Do dreams come true??? My new media dream project

February 3, 2009 at 1:16 am (Blogging Tasks)
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CB045675The Internet offers most likely hundred of possibilities in teaching a foreign language. When I imagine myself as a teacher, exploring all these different methods… that’s what I call forward-looking education!! But then I wake up and realize that it is not that easily realized, my dreams are restricted by missing equipment, heterogeneous computer skills of my students, the curriculum… and probably a lack of time as well!

But in this post I keep on dreaming: all of my students (and me of course ;-) ) have excellent computer skills, every student has a laptop in the classroom and the curriculum, well, we probably HAVE to stick to that, but it will be no problem :-) . And we have lots of time!

My dream project is a web page which is created by two classes, the one being a German the other one being an English class. The pupils of the two classes should be around the same age and, of course, the German class should learn English as a foreign language whereas the English students learns German.

The project of sharing a web page is not restricted to one year. It starts in the year when both classes learn the other language. The major aim of this web page is to raise the interest in the second language, to make SLA more authentic. The two classes build up a friendship which is supposed to become closer with every year of their school days.

First of all, every student has a “pen pal” who is a student from the other class (Yes, in my dreams, the classes have the same size ;-) ). This concept realizes every student a contact he can turn to in terms of questions via chat, talk to via a camera and a headset etc. The ideal case would be that they get along so well that they actually become friends and share and increase their knowledge.

All of the students are able to post information on the web page.

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To study according to the curriculum they could for example work on cultural studies. Very suitable are topics like London (Berlin), holidays and customs, sights, or music. The possibilites are numerous: German students may post a virtual sight-seeing tour they created in a group work. Students could post German/Englisch songs they like and talk about the lyrics with their pen pals. They could post information on German/English customs, how they celebrate holidays at home. Creative work such as poems or short stories on different topics may be suitable as well. The curriculum offers a lot of topics which could easily be integrated in the web page, there is e.g. “bullying”, “single-parent families”, or “drugs and crime” to which the students will probably have a lot to talk about.

Other main ideas of the web page are the election of a “book of the week” or “film of the month”, regular online dates and the preparation and review of an actual meeting of the two learner groups in the framework of an exchange.

What I like most of this idea is the fact that it makes language “more real”. When I was a student I was never fully aware that behind the language I study at school are millions of people actually talking this language, there is  literature, movies, music, art…  it is a another world and the language is the key to it! A lot of students tend to say that sth is not worth learning since “I’ll never use it anyway!” English or French teachers should never hear anything like that because with languages this statement is simply not true and, in addition, dangerously ignorant. To keep the interests, to show that a language is something “real”, not only existing in books, this is what I hope to get across with this project. Another thing I really liked as well is that every student has the possibility to practise the foreign language with a native speaker. I chose one pen pal for each student since I thought it might be easier to keep a good contact with only one person.

normal_absolute_12_6238This project is huge… it would be a great effort to keep contact for such a long time! And it is probably very time consuming and diffficult to realize entirely! However, parts of it are definitely realizable:  two classes could share a blog as a project! A teacher could also build up an e-mail contact with the class they are going to have an exchange with! My dream of two learning groups accompanying each other over the period of second language acquisition will probably remain what it is: a dream! However, I really hope that I can realize parts of it in my futur job, e.g. in projects! With the help of them my future students will hopefully notice the world “behind” the English language!

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Interview with a student of 12th grade

January 13, 2009 at 7:57 am (Blogging Tasks)
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Do you often use the internet in class?

Not very often. In some classes we go to the Internet room regularly, in classes like Biology, Chemistry, Arts, Music, History and Mathematics we never went. I remember doing some research on the web with my German class. We did this in order to prepare our presentations. Sometimes we also prepare role-plays using the Internet. On the web, we are able to find out facts about the persons we are supposed to present.

Do you think that the Internet is sufficiently used in class?

I do not like the fact that it depends on the teacher if we go to the computer room or stay in class. My History teacher, for example, is very old and he teaches using the “old style” with him sitting in the front and the class listening to him! His classes would just be perfect to go to the computer room! I mean, the Internet is a huge base of information! There are certainly a lot of good web pages on historical topics! To answer your question: I believe that the Internet could and should be used more often! But it should be provided that the teachers use it for something interesting! And that they know how to use it!

comp211_demoDo you like classes you use the Internet or do you prefer in class-sessions?

It depends. Some classes in the computer room are not well-prepared and sometimes something is not working and our teacher is getting desperate… and then he has to search for the responsible teacher and sometimes this takes ages! Generally speaking, I prefer in class-sessions! I like having discussions, talking to my fellow students, doing group work… Lessons in the computer room are sometimes not very productive! Especially when something is not working… My English teacher, however, is quite used in working with the Internet. Her lessons are always good, no matter if spent in the classroom or in the computer room. I think that language teachers are well versed in using the Internet, at least better than the other ones. My little sister for example has an e-mail pen pal; it was her teacher who organized a contact to a French class! She already visited her friend in France with an exchange and via the web the two keep contact! Concerning the in class sessions: I sometimes believe that they are more useful! Not everything can be taught with the help of computers…

I guess that more can be taught than you can imagine! Maybe your teachers just don’t know how to use it…

You may be right with that! Especially old teachers never go to the computer room with us! One thing which really annoys me is that we do not have enough computers in the rooms! We are a big class and sometimes two people share one computer…

Do you think that there are also students in your class who have little knowledge of working with the computer and therefore have problems to follow?

I believe we are more or less on the same level. Usually, the boys are a bit better than the girls… but the girls work more conscientious, so it probably takes the same time. There may be two or three students in my class who do not use the computer regularly.

In what other subjects do you use the Internet and how do you do this?

In Geography classes we sometimes use it for research… and we use Word to prepare handouts containing our results to present them to the rest of the class. We mostly use it in German, English, and French lessons, I guess. In English we once had to write a poem and we were supposed to design a Word document and print it. The results are now hanging on the walls in our classroom.

Do you think that language classes are good to combine with the Internet?

There are a lot of possibilities! And Word corrects you grammar, at least the spelling mistakes!

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Would you like to have more (well-prepared) lessons using the Internet?

I definitely would! I just believe that our teachers need a bit of lessons as well… sometimes the students have more knowledge than the teacher him/herself. I also would like to have an e-mail pen pal… it would be good to improve my English! Maybe I even could also visit him or her one day… I think I will ask my teacher if she knows a contact to a British class!

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Dear Steinmühle! I have some questions about…

December 16, 2008 at 11:40 pm (Blogging Tasks)
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steinmuehle-logoThis week our class on New Media in SLA will visit the Landschulheim Steinmühle which is located near Marburg. During this field trip the course will have the possibility to take a look at the Media equipment of the school (which is probably a good one because the school is a private school ;-) ). Furthermore, they have the possibility to ask questions. Unfortunately, I will not be able to attend this session but I hope that some of my questions get answered!

How is the Steinmühle equipped? Are there any trainings for the teachers? Is it used regularly? We’ve already heard about a lot of possibilities to use the computer and I would like to get some new ideas! Maybe a teacher of a foreign language can be asked about a project!

Secondly, I would like to find out if the equipment (and the teacher skills) the Steinmühle offers is very different (i.e. “better” ;-) ) from “regular” schools. I’m interested in questions like: DO methods like e.g.”one computer per student” facilitate teaching (and learning)? If the New Media are this accessible: how do the teachers of the Steinmühle prevent students from risks like “getting lost in cyberspace” etc.?

I wish you all an  interesting and instructive time tomorrow!

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New Media at Fördegymnasium: past and present

December 9, 2008 at 7:56 am (Blogging Tasks)
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From 1996 to 2005 I was a student at the Fördegymnasium in Flensburg and I want to present you how they use and used the Computer and the Internet for teaching purposes. I found interesting information on this topic in the Schulprogramm which I will shortly summarize for you.

The Fördegymnasium wants to teach the students a basic knowledge and a responsible usage of the New Media. The Internet is regarded as a source of information and a platform for social learning beyond cultural and regional borders.

Since computer skills are becoming more and more important, the Fördegym offers every student to obtain a “licence” which is obligatory for students of the Unterstufe. This licence can be expanded in the following years and students have the possibility to refresh their knowledge continuously. Concrete aims of this Licence are e.g. being well-versed in using office software or using (and judging) Internet sources.

The Fördegym has two computer rooms which are used almost every lesson.  A future plan is to provide each classroom with at least one computer. In the office of the SV students have the possibility to access the Internet, the computer rooms are only open during lessons.

When I was a student we sometimes were confronted with the use of the New Media, especially during my last years in the Oberstufe. Some presentations in the intensive courses were already supported by PowerPoint and I also used it. I never really learned how to work with it, it was practically “learning by doing”. I actually had had a class on informatics in 11th grade, but we never worked with Word or Excel but did programming (which was quite senseless since the programming language we worked with was way out of date…). I also remember a teacher of maths who taught us how to use Excel in order to see the graph of a function which was really interesting and a good possibility to compare own results with the graph on Excel. Furthermore, we also used the Internet for research on specific topics, e.g. to prepare a role-play for language classes.

My school is a member of the Comenius project of the EU and with other schools from Berlin, Barcelona, Canterbury, Uhersky Brod and Kingston Upon Thames, a homepage was created: euro-mag.net. I believe that this page is now replaced by EuroWork. During my times at the Fördegym, teachers sometimes presented in-class results on this page, e.g. short stories, articles on events, poems or limericks by students. Every entry was written in English. This page was a mean to keep in touch with the other schools but, as far as I know, it was not used by the students to keep contact with students from foreign countries. Probably the page and this idea of cultural contact via the web had a lot more to offer than the schools realized at this time. I believe that EuroWork is already more elaborated; there even seems to be a section dealing with job-related orientation. Unfortunately I could not access this page.

After my research on the homepage I believe that the role of the New Media at the Fördegym has become more importatn within the three years after my Abi. The headmaster seems to react to the need of computer skills in our society and tries to prepare students for this future. I never had the possibility to obtain an Internet licence, and I guess that my age group was probably right in the middle of change: we started our time at the Fördegym without any computer room and left it with PowerPoint presentations in class. However, I do not like the fact that the computer rooms are not accessible during the breaks. If I remember it well, the SV office has only two or three very old computers, but this may have changed as well.

To summarize the results of my research I definitely have to say that the Fördegymnasium reacts on the development of the New Media. I like that students have the possibility of obtaining an Internet Licence and therefore getting skills in an organized way and not simply do “learning by doing”. The headmaster seems to see the responsibility that he has to prepare students for their future life, which will surely be influenced by the New Media. The knowledge of effective and responsible usage is therefore very important. The participation in the Comenius project and it homepage are also a good opportunity and definitely offer a lot of teaching potential.

 

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internet project: creating webpages in class

December 2, 2008 at 6:52 am (Blogging Tasks)
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This post will inform you about an Internet project for English classes which I found on the web and consider useful! I found it on www.english.schule.de, a quite interesting webpage for (future) teachers!

The project I’m going to describe is about creating an own webpage in class. The content of this webpage is the result from an analysis of a book, in this case of Paul Auster’s Moon Palace. To start the project the students first had to read the novel. Later they worked in groups on different topics such as characterisation of the main characters, development of the plot, stylistic devices, the presentation of the author, the setting, etc. In fact, the list of topics is neverending and can be specified according to the level of the class and, of course, the content of the novel. I found a webpage created by a 12th class which dealt with Nick Hornby’s About A Boy. One topic they chose was the comparison of the novel with the movie which I believe to be very interesting. In addition the course also presented itself and gave a short presentation of the webpage.

I really like this project for several reasons. I like the mixture of old and new media: first the class had to read a book, they can have discussions about it in class, do role-plays etc. During this time they get information on the novel and by creating a webpage they can save this knowledge. While working on the different topics the students practise social skills such as working in groups, listening to each other, considering other points of view etc.. Students will also improve their computer skills when searching on the web for information on the topics and, of course, when they actually design the webpage. I really liked the idea of achieving something together in class, having a webpage as a result of their work. Furthermore, a webpage offers the possibility to access the results from the group work at any time. However, to work with it efficiently each group should also shortly present their topic to the course.

If you are also interested in this project, check out the webpage of the course dealing with Moon Palace : http://www.englisch.schule.de/auster/main.htm

Hope you enjoy it as much as I did!

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Internet Communication: two sides of a coin

November 25, 2008 at 6:29 am (Blogging Tasks)
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In this post I want to comment on this week’s virtual session which is about Internet Communication. The Unit provides us with information about several communication tools, asynchronous and synchronous. It seems that the Internet offers for each type of communication a virtual solution: we don’t write letters anymore but e-mails, we chat with each other instead of talking, we may even call somebody via the net!

I have to admit that I also rather write a message to my friends (e.g. to tell them news) instead of simply calling each one of them… Why am I doing this? And when was the last time I wrote a letter to somebody? I guess the biggest advantage for me concerning e-mail is that it is asynchronous: I can write an e-mail at every time of the day and the person who I’m writing to does not need to be home but can read it later. That’s a true advantage! In an e-mail I also have time to think about what to say, and I can write one e-mail to several persons which means that I save time. Via e-mail I can keep contact very easily with my friends from school who now study all over Germany. With my best friends I even share something like a forum where we talk and keep each other up to date. It is great that by using this forum we never lose contact, but since we have it, we talk less on the phone and everyone only gets quite “superficial” information which ”are allowed” to be heard by everyone us…

Concerning the synchronous tools I heard about MUDs and MOOs for the first time! I am personally not convinced if this tool should be used frequently because I see the risk if getting lost in this virtual world. I believe that taking a ”virtual” person’s character and building up a virtual world involves a risk and removes the User from reality. However, I also see the chances concerning teaching! With the supervision of a teacher, a Moo can definitely be used for educational purposes!

I am personally a big fan of video-conferences! I use the program “Skype” to talk to my friends and (if everything works well ;-) ) there are a lot of advantages in comparison to the regular telephone: you can chat while talking, send each other links etc., you can see each other (if both have a web-cam), you can not only talk to one but have little group discussions and it is for free! The last point plays a big role when you want to talk to somebody who’s in another country! The disadvantages are that you cannot call somebody spontaneously since both persons have to be online, you need a good internet connection, and, of course, Skype has to work! Every once in a while this program is totally overstrained and communication is no longer possible :-(

The biggest disadvantage of these communication tools is definitely that an e-mail or a chat can never replace a good face-to-face conversation! The only program coming close to it is video conference… In addition a letter (instead of an e-mail) shows that the person took his time for you, wrote a letter (which takes more time than typing!), went to the post, and paid for it!

I was really surprised on the huge amount of internet abbreviations! They are indeed very practical since they save time (in fact they only save some seconds…) and I also use some of them when I write messages. However, I believe that they are also a risk, e.g. for foreign learners of English. If they use these abbreviations of a foreign language, they will maybe loose the ability to express themselves in their own language. In addition, this slang is not really part of what we call “good language”.

I like the idea of using Internet Communication especially for classes of foreign language education. Building up an e-mail friendship with somebody from England or France is a good opportunity to practice! We already had some ideas and discussions about it in class and I believe we all agreed that there are various possibilities we as a teacher can make use of. However, it is always important to keep an eye on it and guide the students when using the net!

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my opinion on the topic of the poster “drill and practice”

November 10, 2008 at 5:52 pm (Blogging Tasks)
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Last week our course was divided into groups to create a poster which had to answer a question dealing with topic such as learning skills, learning methods or the internet as a learner-supporting element.

I really liked the poster which informed us about the “drill and practice” method. Despite its “bad reputation” drill and practice software is still available and it was the group’s task to name the reasons. Using the symbol of the heart for “learning by heart” and the light bulb for “learning through understanding” was a simple yet convincing way to differ between these two methods. I also agree with the group’s opinion that drill and practice may be useful for learners in some cases, e.g. concerning vocabulary for language acquisition, dates for history lessons, or biological terms for biology. All this knowledge does not have to be understood since there is no real “pattern” in it, or the student may not yet be able to understand the pattern. Drill and practice therefore only works with information which does not entail an application different from the one which was learnt by heart. And in this case it works very well, especially when there is a lot of information one has to remember.

However, drill and practice is not useful for every content. By drawing a lightening next to the bulb the group demonstrated (once again ;-) ) in an easy but effective way that drill and practice may not be suitable for the following content: math, text work, and grammar. The usage of grammar has to be understood in order to create correct sentences; in this case learning by heart would not be of much help.

Furthermore the group named the reasons why drill and practice software is still available. They say that it is effective if you have to learn sth by heart, that it is less time-consuming and also less preparation for the teacher. I agree with these points and the fact that this poster is the only one I really kept in my mind (well, one week is a long time!!) shows that they did a good job!

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Learning Theories and Priciples: My Reception of This Unit

November 3, 2008 at 1:29 pm (Blogging Tasks)
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The unit “Learning theories and Principles” gives examples on different approaches concerning the acquisition of language.
In my opinion behaviourism is a rather extreme (and out of date) point of view reganrding our mind as an empty space which has to be filled with information. This can be done either by classic conditioning (natural reflex follows stimulus) or behavioral conditioning (response to stimulus is reinforced, e.g. by a reward). According to behaviorists the process of memorizing is simply an input-output relation. Thus, the learner has to repeat sth in order to learn it (drill & practice). I believe that this theorie is too simple and does not take everything into account: behaviourists claim that speaking is just reproduction, and this, obviously, is not true since we are all able to formulate “new phrases” (phrases we have not heard before).

Constructivism says that everything we learn is related to our experiences upon which we “construct” our own world. Thus, our knowledge is the result of our own constructions and not of sb else’s instructions (teacher…). I agree with most parts of this theorie, however, it appears to me a bit too technical…
Cognitivism claims that information has to be understood by the learner, therefore information has to be learner-constructed. Memorizing and learning are not simply effects but stand in relation to the invidual’s abilities. What I consider an interesting approach is the aspect of the two hemispheres: according
to cognitivism the left (“visual/mental”)and the right (“emotional”) hemisphere have to be stimulated in order to achieve the learner.

The unit also gives examples of learning priciples who are related to new media. First, there is “distant education”, a principle where people participate in courses while being at home and using some media (radio, television, internet…). This principle offers learners to study when- and whereever they want.
The second principle is called “skills” which can be either methodological (structure…), scientific (knowledge, experience) or social ( cooperation, commitment). They also play a big role in language acquisition.

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teenagers and new media: my opinion

October 20, 2008 at 5:08 pm (Blogging Tasks)
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Last week we had a quite interesting discussion going on in my ‘New media in Foreign Language Education” course.
We all watched a video of an interview on youtube. The speaker was Mark Bauerlein and he had some interesting point of views concerning new media and its usage for teenagers. In the following I want to comment on some of his theses.

Mark Bauerlein states that teenagers don’t make use of various media and culture. Most of them only use the internet; books, newspaper etc are neglected by them. In addition he says that teenagers use the internet the wrong way namely not as a source of information but rather as a mean to keep in touch with their friends.
I believe that in some ways Bauerlein is right. It is obvious that a lot of young people waste their time in front of the computer, chatting with each other or playing online games. However, i don’t think that internet platforms (as he states) are unneccesary. I also use some of them and it makes it a lot easier to keep contact with friends all over the world. Furthermore, he states that reading e.g. is absolutely neglected and people who have no idea of some important classic cannot see themselves as civilized people. I wonder if Mr Bauerlein believes that a person without friends but a great knowledge about certain books can be called civilised? In fact, according to him, most of the population seems to be uncivilised! I see the problem that many people have internet contacts they do not know in person and i agree that keeping contact with them is indeed a waste of time. But I wonder if they would get along better in the world if they read this or that book instead of sitting in front of the screen. In addition it is questionable if this group would actually read classics instead of surfing on the internet.

Bauerlein states as well that it is the teacher’s duty to help teenagers to access the “adult world”. This should be achieved by the usage of various media and the teacher is supposed to show them to his/her pupils. Where is the next task we can take from the parents duty and put it to the teacher’s responsibility? I think that education of this kind should already start at home, parents should have an eye on their children’s internet consume and they should also make sure that children have an access to other media. The main impulse regarding the cultural offer should as well come from the parents.

Bauerlein sees a problem in the time teenagers spend per week surfing in the internet (9h) in comparison to the time teenagers read a book (1h per week). He believes that the consequence is that teenagers stuck in their teenager world and miss the transition to the adult world. Although I believe that this statement is a generalisation, I consent that one has to observe critically his/her time spent in front of the screen. If teenagers are not yet ready to judge this objectively, it should be controlled from the parental side. Teachers play in my opinion only a supporting role.

Bauerlein’s arguments and examples may sometimes be subjective and generalized, but this fact does not change the true core in them. I guess that everyone has already had the thought of having spent too much time with stupid things on the web.

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welcome!

October 14, 2008 at 8:40 am (Uncategorized)

hey everyone!

welcome to my blog!
hope you enjoy it!! :-)

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