There are so many questions on my mind....questions that I do not have answers to.
My classmates Siti and Su explained a webquest to me during our discussion on skills and strategies. I understood that it can be used to help students in many ways, including analysis of information, selection of information, and construction of written text or any other language skill that is built into the activity. It is definitely an interesting idea but many questions popped up in my mind-what is the difference between a webquest and a more traditional mode of conducting a language class? Is it better? In what way is it better? Is it used so as to better engage the students? Is it used to teach students to write for different media?
I can see how people are using virtual world for entertainment such as games(like the very popularGrand Theft Auto ) and to escape from realities of the real world through sites like Second Life. I can even see the edge that WWW is giving to corporations in terms of marketing of their products. BUT I just cannot seem to see the edge that ICT gives to language learning besides engaging students using a medium that they are interested and keen to use. This short documentary by http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8s21QgfA7eU&feature=fvst talks about how corporations like Reebok uses Second Life to market their sports shoes, how it has become part of a journalist's work, and how it helped a person with cerebral palsy to do what he could not do in real life.
So, with those questions in mind, I did a search for ict in language learning, using google and I found http://ict.cele.nottingham.ac.uk/ (7th link on the list). As I surfed the site, I was reminded of the online dictionary and thesaurus that I am so fond of using, and I also learnt that I can see how a particular word is used using web concordancer. My first thoughts were that it is a very useful tool. But soon enough, more questions popped up in my mind-are these sentences grammatical? What situations are they used in? Written? Oral? Formal? Casual? Personal?
My classmates Siti and Su explained a webquest to me during our discussion on skills and strategies. I understood that it can be used to help students in many ways, including analysis of information, selection of information, and construction of written text or any other language skill that is built into the activity. It is definitely an interesting idea but many questions popped up in my mind-what is the difference between a webquest and a more traditional mode of conducting a language class? Is it better? In what way is it better? Is it used so as to better engage the students? Is it used to teach students to write for different media?
I can see how people are using virtual world for entertainment such as games(like the very popular
So, with those questions in mind, I did a search for ict in language learning, using google and I found http://ict.cele.nottingham.ac.uk/ (7th link on the list). As I surfed the site, I was reminded of the online dictionary and thesaurus that I am so fond of using, and I also learnt that I can see how a particular word is used using web concordancer. My first thoughts were that it is a very useful tool. But soon enough, more questions popped up in my mind-are these sentences grammatical? What situations are they used in? Written? Oral? Formal? Casual? Personal?
I did another two more separate searches on google, clicked on at least two of the links each time. I also did a search on webcrawler.com. Have I found my answers? No, not exactly. But I intend to, eventually.
Wow saw that video on youtube. Really interesting I would say. I guess one statement that came up during the video would be, people would create their avatar to be taller and slimmer than they actually were. I guess although it is good to escape into a fantasy world, one has to be careful that one does not allow fantasy to overtake their real lives.
ReplyDeleteWell, the WWW thing obviously cannot replace the traditional language class and it doesn't mean all teachers should encourage students to search on language learning issues. However, what we can learn from the articles is how we can guide the students to search really useful information efficiently, as it seems unavoidable for them to get online information in the information age, which is not an easy task, as well-educated people may not know how to use the internet wisely.
ReplyDeleteWhen your group reported on ways to 'create' using ICT, I have to admit my lack of knowledge in a number of applications you mentioned.Now I wonder if we will have a hands-on learning of those applications.
ReplyDeleteWhether using those applications could make teaching and learning English more efficient and more effective is something researchers could investigate on.
Is its edge lies only on its being a student-centred instruction? That we may have a chance to find out.