Week 5- Thinkfinity and SAS

http://a4esl.org/

The link I found from Thinkfinity is related to my major which is Teaching English as a Second Language. I found it very interesting because it provides lots of different activities in English and bilingual quizzes. The activities which are grammar, vocabulary and crossword puzzles are arranged from easy to difficult. The other section of link is useful to compare their mother tongue to English because, as a teacher, it is not possible to know all different languages in ESL classes.
My future plan is teaching English to students who are speaking different languages and the only common language will be English in the classroom. Students feel comfortable themselves by doing this activities and they can evaluate themselves with different activities from the textbooks and other common classroom activities.


http://www.sascurriculumpathways.com/portal/Launch?id=1331

The link above from sascurriculumpathaways.com is really interesting which is about Concrete Language and how to use it in writing.  I found it from English Language Arts, then Grammar Skills. The reason way I chose it is that the use of concrete language in right place is difficult to learn for ESLs. As I had experienced that kind of problems while learning, I liked very much the key points which are given in the video. I am going to use this video in both writing and speaking lessons and also  the language he used and the way he told are appropriate every age and level. However, the beginner and pre- elementary level hasn't understood yet; nevertheless as  they are developing, they are going to catch some points because of the cartoons. This is very basic video to attract students' attention to concrete, specific and definite words and to improve the way they express themselves in writing and speaking. As a general, they are going to learn via this video, being specific will ease their job.

Week 3- Copyright

Copyright is a legal issue which is not known much by students. However, after learning copyright in the classroom, I learned that it is much more than we knew. Therefore, as a teacher candidate, we should be aware of every details of copyright. Otherwise, the results would become worser than we thought.

Copyright infringement is really big issue ;that is, both students and even teachers can do without unconciosly unless they know every copyright laws. As we are in technology era, all students are educated how to use copyrighted materials and how to change or share them.

I am going to teach copyright to my students in the very beginning of my course.  I am going to divide my class groups and each group includes six people. These six people will have one of the six creative common licences and for next week, they will present their own license to their group members. Then, all group members combine all six licences and present all of them in front of class. With this way, all students have chance to learn all details of creative common licences.

Week 2- Flipped Classroom

I think Flipped Classroom is an interesting and great way of teaching along with technology. A Flipped Classroom teacher increases not only the use of technology and computer but also the interaction with his/her students. Basicly, flipped classroom means students are 'doing homework at school, learning outside from the school by themselves.' By using this method, students can satisfy learning by themselves and teachers don't have to teach the same thing so many times in the classroom environment. Teachers interact every student one-to-one and are the helper of their homeworks. Another advantage of flipped classroom is that students can arrange learning time because videos are always available. This also minimizes the possibility of distracting. In my class Digital Environment, we also use flipped classroom while we are learning different kind of softwares. Our classmates upload his/her teaching data and we have to watch it before the class in order to do our homework in the class with the help of him/her.
However, flipped classrom doesn't always work successfully. Because, unfortunately, not every student has the computer in their home. Some  students can only access technology in their schools. Therefore, teachers have to be sure that every student has their own PC or whether they can afford to buy one. Another negative way is Flipped Classroom can't be applied every level and every lesson. For example, I think elemantary school students are too young to arrange themselves. Moreover, even in high school, there are some courses that includes controversial issues. To sum up, if flipped classrom is applied right age and right level, it will really increase the learning of students because students never forget what they learn themselves instead of teachers' lectures.

What I hope to learn from this class and my other ideas about this course

My first blog entry is related to what I hope to learn from this class. We are living in a world which is developing day by day in terms of technology; therefore, we should keep up with it. As a prospective teacher, taking 'Digital Environment' course is really good chance for me. We are going to learn approximately 30 different softwares in this semester and all of them will be very useful for us not only while teaching to students but also while using technology in our daily life. Also, after taking this course, I will become familiar with different kind of softwares and Internet resources. Thanks to this course, I am sure I learn how to use technology in the classroom effectively while teaching to my students.