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.

Twitter for Teachers





As I am not a tech person and I am not sensitive to the trend, although I heard about twitter long ago, it is the first time I have experienced the twitter and realized its benefits.

So how twitter can benefit to teachers? First of all, twitter is a discussion board which gathers teachers from all over the world, other educators in other areas and people from other specialties. They come up with fresh ideas, exchange opinions, give suggestion and leave comments as well as reflections. I followed Greg, an ESL teacher in Taiwan. Because he had tweeted a topic that how to bring fun to class, I learned a great many of good ideas and funny methods to make my class more interesting. Second of all, as the saying goes “no one knows everything, everyone knows something, all knowledge resides in humanity”, we can ask questions and get answers on twitter. People you followed and those who have followed you can see your question and contribute some ideas. Then you will gather an idea pool, how fantastic! Third, as we follow those people we are interested in and people who follow us share more or less common interest with us, we act as an information filter for others. Rise versa. Last but not the least, retweeting and replying a tweet is like creating a conversation. By joining and engaging in the conversation, we create a positive spiral of social networks. It flows like this:

Accumulation   →   value

           ↑                       ↓

contribution    ←  reciprocity

In sum, twitter works as a personal learning network for teachers, it links to good websites, tools, books, it gives space for people to ask questions and get answers, it offers an opportunity for people to share ideas, opinions and suggestion, and it always leads you to topics you like and are interested in.

References:

Integrating ICT into the MFL classroom: Twitter for teachers

http://langwitches.org/blog/2010/07/23/what-about-that-twitter-thing/

Blog - A good way for teachers

why teachers should not blog and why I do is a thoughtful and interesting post. It is an reflection on why he blogs after reading a student's letter to the teacher.
Here's an excerpt of the letter :

You see… you don’t teach English. You teach kids. Flawed, messed-up, never perfect, wonderful, amazing kids.

Every child you denigrated has something wonderful about them, even when you didn’t see it.

Every child you insulted has worked hard at something, even if it wasn’t on the assignment you wanted them to work hard on.

Every child you mocked has aspirations, even if they don’t match up with the ones you want them to have.



I thought a lot after reading this post. When I was a student in China, none of my teachers had teaching blogs. Actually, they did not encourage students surf the internet at all, because they thought students are too young to control themselves, thus students would spend too much time playing games or chatting online. That becomes my belief gradually because I was raised in that culture. However, I begin to think that teachers need a way to reflect what they have learned from teaching and from the students' feelings and behaviors, to share ideas and thoughts with other teachers and students and to show who they are in their blogs. As a Chinese student, I thought with typical Chinese logic in the first semester after I came to the States. I respected my teachers but do not have any involvement with teachers after class. I worked very hard to reach my own expectations which I thought would also be my teachers’ expectations. I was very tired in that semester. I knew my teacher’s blog but I never viewed it because I think blogs do not have any influence on learning or on teaching. One day, I accidentally opened my teacher’s blog, and to my surprise, I found that my teacher is a very lovely lady, although she is a little bit tough in class. She has a bunch of ideas about teaching, she posted reflections about her teaching, and she does not have such unreachable expectations to students as what I thought before. After that, I dare to talk with her after class and ask questions during office hours.

In sum, blog is a very good way for teachers to challenge, reflect, show themselves and communicate with students.

Social Media Revolution & Changing Education Paradigms

    
 Social media has grown exponetially in a short time, it has great influence on people's life at every aspect. Social Media Revolution
      It amazed me in 3 aspects.
      First of all, we have  96% of millennials have joined a social network.
      Second, facebook added over 200 million users in less than a year.
      Third, if facebook were a country, it would be the world's 3rd largest.
      The three aspects above show that social media has great influence on people's life. Teachers should take advantage of the influence. For example, add students as friends on facebook and see what they are interested in. Also, teachers can post their thoughts on blogs and share them with students. In sum, as more and more people visit social network, teachers can use it as a powerful tool to communicate with students, rather than consider it as an annoyying thing which may distract students' concentration.

      As for the vedio Changing Education Paradigms (Chinging Education Paradigms), I was interested in the animation rather than the content of it. I felt that animation is a great way to illustrate comparatively boring staff, and animation is typically suitable for on-line education. Teachers can link an teaching animation on blogs and students can see it and learn from it.