Internet-based environments

• What content could this help you teach?

          Many of the content could help me teach. I have 4th and 5th graders, they are young and love technology! Especially the following technologies could help me teach very well: podcasts, educational gaming, wiki and educational blogs.

• What type of pedagogical strategies might you use with your students?

         Podcast is a great way to provide extra learning and reviewing chances for students. What I do is I will record podcast and upload them on the teaching website, then students could review them whenever they want to.

        Educational gaming works really well for my young students. It is interactive, fun and educational. I have been using games like matching colors, numbers and so on. It is a very motivating tool.

        Wiki is something I wanna try in the future. Wiki could provide students with a platform where they could learn and collaborate today. It will be nice to use it to do projects.

         Educational blog is something I am using now as a way to get students and parents informed about homework and learning contents. Students could go online to view the blog and learn and review as they want.

• What technologies do you think would be harder to use with your students? Why? 

        I would not be able to use the online field trips, since my students are so young. Another thing I would not use is career planning tools, it is too early for my students.

Final Thoughts

     What are some things that you have learned about effective teaching strategies when integrating technology?

    I have learned a lot about how to effectively integrating technology into classroom teaching. First, I learned how to use  Bubbl.us, Jing, stAIR creation and creation of my own website. I have learned how to add them into teaching. Second, I realized that there are still a lot more to explore using technology for classroom teaching. Third, technology is a very good tool to motivate students and get their attention. I tried some of the software in my teaching, and it turned out that students really love it.

     

      How did integrating web-based technologies help you think about and evaluate uses of technology?

      Web-based technologies help me better communicate with students and parents; provide easy access for students to learn outside of classroom. It has made me reflected on my traditional way of teaching and evaluation. Web-based technologies provide alternative ways to evaluate,and it is very easy to keep data and get feedback anonymous. I love web-based technologies.

       How have you met your own personal goals for learning about technology integration?

       I have net my personal goals for learning about technology integration. I remember my goal was to get more comfortable with technology, learn to use more technology and have a good score. I have reached my goal in this course. Very satisfactory.

   

        Do you have any new goals? What are your plans for reaching your new goals and your long-term goals after this course is over?

       My goal is to form a habit of integrating technology into teaching in a regular base. To reach my long term goal, I need to review what I have learned in this course, reflect on it and make a time frame as to how to gradually integrate more technology into teaching.

Wikis Lab work

I created my own wiki space and the link is http://husiming.wikispaces.com/ You can find a screen shot of it here:

I feel it very interesting to learn about wiki space and PBworks. I have learned a lot from the articles, videos and tutorials, and I figured it may be a great idea to use use the Wikispace as a way for students to collaborate and work together. It is easy to use,and easy to edit and add upon things. I have embeded some video and widgets, and created a new page and linked them together.

Now I will talk about what I added to the wikipedia definition to our school. Our school is a public school district in a northwest suburb near Chicago. I added one sentence about our Chinese program: "This school district currently has a Chinese language program for 4th and 5th graders at elementary level."
Here is a screen shot of it:

Merlot learning

The Merlot learning resource I evaluated is Chinese Video Exercise.

The website is  http://www.merlot.org/merlot/viewMaterial.htm?id=78900 I love the look of this simple page. I believe this could be helpful for high level learners to apply and improve their listening and speaking skills in Chinese.

This resource is well organized with different categories of topics. And each video was shot with Chinese actors and actress. Their talking is clear and loud, very good for learners to listen and practice. It is also clear and user friendly. There are three units and the difficulty level goes up as you proceed from unit one to unit two. It is clearly labeled and can be played again and again. It helps learners to relate what they have learned to real life situations.