Podcasting

Podcasting is a term that refers to downloadable audio or video over the internet. The word "podcast" is derived from combination of "pod" from iPod and "cast" from the word broadcast and was first used by Ben Hammersley, a British internet technologist, at his columm in the Guardian newspaper in 2004. It has become so popular in the USA that the podcast audiences have increased in numbers for the past few years (According to the assumption by emarketers, there will be 3.7 people downloading podcasting in 2013 and it was around 17,4 million according to the 2008 figure).

What benefits does podcasting provide for in education, especially in language learning?

1) It provides accessible practice for language learning. Students can listen to the material outside the class or at their leisure times and they continue to learn out of the classroom environement through podcasting.

2) It is authentic. That is, it provides real input to practise language learning.

3) It helps students to develop oral and comprehension skills (Ducate & Lomicka, 2009) and facilitates self-paced learning.

4) It builds a sense of community sharing and learning from others.

5) It offers richer learning environment for students with different learning styles.

There is a tutorial showing how you can create podcasting using the software Audacity, which is a digital audio editor program. There are a lot of free software to enable people (teachers and students) to create podcasting. Some of them are propaganda, evoca and podcastpeople. 

Before getting started, here are some tips for you:

• Write the script first, and provide students with the script,
• State your goals clearly at the beginning and review these goals at the end of the podcast,
• Normalize and balance the sound quality,
• Insert dialogs, images and videos to add variety of input and avoid the monotone sound.

Some useful links for language teachers:

http://www.podcastsinenglish.com

http://www.businessenglishpod.com

http://www.manythings.org/e/podcasts.html

http://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/english-as-second-language/id75908431

http://a4esl.org/podcasts/ 

Hot potatoes for language teachers

Language teachers...Here is my brief review about Hot Potatoes.

Hot Potatoes is freeware that enables language teachers to create interactive online activities which then can be uploaded to a server where students have an access to. It basically includes six modules: interactive multiple-choice, short-answer, jumbled-sentence, crossword, matching/ordering and gap filling exercises. You can look at the sample exercises to have an idea about what kind of exercises can be created by using it. First of all, you do not need to know the language of programming and it is not complicated to use it for creating web-based teaching materials. All you need to do is to enter your data, questions or answers. Here is how you can develop a matching exercise for the language classes.

In addition, Hot Potatoes provides form-focused activities to help learners to make improvements in grammatical accuracy by noticing, correcting the mistakes and immediate positive or negative feedback on the anwers. However, through these processes, there is a limited interaction between learners and the only interaction, if it is counted as interaction, occurs when students get the written pop-up feedback to their answers which is prescripted and provided by the teacher. It seems that Hot Patatoes do enhance student learning a language to the extent how it is created  and used by the teacher. The intended use of the program is to create exercises that allow students to practise language drills and find out correct answers based on the feedback received immediately. Still, for some teachers, using Hot Potatoes means tests rather then self-learning activities. It is advisable to use for developing materials rather than testing.

As a language teacher, in spite of limited interaction between the learners while practising, I would definitely use it for some classes in which students need supplementary grammar exercises for gaining accuracy through the web-based activities.

Useful links:

http://hotpot.uvic.ca/

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hot_Potatoes

Some considerations about using technology in the classroom

In the 21st century, we are living in the world where technology is almost in every part of our lives and we are used to have it for our basic needs so much that it is almost impossible to imagine what life could be without it. When we, as educators, talk about the integration of technology in teaching, although we know that the perfect harmony between the elements of the ‘circle’ (teacher, student, content and technology) might not be always easy to get due to some contextual limitations such as a lack of equipment or limited access to information technologies or considerations related to each elements, we should try our best to keep up with the standards of changing world and to understand why we need technology in our teaching environment. 

                      A model for teaching with technology  (retrieved from http://www.crlt.umich.edu/inst/model.php)

To start with, we need to know what technology means for us. For some teachers, this could simply mean using the internet for finding information, preparing PowerPoint to make presentations, or switching on computers to show some information to students. Are these examples of technology integration? One might reasonably argue that each of these examples includes technology. But, the matter is not what kind of technology is used in the classroom as regards to hardware, but how technology enhances learning processes. Effective integration must support four key components of learning: active engagement, real life situations, frequent interaction and feedback. It is achieved when the use of technology is feasible, meaningful and transparent, and when technology supports certain curricular goals. The second thing to consider is that how technology fits into our teaching philosophy. There are two very different models of teaching and learning: directed instruction and constructivism. The former has its root from the behaviorist learning theory and the information-processing branch of the cognitive learning theories. The latter, the constructivist view, evolved from the cognitive learning theory which emphasizes the individual’s active construction of understanding and active participation in learning. Some technology applications (e.g., drill and practice) are associated with directed instruction, while most others (e.g., problem solving, online discussions, multimedia applications) can enhance either directed instruction or constructivist environments, depending on how teachers fit them into class instructions. There is no right or wrong approach, one of them can be chosen over another depending on the subject or both approaches can be used alternatively as long as we are aware of what we use them for. Five questions can help us to decide the technological integration in our class.

1. Is the lesson content clear, and meaningful enough without technology integration?
2. Are activities of the lesson engaging?
3. What do we expect students to do in the lesson with or without technology?
4. How does technology enhance the learning in that lesson in ways that would be impossible without it?
5. How does technology help us to teach more effectively than using textbook or any other materials?

Last but not least, while integrating technology in our classes, we should seek for the best means or approach in order to facilitate a diversity of learning styles, motivation of learning and participation though our constant efforts and openness to go beyond where we stand by. 

 

Useful links:

http://www.edutopia.org/technology-integration-experts 

http://www.edutopia.org/technology-integration-introduction 

http://www.naesp.org/principal-januaryfebruary-2012-technology/technology-integration-new-21st-century-learner

http://remc11.k12.mi.us/bstpract/ 

http://fcit.usf.edu/matrix/download/tim_table_of_student_indicators.pdf