Final Project

Here's the presentation for my final project, hosted on Google Document:



I like integrating technology into my curriculum because it makes it more interesting, it promotes after-hour learning and collaboration. I also feel that technology is one of the survival skills that we must have in today's world and beyond.

I started experimenting with Web tools five years ago, and this year, I started experimenting with PBWiki. I've tried wikispaces a couple of years back, but I did not like the interface and all the little things you need to know in order to do your layout, so I abandoned it. I started using wikispaces again last semester, and pleasantly surprised, I found the interface much easier to use. The best part is that it also supports many other forms of technology (video, images, etc.)

I started planning and testing out what I can do with PBWiki. Besides that it's free, I chose PBWiki for its simple and clean interface. Another reason is that the name is easy to remember. I tell my students "Peanut Butter Wiki," to make them laugh, and to make the name stick!

So what did I do?

• I experiment using it for my own use, to host resources/lessons I created, found, and to keep track of all the various tools.
• I also use it to create an information site for the class. This site included materials I created, classroom management materials, school policies, a chat room, student work showcase pages.
• I then created PBWiki sites for the students to collaborate. Students can share the sentences they create and also post questions. Other students can help correct the sentences and post answers. I also come in to do the accuracy check and to provide feedback.

Based on student's positive response (extra credit helped to get it started), I see that Wiki can be a great place for the students to get information. Students have also requested that I put up my powerpoint files, so, instead of posting files on Communicado, our mandated teacher-student-parent interaction website, it makes much more sense to post the files on Wiki. From one idea of increasing student participation and interaction, it now became my final project idea: creating a wiki site to supplement the Communicado. Communicado will provide a place where I can post grades and communicate with parents/students with no email addresses. Wiki will be a central place where all the curriculum-related materials and student participation/collaboration.

One other good point is that teachers can now share resources with much ease.

Here's our skeleton training site with two samples:
http://carlmont.pbworks.com/

Direct links to the two samples:
Chemistry: http://carlmont.pbworks.com/Chemistry-Sample
Chinese: http://carlmont.pbworks.com/Chinese-Sample

Here's the link to the suggested structure to a teacher site:
http://mschiang2004.pbworks.com/FrontPage
(Please note that not every page has content, as this is created to provide a sample)

Web2.0 & Education

The web has revolutionize the way we communicate. Web 2.0 now is revolutionizing education.

Education is no longer being delivered just in the classroom settings. It is multi-directional where the teachers and students and the public can all communicate through the power of "Cloud Computing." Instructors and learners are no longer required to be in the same classroom, same city, or even the same country. To a certain extend, they don't even have to be on the same planet! The instruction materials are now in multi-media/digital forms: text, images, video and audio clips, flash animations, comic strips, etc. The list goes on and on.

For a very long time, distant-learning has been just emails and postings between the instructors and students. Real-time interaction is really not an easy option. Look at where we are now! Instant messengers, online chatrooms, VoIP services, and web video conferencing are addded to the plain, old text-based communications. How exciting it is for the learners!

Modern day students grew up with media. They need that type of stimulation and to sustain their interest. We must recognize the characteristics of this generation and creating a rich learning experience for our students to faciliate their learning. We can not continue to think the way we learned should continue to work for our students. I am not advocating abandoning the traditional teaching methodology. I am simply saying that technology must be considered, incorporated, and utilized by both the learners and instructors to improve the quality of our education!

Interface Design Critique: ToonDoo.com

On Information Design

• Potential users:  
• people, specifically, children who want to create and share their creative work.
  
• people who like to read and comment on comics.
• Information chunk:  There's not too much text to read.  However, the front page is a bit overwhelming with all hte information available, even though a big chunk of the page is cartoon.
  
• Relevance: The site's front page is a bit busy, but the information does pull you in. 
  
• Labeling:  Clear labeling for the global navigation.  The secondary navigation labels are not as clear. There is also text rollover on the images.
  
• Consistency:  The navigation is very consistent with a global navigation bar on top using colors.
  
• Detail: The front page seems a bit information overload whereas the others are not as busy.
  
• Other comments: You can't see much without logging in.
  

On Interactivity:

• Orientation: It's pretty easy to navigate around.
• Navigation: The global and secondary are pretty easy to follow.
• Functionality: It works.
• Information access: You can get to the main functions from the global navigation or the little icons on the upper right corner.

On screen Design:

• Attractive:  It looked busy to me and not very "professional." However, it is a site geared towards kids.
• Color: Very colorful.
• Layout: Pretty easy to follow.
• Readability:  Text size is a bit small but does not interfere with my reading the site.

China Trip

Here's a quick video to share with you about my group's China Trip.

What can a HS teacher do with an ITEC degree?

As a high school teacher, what I learn in the ITEC program can help me improve my teaching experience.

Let's first hear what the students have to say:

With the education from ITEC, you can:

• Increase students learning interest level
• Make the class more fun
• Design multiple-intelligence projects
• Design lessons that are technology-fail-proof
• Utilize the students prior knowledge
• Make your teaching "Green"
• Be "hip" and on the same (tech) page with the students
• Show result of your and your students' hard work

Web 2.0 ToonDoo

Since I was out of the country when web 2.0 Conference was going on, I am including one example of the tools that I use in my curriculum: ToonDoo.com.

After finishing the lesson, I asked the students to work as a team to complete a project of Comic Strips:

1. They work as teams to create a dialogue.
   
2. They divide up the work to create a panel of comic strip each. They can send the panels individually or create a book.
   
3. Practice the dialogue and present to the class.

Here's an example of the Comic book:

chinese2mrsh	ordering/eating at the cafeteria § the restaurant

L12 - Dining by chinese2mrsh | Make Your Own At www.toondoo.com

Here's a sample of one strip with 3 panels:

by Nemsae | Create your own Cartoon at www.toondoo.com

In addition to sharing them with students, teachers, parents, and administrators, I also use them to review grammar and vocabulary words.  Since these are story-based, it makes a lot more sense to the students when I explain how to use certain things.

Enjoy and let me know how I can improve the use of this technology in my curriculum.

Games and Civic Engagement

While listening to the presentation about computer games and civic engagement, one thing struck me: kids who were already active or interested in civic engagemnet were the ones playing those strategy or civilization building games.  So if they were already interested, what is being done to interest kids who are otherwise not interested in civic engagement through these games?  Wouldn't that be the whole point about encouraging or taking advantage of an existing technology to teach students/people lessons and skills and benefit our socity?

How is playing the games helping the kids who are already interested in civic engagement?  I know that they experience decision making under multiple considerations, but is this skill/experience transferrable in real situations?  Do these kids make better leaders in the future?  Is there any data?  I hope there will be studies done on them....

Top 100 Learning Tools for 2008

This is a slideshow listing the top 100 learning tools, compiled by Jane Hart.

Top 100 Tools for Learning 2008

View more presentations from Jane Hart.

Google Form for Quiz

I got this idea from a friend to use Google Form for short quizzes. Since I teach Chinese and I want to make sure the students can write the characters, I was a a bit skeptical about using it for all levels. I decided to use it with Chinese 3, since they will be doing more of the typing in Chinese 4.

Even though the quiz was only five questions, I was pretty happy with the result. The students were to listen to my dictation, type the sentences in Chinese and then translate them into English. 

A few advantages I find:

1. This cuts down the amount of time for the quiz. It takes the students much longer if they had to write the sentences out by hand. So I was happy about this.
2. I also made the submission/responses visible to the students, so the students can see everyone's response, and my standard answer, instantly.  There is fewer people asking "What did I get?"
3. I would never lose a quiz again.  I exported them into Excel, formatted the responses a bit, and print it out.  I only have to take 3 sheets of paper instead of 25 sheets, what a deal!
4. I don't have to make guesses on some of the chicken scratch handwriting...no more arguing with the students about whether they actually put in that stroke or not.

There is a little bit of complaint on the use of the input system, but that has nothing to do with using Google Form.

DropBox for Podcast hosting

So many of my students are running out of room on their edublogs, and blogger does not support audio upload. what's one to do? Well, here's a solution: Use DropBox to host their files and link to those files. No more "I can't upload any more!" excuses.

Audacity....

So I've been using Audacity to record student works and test questions. I can perform the basic functions without too much trouble. That's sufficient for my use.

However, for the 830 class's podcast, it has been a bit troublesome...more than I anticipated, anyway. It's not so much the mechanics about cutting, pasting, editing the sound file. It's more about how to put them together in order to make sense and sound great! I have to say that I was a bit frustrated. Now I understand why the documentary-style audio and video productions take forever before it can be shared with the public. If you don't have a script and you try to piece random recordings together, all I have to say is Good Luck!

Good experience, nonetheless. Now I can appreciate podcasts more.

Here it is, the fruit of my labor.

Google Sites & GoAnimate

A bit frustrated with Google Site because I feel like I should keep the content to the top page and not make it too long. Perhaps I am trying to do more than necessary.

On the other hand, I am testing out GoAnimate with my smallest/most advanced class and the students seem to like it. The learning curve isn't too high either. My biggest complaint right now is that the site, even though designed by people from HK, does not support Chinese, both in the animation and in the comment section.

GoAnimate.com: going to bai4nian2.


Like it? Create your own at GoAnimate.com. It's free and fun!

21st Century Content, 21st Century Learner, and 21st Century Etiquette?

While media literacy, environmental, social and global issues, finance, geography, civic literacy, civic engagement are all key contents for the 21st century, but how about etiquettes? Common courtesy?

Today's students are such passive learners, most of them. Perhaps they are overwhelmed with all the curriculum and tests and competitions and pressures. Perhaps they are used to have information pushed to them via digital media. Perhaps they were not taught by human about the proper etiquette and courtesy when it comes to using the digital media and resources.

Many of my students are so short on time and overwhelmed with curriculum/homework that they use technology mostly for socializing and not for learning or producing/making meanings. So how do we, as professional teachers, guide them towards Web2.0?

Flickr

What is Flickr?

It is an image and video hosting website and online community powered by Yahoo! that allows users to upload, organize, edit, and share images and videos.  User can designate their images to be public, private, or group specific in order to control who has access to the images.


Features:

Free Account:

• Displays only the most recent 200 pictures, the rest are hidden (not deleted).
  
• Free 100MB of space each calendar month.

Paid or Pro Account: 

• $25.95/year
• Unlimited uploads.

Users can title, tag, edit, resize, and add comments or descriptions to their uploaded images and videos. Users can also share and post images and videos on blogs or social networking sites with the generated image tags or URL links.

You must have a Yahoo! account.  Have your photos ready on your desktop of one of the portable drives.

1. Go to http://www.flickr.com & log in.
2. Upload your photos.
3. Edit your photos.
4. Share your photos.

Because of copyright issue, the best way to go about finding images is to go through Creative Commons.

1. Go to http://search.creativecommons.org/
   
2. Select Flickr Tab
   
3. Type in your search keywords

Ellen Wagner Reflection

I was really surprised that the US is number 17 in the world for broadband services, since Internet was invented by the Americans.  How could we have fallen so behind?  I guess it's difficult to switch people to the new connection mode when the existing infrustructure, i.e. land lines, are already in place and functioning well.

So that brings the question:  Mobile learning...are we ready?  Given the lack of broadband reach, Mobile learning is still limited to those whom have access.  How is the Internet making education more accessible?  

 

As one classmate pointed out, there is also the issue of energy required to run the computers and the Internet.  There are plenty of talks about making cheap laptops so every child can have one; but is there any talk about making the Internet FREE worldwide?  While people are working on finding solar solutions to provide basic energy needs, such as lights at night, who is working on providing the energy needed to run all these broadband services? 

Also, as technology advances, some countries will catch up faster than others.  That means accessibility will vary.  This basically means that some Web 2.0 applications are not accessible to everyone.  How about people who are physically challenged and/or are low in technology skills, such as seniors and visually/hearing impaired?

Internet and related technology do bring lots of hope and opportunities to us.  It, to a certain degree, also promises "equality."  The question now is,  is the world ready to be fair and equal? 

One-minute Voicethread...

Wiki, Wiki, Run Fast

So I started using Wiki with my classes.  For the low and intermediate level classes, I am using it as a place where students will contribute their learnings and be rewarded.  This seems to work well.  Many students are contributing.  I must say, not as many as I'd like, but it's a good start.

I also use Wiki for students to post their assignments.  I will then put comments and the students will go back and edit the assignment.  This also seems to be effective.  The only thing is that, it is time-consuming for the teacher.

For the higher level students, I decided to let them work on the same collaborative-writing  assignment that we did on SocialText.  Little did I know the trouble it was going to stir up!  As the students wrote their parts, some disagreements arose.  It escalated to an online-argument of some sort.  I monitored their conversation to be sure that it didn't get out of hand, but it got me thinking about this onine learning thing.

While I agree with Dr. Bonk that e-learning technology does make the world flat and accessible to more people, it also can be dangerous if used without guidance.

In my situation, I think the students' conflict arose from lack of understanding about each other's culture and the difference in maturity level.  Of course, personality played another part in the conflict.  One of the students eventually came to speak to me and asked if I would intervene.  I explained to him that I was monitoring the exchanges, and I would only intervene if it was beyond something the students could handle.  I also explained to this particular student about their cultural differences and hence the miscommunication.  One good thing that came out of using Wiki is that the students are kept apart when their "argument" took place, instead of being face to face.  They were also reacting to words without emotions, which either lessen or fuel the conflict.

So, what does this mean?  There are so many cultures on tihs world, with the development of e-learning technology and open coursewares, it is inevitable that more and more people will cross paths.  Will there be more conflicts or will people become more culturally awared?  Will this also promote flatness of culture?  Will we "westernize" and "standardize" other cultures?  Is this a good thing?

Reflection on "Emerging Technologies in E-Learning"

Reading: Emerging Technologies in E-Learning

Since I am really into integrating technology (desktop and webtop applications) into curriculum, what I find interesting are the various types of technology mentioned.  I've had experience with a few of them, peripheral attempts at some others.  However, there is a lot more that I have no idea about and would love to find out more (when I have time, obviously).

• Digital Storytelling:  My students have been doing digital storytelling for a few years and this remains one of the top activities.  We've used Photostory to create them, and I am working on VoiceThread this semester.
  
• Communities of practice:  We've used blogs and content-management system to create CoPs where students can share, exchange, and help each other.
  
• Personal broadcasting:  Students record and upload their speaking online.  We've used mypodcast.com, podbean.com, ning.com, edublogs or bloggers with Audacity.
  
• Online Meetings: tried using Gizmo/Skype, but it was too hard to coordinate amongst students' limited schedules.
  
• Wikis: I am pushing it big time this semester.  I am currently using it as a place where all students contributes to create a review sheet for each lesson.
  
• P2P file sharing:  Google Docs!
• Social Computing:  No formal use in class, but have leisurely cross paths with students on Myspace and Facebook.  I've used materials from YouTube, and will be using Flickr this semester.
• Mashups: Google Apps!

The following few are completely  new to me and hopefully I'll gain more understanding as time goes on in this class...so then I can try them in my classes...

• Educational Gaming
  
• MMOGs
  
• Extended Learning
  
• Intelligent searching
  
• Webcams and video from cell phones
  
• Mobile Learning
  
• Context-aware environments and devices
  
• Augmented reality and enhanced visualization
  
• Smart mobs
  

Reflection: Educational Goals for learners in the digital age

Reading:  Learning in the Digital Age by John Seely Brown

• Information: gained independently
  
• Knowledge: transferred by a knower

With these two ideas in mind, I had to re-think what the educational goals for my students be at this time in history where technology is flooding our lives.

When I first started teaching, I thought technology is a cool tool to help the students learn, share, practice, and apply their learnings.  And technology did help my students and I achieved all that.  

As I gained additional experience using technology in my teaching, and with the fast growth of various Web applications available for educational use, I started noticing that the teaching has gone beyond just curriculum. 

As much as we think the students are tech savvy, it is not true for all of them.  The only thing I can say is that they are not afraid of technology.  However, students lack web literacy skills, such as navigating, researching, and filtering.  They also lack etiquette, or Netiquette.  This is especially evident when I asked them to give constructive comments.  Students tend to use shorthands/slangs in their comments, and the comments are usually very superficial, such as "very good," "I like it," "interesting," etc.

So teaching literacy skills and netiquette became part of the curriculum in order for the web tools to be effective.

As more Web 2.0 applications become available or even designed specifically for educational use, it also demands a great amount of time for the teachers to try out the application, think about whether it can benefit the students (and in what way), how to integrate the technology into the classroom (teaching how to use the technology to achieve curriculum goals).  It is not an easy task for the teachers.

Anyway, coming back to "Educational Goals for learners in the digital age".  Well, it really depends, doesn't it?  Who is the learner?  What is the aim of the instruction?  I don't know if this is a question that can be answered easily.  Then again, nothing in life ever is.

Wiki reflection

I was a bit worried in the beginning about collaborative writing where I won't be near the others. It does take a lot of "trust" for it to work. Trust that the others will do their part. Trust that our stories will flow smoothly. Trust that we will be able to work together without much conflict.

To my surprise, the process is really smooth. It, in a way, cuts down on the time wasted. We don't have to "worry about getting a consensus," or "worry about offending people," or "coming up with a compromise where everyone is happy."

I think one of the reason why it worked is because each of us has a specific purpose or task. This is something I need to consider when I am giving similar collaborative assignments to my students.

This experience has convinced me, as a language teacher, there are benefits that I can do by using wiki in the classroom for collaborative work for students. I am already using blogs where students write about their week in Chinese. The main purpose is to give students a place where they can practice Chinese (language and typing) without worrying about being graded.

Now, with wiki, since the students already are doing collaborative work (writing dialogues), it will be a good way for them to collaborate on a dialogue. I usually would like the students to type up the dialogues after the final draft anyway, it might be good to find a way to integrate wiki into it. This will take some thinking but I am excited now.

Educational Wiki Sites

After doing some search on the 'Net, here are two that I thought I would like to model after/learn more about:

• http://cartierm.wikispaces.com/ : It's a wiki done by a middle school teacher.
  
• http://gmiller.wikispaces.com/
  

I also found a good resource site for teachers: http://wiki.classroom20.com/ Here are lots of 2.0 tools used by other teachers.

SocialText

It was very interesting to hear Eugene Lee, CEO of SocialText talking about how social software is changing the way we interact with each other and how it enables more communication where we can continue a conversation without being face to face or voice to voice.

It was also good to see how the various types of social software are being put together into an enterprise package: SocialText. For a very long time, many adults look down at the social software, thinking they are just toys that take away students time for nonsense communications. I, myself, at one point, also feel this way about some of them. The only thing is, being a high school teacher, I am open to experiment with all these software so I am in touch with my students. I start to see some value in some of them. The only thing I want to do right now is to see how these software can be applied to increase student-teacher interaction in a productive way.

Some ideas:
- Twitter: I can use it to solicit student response, using the Chinese language. I already found out that Twitter takes Chinese if I use the web to input. So now I need to get the students on Twitter. The next problem to tackle is reading and typing Chinese on their phones.
- Wiki: collaboration for cultural projects and chapter reviews.

hopefully more to come...

Three resources for teachers

ALI - Apple Learning Interchange
Thinkfinity.org


Hippocampus.org - high school and college level

Connectivism Video on YouTube

I came across this video and I thought it was very helpful in getting a quick overview about connectivism and how powerful it is. At the same time, it also makes me wonder how ready our teachers are to be the guide, the leader, the moderator, the guiding light to our students today.

Actually, I think I am worried. Even though I've only been in the teaching profession for a few years, I don't know if my students and my colleagues are ready for the connectivism world. I don't doubt that it's important and maybe essential that we understand and apply connectivism in our teaching and learning, but I see so many challenges that, if I stop to think, I would probably freaked out. (Good thing I just forge ahead, for the most part.)

Some of the immediate challenges that popped into my head:
teacher readiness & willingness
student readiness & willingness: 'Net literacy, language skills, navigation skills, problem solving/critical thinking skills, research skills, information gathering and filtering
technology resources availability, both at school, at home and in our communities

I think it's time I stop and just explore more about how I can understand and incorporate connectivism rather than finding reasons not to....

Reflection on Connectivism

Connectivism can be powerful but also disasterous.

Through Web 2.0 technologies, there are so many ways to get connected, push out, and pulish  information.  The problem, then, is to learn the necessary skills on making smart decisions so you are not drowned or misled by the information out there.   It's no longer "tell me what to learn and set my goals for me".  It must become "what do I want to learn and how do I get what I need so I can construct the knowledge I need."

As a teacher, the basic skills to reinforce in the classroom is to teach students:

• critical thinking
  
• media literacy
  
• decision making
  
• filtering
  
• research and validity checking

As a learner of Web 2.0, I would like to learn more about how these different tools can be used together to create a better information web or a filtering system so I don't become overwhelmed.  The problem I see and have experienced is that, technology changes so fast and vast, information are being pushed and edited as I am reading it, how do I get what I need out of it.

I would also like to find a way to stay on top of the development of Web tools.  As it is, I am already overwhelmed with all the blog and email subscriptions.  It is to the point that I scan the subject line and decide immediately whether I delete or open the email to read.  Perhaps I will never be on top but hopefully I would not be drowned by the information wave.

Introduction

Teaching Chinese can be a difficult task since it's such a different language from English.  As a teaching tool and to add fun to the learning of the language, I try to include technology in my curriculum.

After a few years of doing this, I realized that I wanted a more systematic and cohesive way of implementing technology in the classroom.  Hence the ITEC program.

This is only my 2nd semester, but I am already applying what I learned during my first semester, so I am looking forward to even more exciting technology and theories.