WHAT and HOW Can Podcasting Do?

Podcasting gives learners opportunities to access to any information they are interested in even when they are busy. Learners can also gain knowledge through listening Podcasting even outsides the classrooms. I believe Podcasting can meet students' learning needs and help them move from their current competent level to the next level.

The Podcasting software I chose was NPR. This Podcasting website covers a wide rage of topics from global issues, common knowledge to different types of music genres. Among those topics, I chose the episode named The World Is A Family Tree 'In Its All Relative'. I would use this as an after-class activity for my ESL students to practice their listening after having lessons about intercultural interactions.

The learning objective of this lesson falls under performance indicator- ESL. C.9-12.1.1.2: Students read, gather, view, listen to, organize, discuss, interpret, and analyze information related to academic content areas from various sources. When students are listening this Podcasting, students cannot only gain content knowledge on this topic but, in a meanwhile, develop their English competence and skills while engaging in content-based learning.

To sum up, I believe Podcasting can meet the needs of diverse levels of learners and can be applied to different kinds of lesson based on the chosen Podcasting topics. Podcasting enables learners to gain content knowledge almost anytime and anywhere, which is conducive for their learning.

Flip your classroom

The concepts of flipped classroom seem totally opposite from the traditional classroom practice. After reading articles about flipped classroom, I think flipped classroom creates a more student-centered learning environment and, therefore, students will feel more motivated to learn comparing to  the traditional teaching and learning approaches. 

Flipping Your EL Classroom: A Primer provides insights on how flipped classroom works. Flipped classroom moves instruction outside the classroom. In other words, students access content knowledge outside of the classroom. After students access those content knowledge, they interact with their teachers and peers for deeper comprehensive input. The role of teaches is not just to instruct content knowledge to students but to scaffold students' learning when they need help. 

Another article named Three Reasons To Flip Your classroom focuses on benefits of flipped classroom and how flipped classroom can benefit students' learning. After reading this article, I find flipped classroom provides more opportunities for students to take control of their learning. Moreover, through in-class interaction with their peers, students can clarify their misunderstanding on the concepts due to the fact that their peers can use the similar "ways of talks" while explaining, applying, and creating the new knowledge. Peer interaction can make the complex concepts more understandable, and teachers can check for students' understanding in in-class interaction. 

To conclude, flipped classroom definitely motivates students' learning; allows students to learn on their own pace; enables students to practice their use of language in meaningful communication. I believe flipped classroom provides a new effective way for students' learning. 

Reactions to videos for Mod# 3

There are infinite uses of technology. Through using technology, both teachers and students can share knowledge, communicate efficiently, create our own learning community and, most importantly, take an active role on our learning. I watched two videos related to why technology is of importance to implement in our classroom-- it allows us to acquire tomorrow's skills today. The followings include my reactions and thoughts of those two videos.

The first video I watched is The Future Starts Now, which is about information and communication technology (ICT) in education. It provides insightful points on reasons for keeping technology in education, instead of keeping out. Students will feel interested and motivated to learn based on their interests, learn things in a different way, and, therefore, reduce the dropout rate. Though technology can help students' learning and cultivate skills that students need in future, I would say it may be oversimplify students' lack of interests in their learning. There are other reasons that cause students' dropout in schools, such as economic issues and peer pressure-- technology cannot be an effective treatment for those students.

Another video I watched is A Vision of 21st Century Teachers, focusing on numerous benefits of using technology in class. One of the points-- every student speak up even the shy one-- mentioned in this video truly opens my eyes. I have not thought that technology somehow provides chances for every students to speak up in an interactive community. I believe this can definitely benefit those students who are timid and need more time to think in class. I retrospect to my learning experience, I found out using technology, such as blog, and online discussion broad, is an more effective way for me to express my thoughts. Through using technology, I feel less nervous with expressing my thoughts because I know nobody will argue or confront with me in person. After watching this, it made me think about how to incorporate technology to curriculum wisely and how to create a place where everyone has equal chance to use it and to speak up for themselves.

To conclude, technology brings learning toward learner-centered. We all know it is important to incorporate technology to students' learning; however, other important things should also be considered are: how to use it smartly? how to let every student has equal chance to use it?