Podcast and Education

Podcasting is basically the creation and distribution of amateur radio, plain and simple. It is the combination of personal, on, demand and cast. It has three main advantages: unlimited, subscription and gadgetry. First of all, anyone can do a podcasting with a microphone, a video camera, a computer, the internet and something to say. Secondly, through subscription, new shows could be saved automatically. The only thing you need is a receiver which could capture the shows; then, you can watch the shows whenever you want and at wherever you like. Thirdly, you can download the podcasting from the computer to your mp3 or any other portable devices to take it with you.

Podcasting can be used in education. First of all, Teachers can use it as a message board to announce upcoming events, interviews, reviews, and whatever else might be of interest.

Also, teachers could record and publish daily practice lessons that students could listen to at home. Minor Medical Injuries gives us an example about how teachers integrated podcasting and English learning.

Third, Teachers could have their students do oral presentations, interviews through podcast.

Enlighten by the ESL podcast Minor Medical Injuries, I would incorperate podcasting to the answer about my students questions. That means, I would collect my students questions every week (grammatical, semantic or pragmatic questions), and I would answer these questions with podcast because the class time is limited. And perhaps I have two sections with different students but the same teaching stuff, then I don't have to repeat my answer twice and all students can share more questions and answers.

ePals on Education

ePals is a free network that connects students, teachers as well as parents all over the world. It is a Global Community of collaborative learners, teachers, and academic experts in 200 countries and territories. It also provides Connections to students, classes, and school districts worldwide that are safe and secure. Moreover, it is the safe and protected solution for linking classes, schools, and school districts globally.

I have created an account and scan the teacher forums, student forums, family forums and the project forums. In these forums, I saw questions waiting for answers, and projects waiting for participating and cooperating. For example, in the teacher forums, I saw an ESL teacher, in Portugal, wanted to have his/her students trying video conferences with ESL learners or native speakers, in order to enable the use of the language in a real context. It is a very good activity and I would like to participate in my teaching. Another example is, when I was scanning the student forum, I saw a student’s question that whether Harry Potter or the Twilight Saga more suitable for off-class reading. Some native students recommended the Twilight Saga because it is more American and some people voted for the Harry Potter because it is more interesting and the author has a better control of English. One more thing, I saw a parent sought an English pen pal for her daughter from other countries.

Therefore, in my future teaching, I could use ePals to connect my students and myself to the world. I’d like students to communicate and change experience with people from other countries and regions. And for me, I could participate in funny projects and ask questions to other TESOL teachers around the world.

Flickr in teaching

Let's go to the market!

 

I made this photo book with Bookr. I think it could help my teaching about the “There be sentence”.

I’d like to share this photo book with the class, show them pictures, and let students make sentences with “There be…” to say something about these pictures. As I have already given sample sentences, it would not be very difficult to students. In class, students are asked to discuss what in the market orally. After class, the students would be assigned to work in groups and make their own photo book to introduce a place. They could describe what are in the summer beach. They could also talk about what are in the garden in the sunny spring. The students could acquire new grammar knowledge by making photo book, which is a more communicative way. If the teacher focus only on the linguistic items the class would be very boring.