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?