Wednesday, December 8, 2010
Tuesday, December 7, 2010
Sunday, November 14, 2010
Wednesday, November 10, 2010
Friday, October 22, 2010
CNMTL NME 2010 Cool app for podcast
For Three Heads Chinese Language Club, we want to podcast our project. We re on our way to learn it. Today i went to a seminar in education technology. We dont have money becuz we r students. ---AUSTERITY. See how can we survive in this economic environment. Here is what I learn about podcast. Check it out:
1. Jing:
It is free and small app.
I just tried (see the pic below). Looks good and easy to use
2. Tubechop:
Chop the video as we want online and share in major social network. But the thing is we can not download it. Then we can not embed it onto our page. We wont expect watermarks on our free trial video then.
1. Find the video you want to chop.
2. Select & cut interesting part of the video.
3. Share it with friends.
http://www.tubechop.com/
3. Google Analytics
It will tell you how many visitors have hit your website and track them!!
4. Diigo:
Bookmark, highlight, and sticky note.
https://chrome.google.com/extensions/detail/oojbgadfejifecebmdnhhkbhdjaphole
4. Mediathread: really cool platform for collaboration: point to library sources together
1. Jing:
It is free and small app.
I just tried (see the pic below). Looks good and easy to use
2. Tubechop:
Chop the video as we want online and share in major social network. But the thing is we can not download it. Then we can not embed it onto our page. We wont expect watermarks on our free trial video then.
1. Find the video you want to chop.
2. Select & cut interesting part of the video.
3. Share it with friends.
http://www.tubechop.com/
3. Google Analytics
It will tell you how many visitors have hit your website and track them!!
4. Diigo:
Bookmark, highlight, and sticky note.
https://chrome.google.com/extensions/detail/oojbgadfejifecebmdnhhkbhdjaphole
4. Mediathread: really cool platform for collaboration: point to library sources together
Monday, October 11, 2010
To TEACH Chinese in a modern way - inspired by Webspiration
When I was back in college in China, the most memory is the huge blackboard and chalks. Our teachers seems really floating on their lecture progress, start from wherever they want and stop just as they like, they can dominate the whole 2 hours class from the beginning; instead, we are supposed to sit there quietly and listen to teachers' talking until he dismiss the class. We were dummied during four years; I have never seen a syllabus before, no feedback on assignment, no communication before or after class, not encouraged to think critically, no real interaction or argument in class, let alone anything related to state-of-art technologies(we do have projector). We sit in the classroom as wait in the hospital, waiting the final exam (like someone with a sickle) to call upon us.
Thus, we still hold strong feeling against teaching that it is the most inefficient work that even everyone can do. Teachers do it more like a teacher, slowly and rigidly. I was desperate to get to the idea that my previous career in teaching Chinese as a foreign language would, one day, end up as I standing by the blackboard with the chalks, and students eyeing on me with detached and indifferent looks, as what I did in the college. No! Run away from the nightmare!
Now there may be some change. The webspiration enlightens me that I can use it in an experimental way! Just like doing a business. What is the core of doing business? It is to achieve the greatest benefits, monetary or non monetary in the shortest period. HUB: Efficiency.
Recalling the traditional Chinese teaching method, we always spend way too much time on asking students to write characters. Even the most advanced students have the writing skills no more than an elementary student. And it usually takes years for them to speak out fluently. YEARS! -----"You can not afford it!"as Suze Orman says. Do you know how big the opportunity cost is to spend some ineffective time to sit in class?
I can now rely on webspiration as the blackboard. It is real time and it is interative. Students can type their thoughts to this "blackboard" and I will be caught in their inspiring thinking immediately. Also students can wirte their homework on webspiration and I can mark them without carrying those papers.
Webspiration can definitely help to achive the following goals for Chinese teahing:
• Reactability
A positive communication is based on meaningful coding and decoding of language. Students should be able to react when confronted with any form of language like article or dialogue, to decode the target language to his original language. When they are typing on webspiration, the brain undergoes:
native languge --(encode)----target language--------search for pronunciation--------type the combination-----choose right word from multiple combinations. The students can pratice Chinese even when I talk to other students and later I can comment on that. Students won't miss it.
• Chatability
When a successful decoding is established, learners should code his own thoughts and express them to others. The word Chat focuses on the casualty, easiness and smoothness. The students are not required to present formal conversation or essay bind by Chinese language rules. Thus, the first rough ideas are encouraged. They are saved from worring about rules.
• Thinkability
The most difficult part in Tran cultural communication is how to deal with problems caused by ideology, customs, and believes, and so on. The learners will undergo some club activities to immerse them in the mock culture clashes. Learners are expected to establish a dimensional thinking mode to understand target meaning underlined in the conversation while maintaining his own cultural thinking. When a certain contrast is formed by their thinking, concept map on the platform is a right choice for them to jot down their thoughts.
We create technology to shape and hone us to improve our way of doing stuff. Chinese can not be too proud of their long standing history and charm of the characters. They have to let people around the globe to appreciate it. Comlaint about it is too hard to teach Chinese is a negative way. Webspiration is a hope for sure.
Thus, we still hold strong feeling against teaching that it is the most inefficient work that even everyone can do. Teachers do it more like a teacher, slowly and rigidly. I was desperate to get to the idea that my previous career in teaching Chinese as a foreign language would, one day, end up as I standing by the blackboard with the chalks, and students eyeing on me with detached and indifferent looks, as what I did in the college. No! Run away from the nightmare!
Now there may be some change. The webspiration enlightens me that I can use it in an experimental way! Just like doing a business. What is the core of doing business? It is to achieve the greatest benefits, monetary or non monetary in the shortest period. HUB: Efficiency.
Recalling the traditional Chinese teaching method, we always spend way too much time on asking students to write characters. Even the most advanced students have the writing skills no more than an elementary student. And it usually takes years for them to speak out fluently. YEARS! -----"You can not afford it!"as Suze Orman says. Do you know how big the opportunity cost is to spend some ineffective time to sit in class?
I can now rely on webspiration as the blackboard. It is real time and it is interative. Students can type their thoughts to this "blackboard" and I will be caught in their inspiring thinking immediately. Also students can wirte their homework on webspiration and I can mark them without carrying those papers.
Webspiration can definitely help to achive the following goals for Chinese teahing:
• Reactability
A positive communication is based on meaningful coding and decoding of language. Students should be able to react when confronted with any form of language like article or dialogue, to decode the target language to his original language. When they are typing on webspiration, the brain undergoes:
native languge --(encode)----target language--------search for pronunciation--------type the combination-----choose right word from multiple combinations. The students can pratice Chinese even when I talk to other students and later I can comment on that. Students won't miss it.
• Chatability
When a successful decoding is established, learners should code his own thoughts and express them to others. The word Chat focuses on the casualty, easiness and smoothness. The students are not required to present formal conversation or essay bind by Chinese language rules. Thus, the first rough ideas are encouraged. They are saved from worring about rules.
• Thinkability
The most difficult part in Tran cultural communication is how to deal with problems caused by ideology, customs, and believes, and so on. The learners will undergo some club activities to immerse them in the mock culture clashes. Learners are expected to establish a dimensional thinking mode to understand target meaning underlined in the conversation while maintaining his own cultural thinking. When a certain contrast is formed by their thinking, concept map on the platform is a right choice for them to jot down their thoughts.
We create technology to shape and hone us to improve our way of doing stuff. Chinese can not be too proud of their long standing history and charm of the characters. They have to let people around the globe to appreciate it. Comlaint about it is too hard to teach Chinese is a negative way. Webspiration is a hope for sure.
Dropbox v.s. Google Doc
Dropbox:
Thanks to a classmate sharing the online tool of Dropbox, it is the most amazing tool I have ever used. It synchronizing not only the computer and cyber room, but makes me feel finally technology is not technical anymore and makes life really beautiful.
I will never be afraid of losing my files if my computer crashes to the ground (oops). Either will I panic if I forgot to bring my hard drive to print some important files to show the students. One simple click will help me find the doc. The virtual storage room provides us a feeling of warmth, that the computer and online platform get finally synchronized and great thing is I can download the app to different computers and the lovely folders keep in every computer connected with me. This is real the seamless interface of offline and online work. No copy, no paste, no drag, no new duplicate and confounding folders. If it has to point one little dislike, it is I can't edit the document online. If it happens in the computers in our library where doesn't allow us to store anything under the local disk, we have to pull out the USB again.
Google Doc:
Google really does a lot of good to us. They created online docs so we can edit document online. However, possibly it dominates the market for too long and has a large market shares, they even change the format of my docs which I carefully formatted before uploading.
Comparison of Dropbox and Google Docs:
Thanks to a classmate sharing the online tool of Dropbox, it is the most amazing tool I have ever used. It synchronizing not only the computer and cyber room, but makes me feel finally technology is not technical anymore and makes life really beautiful.
I will never be afraid of losing my files if my computer crashes to the ground (oops). Either will I panic if I forgot to bring my hard drive to print some important files to show the students. One simple click will help me find the doc. The virtual storage room provides us a feeling of warmth, that the computer and online platform get finally synchronized and great thing is I can download the app to different computers and the lovely folders keep in every computer connected with me. This is real the seamless interface of offline and online work. No copy, no paste, no drag, no new duplicate and confounding folders. If it has to point one little dislike, it is I can't edit the document online. If it happens in the computers in our library where doesn't allow us to store anything under the local disk, we have to pull out the USB again.
Google Doc:
Google really does a lot of good to us. They created online docs so we can edit document online. However, possibly it dominates the market for too long and has a large market shares, they even change the format of my docs which I carefully formatted before uploading.
Comparison of Dropbox and Google Docs:
Doc Friendly | Choice of Doc | Online editing | Synching | |
Dropbox | ★ keep the original format | ★ any document | ☆ | ★online, multiple computer platforms and real time |
Google Docs | ☆ Change to Google Format | ☆ Word, excel, spreadsheet, ppt, drawing, form | ★ | ☆ Have to upload manually |
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)