December 17, 2008
Field Trip
Before we went on a field trip to the “Steinmühle”, it interested me most:
- how well-equipped the rooms are:
There is a computer lab which contains 24 almost brand-new laptops which were sponsored by a company from Marburg-Biedenkopf. So, the laptops didn´t cost the school anything, but have to be strictly, thoroughly and nicely used by students (see the “rules-picture” on Anna Maria Gallus´ site). In case, the lab is already used by another class, the teacher can bring laptops via a computer wagon (there are two) to his class. These wagons contain 20 pcs each; doing the math, the school has a total of 64 pcs for their students. I wondered, if 20 to 24 pcs were enough, so that each student could have one on his/her own, but there are mainly not more students than laptopts (f. e. 20 students in grade 7). This is quite good for the students AND for the teacher 
.
AND
- how the new media is used in the different classes:
Computer science is obligatory in classes 6,7, and 9 and can be chosen as a subject from grade 6 on. In the computer lab, students´ work is under surveillance via a head pc used by the teacher. In grade 9, they have computer science twice a week and they start a “fächerübergreifenden Unterricht” next year about Australia. Talking about the specific subjects, students use an E-workbook in English, and IT knowledge is obligatory in biology, chemistry, physics and mathmatics fixed by the curriculum.
December 5, 2008
Use of Computers In My Old School
Today´s use of the new media in my old grammar school:
The school I graduated from in 2005 is called CJD Bad Zwesten-Oberurff. It is a private school with Realschule and Gymnasium, having a total of 900 students at the moment. I ,unfortunately, couldn´t find a school programme when I was looking through the school´s website www.cjd-oberurff.de. However, I noticed that this is actually the older website version and the newer can be found at: http://www.onlzoberurff.info/. When I was scrolling through this page, I saw some interesting AND known features: tags, calendar, blogroll, etc. Also the subheading was straight forward: “Weblog and online magazine of the Christophorus school Oberurff”. I finally realized that they were using the exact format then our FLE class does (i. e. wordpress).
I could easily write ten pages about certain aspects of this multimedia site, but to reduce it to its major aspects: it gets students to be involved, it informs them with up-to-date information (i. e. if there´s a classroom change, who´s absent, etc.) and it is also interactive (pictures, videos, etc.). Pupils´ involvement is represented on this communication platform via modern discussions (“Should there be a school uniform?”), own articles and much more. STUDENTS (not only staff members) actually have an account on this site and can contribute to it lively, which, I think, is great.
The use of new media when I was in my old school:
Okay, my graduation was three years ago, so it´s kind of tough to remember EXACTLY what we had and used in school. Of course, we had a computer lab where students could (and did) research. This was supervised throughout the whole day by a student or a teacher. The infrastructure was very good, too. Almost every classroom had a TV, OHP, and sometimes even a beamer. PowerPointPresentations were held, videos being watched, but, nevertheless, most teachers stuck to the “old” methods such as writing on the blackboard or showing something on transparencies. On my mind, this way of teaching is still quite effective and time-saving. 
My opinion:
Overall, I think that my old school is heading towards the “right” direction. They´re using the new media not because it´s just hip and trendy, but, because it actually makes sense. In an age of “I don´t want to read a book”, it becomes crucial to motivate students to read and write. The PC is the best medium for this purpose in my opinion. Almost every student has one (or more?! ) and spends a lot of time online. To, therefore, have an actual website which offers students possibilities to enhance their communication skills is a really good idea. Besides, communication does not get out of hands since there is always someone who leads or sets up the discussion (mostly a teacher) and most likely ends it (by a voting system, for instance). Except for researching a specific topic (e. g. Martin Luther King in grade 12) in the computer lab, new media is not in advance yet when it comes to classroom teaching at my old school, which is not necessarily a bad thing 
.
December 2, 2008
New Media Teaching Project
First of all, I´m not quite sure if I did this correctly since the teaching project I´ve chosen is university-based .
Title of the project: Columbia Center for New Media Teaching and Learning (CCNMTL)
Found in: Online at http://ccnmtl.columbia.edu/our_services/
1. In what way is the New Media used in this project?
From general things such as building basic course web sites to developing advanced projects.
CCNMTL projects are defined as more extensive efforts in which we attempt to create flexible tools and engaging study environments that faculty can shape to fit their particular classroom context. CCNMTL projects start with a project proposal from faculty.
2. How does the topic integrate with the curriculum?
It doesn´t because it´s not a German school, but an American university . It is not “zwingend notwendig” (see Mrs. Gallus ´ weblog) to integrate it since teachers can decide on their own whether or not to “book” a multimedia session for their class.
3. Which skills do the students need/can they acquire besides the bare content?
Projects emphasize collaboration, interaction and student activity. They promote better communication, personalization and the multiplication of spaces, both real and virtual, in which students are invited to study, research, communicate and learn.
4. What is the role of the teacher in the project?
“Educational Technologists” help teachers to widen their multimedia horizons, so they are well-prepared using them in class with their students:
Our Educational Technologists, who have extensive pedagogical training, are ideally suited to offer advice and direction to faculty who wish to discover and develop best practices in the educational uses of new media. These efforts often lead to the creation of a course Web site that offers students convenient access to online course information, including custom content, selections from Columbia’s Digital Library Collection and communication tools. Additionally, CCNMTL offers a variety of workshops for instructors who wish to explore these topics in greater detail.
5. Does using the New Media have any advantages over traditional teaching in this project?
I don´t think that this project will improve every student´s understanding because everyone is so heterogenous when it comes to how someone learns something. For a certain period of time (i. e. 3 or 4 lectures), I believe that it will be quite effective, but, after a while it could get boring (as everything else to that is repeated) and the teacher should switch to traditional teaching. In fact, creating a web site is motivating, however, quite a lot of work, too.
6. How did the students like the project (or would probably like)? Would they be motivated?
In my opinion, they would be motivated because this method is really up-to-date and a lot of fun to design and get to know more what you can do with new media (there are always new things to discover). I guess, they would like it since it demands student´s creativity and concentration.
7. Would you personally like to try this project with students? Why or why not?
I would definitely like to try this project with students, but would be, at the same time, careful not to over-emphasize it.
November 22, 2008
Internet Communication
Todays blog-entry is about the virtual session “Internet Communication”.
Internet communication can be done via e-mail, message board, live chat, etc. Its advantages feature: Temporal and spacial flexibility, saved messages, interaction. On the other hand, there are also disadvantages such as: No face-to-face communication, internet connection needed and information overflow. The online communication is generally subdivided into synchronous communication and asynchronous communication. Synchronous communication involves activities with no time delay, meaning instant activities such as chat, MUD (which I´ve never heard before 
) and videoconferences whereas asynchronous communications cannot be done without time delay, i. e. e-mails, forums or newsgroups. These types of communicating with one another can also be methodologically used in school when the teacher gives an e-mail assignment (asynchronous) to his students or if he gives an creative assignment (synchronous) – both during a computer lab lesson.
I particularly liked the quote
internet users also influence the specific rules and the language used
since it shows how our electronic age is defined by numerous people who have to agree in some point in a certain way to write online (see netiquette=rules of online communication) which is mostly done in English because almost everyone understands it. Thus, abbreviations like omg=oh my god, btw=by the way, cu=see you, aka=also known as, sts=so to speak, etc. are quite common among internet users. However, abbreviations such as hompr=hang on, mobile phone´s ringing or fotcl=falling off the chair laughing are new to me and I question if they are useful. All in all, abbreviations are there to save time and to create a new “youth language”, but with abbreviations being almost as long as an original word, I highly doubt that this makes sense.
I also thought the explanation to be useful when I read the following quote about emoticons:
the goal is to avoid misunderstandings due to the lack of contextual information.
Emoticons, hence, show feelings, so that the other person you´re communicating with knows that is a joke/ironic when you´re typing at the end of your sentence. Internet communication tries to be as close as possible to real-life communication and manages this goal very well (see Skype), but in my opinion, there is nothing better in the world to learn a new language by standing next to a native-speaking person in real! life and talking to each other. Communication problems can be solved a lot quicker this way.
November 17, 2008
Internet Research
For today´s week, I had to work myself through the virtual session “Internet Research”.
In my opinion, the most important criteria out of this section is up first in the list, namely E-research. It contrastively shows the advantages and disadvantages of it. Just to name a few: advantages: easy access, fast, global range, cheap; disadvantages: valid information?, plagiarism-encouragement, ads/spam. On my mind, these points show the dilemma we are currently in as teacher (a.k.a. motivators) – the major time problem. Along with the Zentralabitur, students spend more and more time online to do research. One can say that “wikipedia is doing their homework”. Students, thus, just filter out the most relevant information they need to catch a glimpse into the topic. The internet is, of course, useful to get information in a very quick way, but this information might not be valid/correct (i. e. wikipedia). To get books out of a library is, hence, a much better way when working professionally with a topic, due to the verified authors of the certain book. The better living standards have just proven again that students are encouraged to be lazy since they have the opportunities. It is therefore the teacher´s job to motivate students to lend a book, so they can become much more independent and competent.
In respect to the other (not really minor) points, I believe that teachers should be well-informed when it comes to researching properly since this will become more and more popular (books made of pages to e-books, Project Gutenberg, f. e.) and we have to familiarize ourselves with it, in order to keep up with the environment we live in. I also think that it is difficult to do a “good” internet research because there are so many things, one has to look out for (i. e. is there an author? is there an url? when was the article published? is the article to specific/to general? etc.). Also the use of corpora (BNC, f. e.) or dictionaries (dict.cc, leo.org, etc.) and quoting correctly, deciding on a teaching method (i. e. guided, half-guided, free research) have to be taken into account by a teacher a long time beforehand.
November 10, 2008
Poster Work
Not only because it´s visually the best of all, in my opinion, I think that the “drill and practice”-poster is most relevant to me. During my time in school, I experienced both the behavioristic and the cognitivistic approach by teachers. Especially older teachers did a lot of drill and practice (behaviorism) exercises whereas younger teachers tried to be more modern and thus, tried to passively moderate a lecture in which students worked almost solemnly on their own. As the poster shows, some things have to be learned by heart, i. e. dates or vocabulary. In contrast to that, students cannot simply learn grammar by heart, but highly dependent on the teacher´s explanations. There is no definite rule for grammatical constructions, so that demands a good teacher. I can also mainly agree with what the group came up with, why drill and practice is still distributed today:
-it´s an effective way to learn something by heart.
-it´s less time extensive than explorative learning.
-it´s less preparation for the teacher.
To sum up, I believe that future teachers will tend to use the cognitivist approach much more, but still have to include the behaviorist method in order to achieve their learner´s goal, which is using English in an appropriate way to be able to communicate.
November 2, 2008
Learning Theories and Principles
What it is about:
This session is about the three learning theories behaviorism, cognitivism and constructivism.
- Behaviorism is the classical method when learning vocabulary, for instance. It involves a great deal of drill and practice exercises and repetitions and therefore, demands a high motivation and participation of all learners. Behaviorists metaphorically explain their theory by refering to the mind as “tabula rasa” (similar to a blank, white sheet) that is filled with knowledge. The method of conditioning reminded me of my biology lk, in which we also dealt with Skinner. As for the learning process, we as humans are much alike than animals
- Cognitivism is a much more independent type of learning than behaviorism since it is typically described as “learning by doing”. By exploring new phenomena in the English language, the learner should, thus, motivated and encouraged to keep on working on his or her own.
- Constructivism tries to – as the name already indicates – construct knowledge. This is done by the whole class as an entity guided by the teacher and not by individuals working on their own. Feedback, motivation and cooperation is in the foreground here.
What I have learnt from it:
I thought it was interesting to see in this unit that the role of the teacher and the learner has changed. The teacher is much more passive nowadays, and the learner much more active. This circumstance monitors the teacher – in the optimal scenario – as a guiding moderator and not as a frontal-teaching drill instructor. Of course, it is necessary that certain things are learnt by heart, i. e. unknown, difficult vocabulary, but the tendency is more towards a cognitivistic or constructivistic approach since they demand independence and high self-motivation. The behaviorist method stands in opposition to these new, modern types of learning which most likely will be favored in the future.
October 20, 2008
Comments on 1st session (October 14th)
In this session, we focused on the interview with Mark Bauerlein on youtube (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vzNkW2eyR-I&feature=related) who claimed that nowadays “young Americans are the dumbest generation”. Afterwards, we subdivided the video into three groups that worked on his major theses and then commented on them.
The first group stated that Bauerlein is right in some points, for instance, that 52% of American high school students think that Nazi Germany were allies with the US due to the fact that they spend most of their time with social networking instead of looking at a scientific web site. On the other hand, the group mentioned that the internet is a positive source since it is really fast; in fact, a lot faster than visiting the library and searching for books. The knowledge is, thus, easier accesible. I mainly agree with the group´s utterances although I think when students have a free choice – social networking or studying online – they will to almost a hundred per cent pick leisure, i. e. social networking. That makes the internet as a tool to knowledge just when necessary.
The second group said that social contacts are important because today, more and more people live farther away from each other and have limited time. Social networking is, hence, handy since it makes these contacts easy and fast. A negative point is that the “little, tiny world” is to be opened up only by a mentor in Bauerlein´s view. In my opinion, he is right because only through friends we won´t look up educational sites. Friends want to have fun, i. e. doing something that is not stressful in their leisure time, which is definitely not studying online.
The third group mentioned that it is true that “students have more important things to do” than only visiting their facebook friends only or checking their cell phones, as Bauerlein said. However, people are scattered all over the world and it is, again, handy to have such a basis like facebook to keep in touch with your friends. I believe that the “real” world should always be above virtual worlds that can break apart instantly. Thus, it is far more important to visit one´s friends regularly in person than on the computer.
On my mind, this interview reflects what we as teachers have to do in classroom with new media. It is important for us to motivate students when they come into computer labs and have to do research on a specific topic. We as teachers have to make sure that they are not doing something else (for example, working on their myspace page), but instead to give them feedback that educational, online research can be fun and that the learning success is worth it. Students should not look at the computer as being “evil” in school, but as as much fun as the computer at home (for leisure).
