15 WEEKS OR ETERNITY ?

"Together with my very enthusiastic course mates we have boarded that train which will take us deeper into how to integrate Technology into the Reading and Language Arts Curriculum and we know we are in safe hands. We will learn how to UTILIZE and TEACH others to utilize and infuse technology into Literacy"

These were my words after our first day in the CI 566 class. Were they just mere words, wishful thoughts or even an empty prayer? No!, NO!! NO!!!. This blog is the first I have ever created and it was made possible by CI 556. It motivates me a lot.

It has just been 15 weeks with our dedicated and inspiring instructor Dr. Schmidt but these 15 weeks have given me knowledge that will eternally be my treasure; the treasure that I will always share with my students, colleague teachers and all those who need it.

What can I say to Dr. Schmidt and all of you my course mates but THANK YOU FOR SHARING YOUR KNOWLEDGE AND EXPERIENCES WITH ME!!!!!

Before taking this class, I used to read people's postings on their blogs and say wow! But today I sat down and reflected upon all that we have done this semester and read all that I posted on my blog and I said: WOW!!!.

The Mere Belief of Social Interaction

Ever since we discussed the potential of social networking sites for classroom teaching and learning, I have developed a great interest in how this new technology can be adopted in the classroom. I have, therefore been reading a lot about it and I even decided to conduct a quantitative research on this. I an almost through with my analysis and I hope to share the findings with you. However, I would like to share an article that a found when I was doing my literature review for my study. It is by Bailenson, Schwartz and Okita (2007).

The Mere Belief of Social Interaction

Bailenson, Schwartz and Okita investigated the impact of network environments such as Second Life on students’ performance on tasks and concluded that people learn more deeply if they believe they are interacting with another person. The study involved 35 adult participants. They interacted with a computer agent for 10 minutes under two conditions: Avatar condition and Agent condition. In the first condition, the participants heard that they were interacting with a person whom they had met earlier in a waiting room. In the Agent condition, participants heard they were interacting with a computer agent. The interaction was on fever mechanism and the participants had to answer comprehension questions after the two interactions. The results showed that participants in the Avatar condition performed 20% better on both old and new questions, and they went beyond the information provided by the computer. The researchers concluded that socializing computer learning environments enhances learning.

For me, the implication of this finding for us as teachers is that every technology-mediated activity that we ask our students to do in the classroom should be one that promotes interaction. It is should be seen as a sine qua non for the success of any technology infused lesson.

Reference:
Bailenson, J., Schwartz, D., and Okita, S. (2007). The Mere Belief of Social Interaction. The Learning in Informal and Formal Environments (LIFE) Center. Retrieved November 16, 2008, from
http://life-slc.org/?m=200703

The Concept of Audio Pen Pals (APP)

Audio Pen Pals involves the use of recorded language as a means of communication between Pen Pals in place of the traditional written language. Jennifer Billig, wrote in 2007 that “Pen Pal Friendships Go Modern With E-mail, Video Mail and Audio Mail. Pen pal friendship is a way of not only making new friends but also learning about new cultures. In today's society, a pen pal does not necessarily mean one of the traditional sense of snail mail but can mean video pen pals, audio pen pals or e-mail pen pals”.

Colleagues, what do you think about the potential of this new technology for Teaching and Learning Language?

“Pair taping: Increasing motivation and achievement with a fluency practice”

I found this research article by Schnieder (2001) very informative and eye-opening. There are times that we are tempted to throw some of the old technologies away just because they have been around for a long but not because they are less useful. The findings of Schneider's resent research shows how an "old" technology like taping can still be a very effective tool for teaching and learning.

Schnieder conducted a classroom research and investigated how to increase the motivation and achievement of EFL learners through the use of Pair taping. He explains Pair taping as “a fluency practice in which learners record themselves speaking freely in pairs.” Participants in the study were 50 second-year Japanese university students. The study was based on the expectancy-value model of motivational achievement which holds that the extent of future expectancy to succeed depends on what individuals attribute their past successes or failures to, whether to a stable factor such as ability, or to less stable ones like effort, luck, or task difficulty. This theory was complemented by the intrinsic/extrinsic motivation models

A preliminary study of pair taping was conducted with second-year Japanese college learners in their eighth or more year of studying English; this was followed by the main study. Quantitative measures were used to collect and analyze data and a factor analysis was performed on the data gathered through questionnaire with Microsoft SPSS-X 9.0,

The results showed that more than those who remained in class (28), learners who chose pair taping (73) reported increases in ease of speaking English, self-confidence about speaking English, motivation for improving their spoken English, relaxation in speaking English, enjoyment of speaking English, and improvement in speaking English. Factor analysis results mirrored those with the expectancy-value theory of motivated achievement, suggesting that learner improvement was related to their increased confidence and their increased motivation to improve to their increased enjoyment of speaking English.

The implication drawn from the results underlines the importance of pair taping in teaching and learning language. It was noted that if teachers use pair taping they will help students to increase their enjoyment of speaking English as well as the motivation to continue studying speaking English

For me this is a useful reminder to access technology not according to time but its effectiveness


Schneider, P. H (2001). “Pair taping: Increasing motivation and achievement with a fluency practice”. TESL-EJ. Vol. 5. No. 2. Sept.

Great Job Tom

	I read the following posting from Free Technology for Teachers and I just want to cite it here to say THANK YOU to all people like Tom who are making such great sacrifices to help improve education in Africa and other places in the world. Tom Brady Goes Into His Pocket for OLPC from Free Technology for Teachers by rbyrnetech@hotmail.com (Mr. Byrne) Usually, you hear about NFL quarterbacks stepping into "the" pocket. In this case we have a quarterback reaching into "his" pockets. Tom Brady, the injured star quarterback of the New England Patriots has announced on his blog that he has purchased 1,500 XO Laptops. Tom is sending the laptops to Uganda where his sister is doing humanitarian work. If you or someone you know is interested in donating XO laptops please visit the Amazon XO website. Something that is different about this year's program is that you have the option of purchasing just one computer to donate for $199 rather than purchasing two at $399.