My Thoughts of Using Diigo and Pinterest

My Thoughts of Using Diigo and Pinterest

This is my first time using Diigo and Pinterest, and I feel both of them are powerful tools to collect, organize and share knowledge. Diigo allows users to bookmark and tag webpages. More importantly, it allows users to save websites and access them on any computer. Users can highlight any part of a webpage and add notes if needed. The notes can be kept private, shared or forwarded to someone within a Diigo user group. Pinterest is another tool to store and save information in one organized place. Pinterest uses a visual pin board to save websites that have an image associated with the page. On Pinterest, users are able to set up different boards for the same use. I feel that Diigo is more useful in academic study and research. I like to use this tool to save some websites that are useful and important to my teaching and categorize the websites into different topics as my teaching resources. Before knowing Diigo, when I needed to find some information for my teaching from different websites, I will put them in my favorite links in my laptop. One challenge is that I collected so many favorite links in my laptop and it is very hard to find one when I try to find some reference. The problem is that the favorite links are computer-dependent, if I use another computer, I have no way to find my favorite links to those websites. This problem does not exist by using Diigo. After I learn how to use Diigo, I can build my own online teaching library, and I can save pictures, notes and websites to organize my thoughts. I also like one feature of Diigo as it can highlight any part of the webpage and attach notes when needed. It helps me collect material to prepare an organized presentation. Both Diigo and Pinterest are free on-line tools for users to save and organize favorite websites, online articles, blog posts, images and other online materials. I feel Pinterest is more useful in classroom teaching as it has more visual effects. With Pinterest users can interact by commenting on other user’s pins or to follow their board. As I teach a second language, I prefer using Pinterest in my classroom for its immediate visual presentation of images. It is helpful to use Pinterest to create various educative pin boards and tell my students to follow my pins. In this way, I can pin educative images related to the topic subject I would like to teach, and my students will find it easy to relate to these images. I feel that it is more natural to use Pinterest together with interactive smart white board in my classroom.

Labels: Diigo, Pinterest, Technology

Teaching and Learning with ICT

I watched the video “The Future Stats Now”, and I am interested in the benefits of using ICT (Information and Communication Technology) in teaching and learning. The video discusses necessary skills that are needed in the 21st century, as students must have a "range of functional and critical thinking skills related to information, media and technology" to succeed in a 21st century marketplace. It also discuss how to use ICT smartly to improve teaching and students’ learning. Teachers should be prepared to integrate latest information and communication technology into their teaching practices that better help students acquire knowledge and learn new technologies. 

By watching the video, I strongly agree that ICT can promote our teaching and learning and my primary interest is how to use ICT in my classroom. Just like an instructional tool, ICT can help teachers prepare teaching materials, deliver lessons, and evaluate students’ learning. More importantly, ICT can help attract students’ interest in learning a subject and engage them in the teaching and learning process. Also, ICT can help students develop their writing skills, spelling, grammar, punctuation, editing and self-learning. When I recall my teaching 20 years ago, I used only chalk and blackboard, and it was mainly a teacher-centre approach.  The only “technology” at that time was watching TV and available to students for watching news during lunch time. Right now, I use smart board in my classroom every day. I am glad to see that the students have more interest and engage more in my classrooms nowadays. Usually I spend hours to collect teaching materials through various websites, and research information related my topics then sort, reorganize and edit to my teaching. I really believe that teaching with ICT is a cool and effective way to prepare and carry out my curriculum.

By using ICT in the teaching and learning process, students can engage more in learning and involve more in tasks and group work. ICT promotes interaction between teachers and students, and it also promotes peer learning among students. ICT is very helpful in implementing student/learner-centre teaching and learning approach. Based on my teaching experience, I have observed that students can learn much better in a technology-enhanced setting than in a traditional classroom learning environment. 

Are You Ready As a 21st Century Teacher?

Are You Ready As a 21^st Century Teacher?

We are living in a technology-enhanced world. Nowadays, we have internet, smart phones, Google, Facebook, online media, blogging, interactive Whiteboard, and so on. Technologies have huge impact in teaching and learning process. As a teacher in the 21^st century, we have to learn, adapt and use the new technologies to teach students in a better way. We need to connect and communicate with students and create a rich learning environment by using interactive teaching technologies.

I recall that when I was a student in elementary/middle/high schools during 1980’s and 1990’s, teachers always used chalks and blackboards, and taught based on textbooks and workbooks. The main focus in the teaching and learning process at that time was that a teacher gave a lecture and students practiced, practiced and practiced more. Learning in the classroom was boring and it was easy to get lost from time to time in that kind of learning environment. By watching the video “A Vision of 21st Century Teachers”, I totally agree that technologies have changed our living styles nowadays and also have great impacts in teaching and acquiring knowledge. Using technologies like multimedia and blogging as tools in teaching, they are very helpful to attract students’ interest in learning a subject and engage them in the teaching and learning process. By using the Facetime and the internet, teachers and students from different countries may interact and cooperate in projects and can gain from face-to-face and online learning activates, so it easily gives students a sense of the global community. By using blogging, teachers and students can share their analysis of literature and create digital music mixes for presentation and discuss issues in their living and the world around them. Using digital cameras/camcorders to capture things in the real world is helpful to explain some complex concepts in classrooms, and visual learners can comprehend difficult concepts easier. It is interesting to observe that technologies can unleash the power that students may bring with them into the classroom in terms of creative thinking and productivity.

  

After I watched the video, I have some thoughts about a 21st century classroom looks like. I think a 21^st century class should have a strong foundation in every subjects, and exploring curriculum topics by using technologies and using various projects to help students learning and acquiring knowledge. Students can have better connected and engaged in the learning environment. As an elementary school teacher, I try to use technologies like multimedia and blogging to motivate students’ interest in learning Chinese and make them feel fun to learn in my classroom. I will use combine art tools with text editing, clip art, blog and voice recording that provide students with tools to communicate ideas and demonstrate understanding. As a 21^st century teacher, I think my classroom should be a place for students that get excited in learning and acquiring new knowledge. 

Blogging for second language learning has been a topic of discussion for many second-language teachers. After I read the two articles “7 Reasons teachers should blogs” and “Learning Connections”, I have better understanding the reasons why implementing blogging in the L2 classroom. As I teach elementary school students, I was thinking how to use blogging to teach elementary school students.

By reading the articles, I learn that blogging can be used for a variety of purposes in second language learning, including developing fluency in second-language writing, communications and motivation through dialogues with authentic audience. Blogging can also promote more reading and writing skills. Bloggers can comment on news stories, and share pictures on sites like Facebook and Instagram. Students can read, and write in a target language for information and understanding. I totally understand the value of using blogging in second language learning, and plan to incorporate blogging in my teaching. I am going to use blogging in learning activities, for example, some activities based on the topics “Foods”, “Community Roles and Places”, “Holidays”, and so on. For example, for the topic “Chinese Foods”, students can blogging anything that they know about Chinese foods, such as “how many Chinese foods they can tell”, “what is their favorite Chinese foods”, and so on. By doing this way, it fits to the New York State (NYS) Standards Language Other Than English (LOTE). This blogging activity meets the NYS Standard LOTE. ML.1.2. B.D. which indicates that students can exhibit more comprehensive knowledge of cultural traits and patterns. By using blogging, I can also discuss food cultural comparison, as students will be able to understand cultural differences between Chinese foods and American foods.

An interesting idea is that blogs as a genre technology can encourage students to express and reflect as much as they can. Some researches show that blogging can also cause students to reflect and be more creative. By using blogging technology, our students may learn without really realizing that they are learning. They soak things up while having fun, then gradually developing understanding and fluency in the second language. Using blogging can help my students better understand and express their understanding, feeling and exchange opinions. I would like to implement the idea of posting classroom weekly news, favorite music, stories, homework questions and fun activities, and so on. I will borrow Ms. Lucia’s idea that each student needs to respond to two posts. From the blogging activities, the students will have more opportunity to participate in learning the second language. This bogging activities fit NYS Standard LOTE. ML.1.2 B.F. which emphasize that students can produce written narratives and expressions of opinion about radio, television, newspaper, article, and stories, songs, and literature of the target language. Using blogging can help my students better engage themselves in learning and express their understanding of what they learn.