the pre-observation. I personally think a questionnaire would work best for this and it would be far more practical on everone's behalf. However, I suppose there are reasons for everything and I plan on doing it nonetheless. October is going to be a month of agony for me with everything with teaching and classes etc....

Breathing deep....

Jesse

Google Earth and James' Podcasting Presentation

 I thought the presentation I gave was a good beginning introduction to Google Earth and what it may offer to a language classroom. I really enjoyed watching the students maneuvere around it and see the potential benefits that it has. One of the reasons why I enjoy using it so much is because of my love of Geography and History. I can't wait to incorporate my web based lesson with this great tool. I think the recording feature offers many great things, but it still has faults. It would be nice if the images were clear in the 3-D viewing (they become blurry when recorded), and that you could see the multimedia pictures and videos that the author would click on. Nonetheless, it's a great thing to monkey around with! :)

 James' podcasting presentation was a great thing  to see. I really enjoyed seeing the potential benefits that casting offers to a class. I think this is something that I could utilize in future projects. Privacy would have to be very important. I think that when publishing them, especially for K-12 classes, they should be kept private on a site where you establish the personal settings.

 Dira and I discussed our web based project some more. We're sticking to the travel theme and hopefully will use Google Earth to enhance our lesson. Perhaps we can even use some sort of voicethread to enhance the communication between students and teacher. I look forward to completing this assisngment.

James' Presentation.

 I thought the presentation of Picasa done by James was interesting. He divided the way in which you work with the program into easy to follow steps. I think that this lesson would be good for a lower-intermediate class that understands basic instructions in the target language. I think it would be apparent to make sure that everyone has the same version of Windows so that the steps are perfectly in sync.

 If this were done in a real time classroom, I think it could easily occupy one hour of time given the speed of the students and the repetetive nature that comes with working with technology. The presentation was a good example of task-based integrative learning in which mulitple subjects and objectives were tackled in the course of completing one assignment.

 Good job James!

Wiki-mania!

 Yesterday's class was pretty fun. I've been on wiki's before but never created one and I like the prospet of using it as a tool for our final project. I like how a lot of these technology programs are meant to increase and harness the power of communicating within an online forum. Similar to Twitter, Wiki's offer a great deal of resources for getting ones voice heard.

 I thought James' presentation was well done. He highlighted some very interesting ideas of Twitter and am glad to say that I learned a fair bit. Although I wonder how effective it would be for providing vast amounts of authentic input? I see Twitter more as a great way of submitting/answering questions to the teacher or class. For spreading ideas and little bits of knowledge. I think that through other websites like facebook, twitter could be incorporated into the huge world of social-media sites.

 I'm glad that I teamed up with Dira and Xu for the project. We work good together and have a lot of things in common. We decided that our topic of interest for the final project is "travel". I thought about this last night and like the idea of task-based instruction activities in which students would have to go and look up airline dates and prices on real travel websites like Orbitz or Priceline and answer a number of questions. They could also lookup the weather for their destinations and seek general information regarding popular places to vacation. I think this topic opens up a whole new world to task-based learning when combined with the internet for language enhancement. It's also given me some ideas on what I will do for my Technology Demonstration in two weeks.

 The discussion that we had in class was a pretty good one. I enjoyed thinking about James' point on the R of RAT. I do admit that I somewhat disagree with the point that he made regarding using technology just to get used to it. That made me question the goals of a language course. You're not there to learn about computer programs etc...., although learning new programs could be a part of a thematic unit. I think that basic instructions on computer use should be save for a technology class like I had back in middle school. But, I see his point in accustoming students so that their level of anxiety lessens and more language can be utilized.

Freakout time! :)

 So, I've just had that epiphany that all graduate students have when they've realized how much work they've signed up for with classes, work, and other personal obligations. Compared to this time last year, i'm not having a panic attack and i'm visibly calm, I think. In times like these, I remember my friend and colleague Thea, who is teaching in Kuwait atm. Breath...... Jesse, Breath..... lol

 The class today is just a sampling of what is to come and I am very excited to begin this journey as we continue to learn not only about CALL, but of ESL in general. I like the fact that this  class only has nine people in it, most of whom I know. This will definately lower my "affective filter".

 But, what I'm really excited about is the fact that this class has a lot to do with my APP topic, which happens to be about listening comprehension in a CALL based environment. Cool, right? Enough for me. :)
I have high hopes that this class will add valuable information to my research and reading that I will be commencing quite shortly, just after my head returns from Costa Rica..... Yes, I'm still in summer mode!

 I'm not surprised that the D2L journals are back. I don't mind them, really. I enjoy typing and I can pretty much state my opinion and get feedback on my thoughts. Think of it as a mental peer review every week. I'm very anxious to see the details for the big projects in this class. I'm hoping that I can coordinate my research for this class, with the research I am doing for my APP. Please!!!!!!!!

 Until then class,

 - Jesse a.k.a. Kimchiwaygook..... don't ask.