Social Network

Through the social network site of Ning, I have become a member of the EFL Classroom 2.0. This site has a plethora of information from colleagues in my field of teaching English. Even though I am an ESL teacher instead of an EFL teacher, this site still offers ideas, lessons, videos, and much more that I could incorporate into my classroom. Essentially, both fields still teach to the same population. Therefore, connecting with this social network will allow me to expand my knowledge of teaching and methodologies outside of the United States. I love learning new ideas and hopefully will someday join my EFL colleauges by teaching in another country. So, the opportunity to chat with EFL professionals in real time will help educate me in another realm of teaching English to speakers of other languages.

Today's Learner

I became very enlighten as I read through George Siemens' article, Connectivism: a learning theory for the digital age (2005) and watching his You Tube video, The Changing Nature of Knowledge (2009). Siemens is able to critically demonstrate his understanding of the learning process, as theorized through behaviorism, cognitivism, and constructivism, and offer another learning theory based on our present and every-changing digital world. His alternative theory of the learning process through connectivisim offers an "integration of principles explored by chaos, network, and complexity and self-organization theories." This suggests that knowledge is readily available through connections, opinions, and ideas of a some what organized fashion in a non-human cyber world. However, it is the learners responsibility to nurture and maintain their capacity to know more through these connections. The empowerment of the learner rests within the decision-making of assigning meaning and understanding of incoming information in the realm of a changing reality. As stated in Siemens' video, The Conflict of Learning Theories with Human Natures: "...learning and the act of knowledge creation is a function of a network," we can understand that one learner cannot isolate and hold all knowledge in themselves, but rather through the act of externalizing our understandings with others can people truly learn and create meaning.

Through this understanding of connectivism, I attempted to create an analogy that could illustrate the learner of today's society and to help create a relationship of this theory and our potential students. This is not an easy task, because I'm not necessarily a great abstract thinker. However, I believe that today's learner is like an Aloe Vera plant. As Siemens' article states: "Nurturing and maintaining connections is needed to facilitate continual learning," the roots of the Aloe Vera plant circulates nutrients allowing the leaves to grow, and sometimes grow rapidly (much like learning). These leaves hold vital medicinal information or just offers information (much like several Internet sources) that when accessed, they can be used for multiple purposes. The leaves of the Aloe Vera plant, can grow exponentially and foster new new pups (or ideas in the technical world). Their environment can vary, inside or outside, much like the sources of external information that can be found in a variety of tools (My Space, blogging, wiki, podcasts, You Tubs, etc.). Much like the Aloe Vera plant, learners of a society can grow exponentially and even though within themselves they hold information, only when it is externalized through collaboration can we find the uses of that knowledge and continue to build upon it.

Watching You Tube

After viewing the You Tube video entitled, Did you Know 2.0?, I found some some remarks very interesting. The future statistics were extremely impressionable and brings a sense of reality and urgency that technology information and learning are vital in education. In order to prepare our students for what will come, we need to engage, hold conversations, and reflect on how we currently teach the use of technology and how we empower our students with that knowledge.

It was most surprising to me, even as an English teacher, that 100% of college graduates in India speak English and in about 10 years, it is predicted that China will be the number 1 speaking English country. One could state that both countries have a much larger population than the U.S.A and Britain combined, however; it doesn't account to that America is still mostly a monolingual county. Granted, many technological advancements are based in English, but imagine how much our students could be on edge if they are allowed to express thoughts, feelings, and insights with technology in another language or even if they were aware of the power of connecting with people outside of their familiar environment. Technology is opening up the doors of communication and information, so one could say that culture teaching is just as important in our classrooms alongside with proper technology teaching.

I also found it interesting that 1 in 8 couples married in the U.S. in 2005 met online. With my experience in ESL, most of my students' mothers met their new partner on the Internet and moved to the U.S. This happened to some of my districts that didn't even know anything about ESOL until someone from another country married a community member. I feel that this will continue to grow and rural districts, not up to date about ESOL regulations and methodologies, will quickly have to accommodate this change. I have seen this happened, the shift has happened to many rural districts.

It was very interesting to hear the if My Space was a country it would be the 8th largest in the world. I am not surprised by this. Maybe if you combine it with Facebook, it will be the 4th largest country. Social networking is visited all the time by children, teenagers, and adults. It's another way to invite other opinions, ideas, and cultures into your personal world.

New information just streams into our technological world. Teachers must be able to capture, comprehend, analyse, apply, and teach this information to our students. We must open the door of opportunity for our children, therefore; we must empower and engage our students in order to compete in a world of constant change.

Safety Tips for Educational Blogging

1. The Internet can be a place of deception and criminal activity if all users are not careful. Students who use blogs MUST protect their identity by keeping personal information out of their posts and not sharing their user names and passwords with anyone besides their teachers and parents.
2. It's important to explicitly teach students the rules, requirements, and use for classroom blogging. They need to know the difference between appropriate posting verses inappropriate posting. Students also need to be aware that whatever they post on the web can stay with them throughout their lifetime.
3. Students need to learn how to deal with inappropriate comments, Internet sites, and advertisements in a proper manner.
4. Teachers must maintain communication between their administrators, departments, and parents about their classroom blogging site.
5. Teachers must regularly check student's postings/comments, making sure that they stay educational and are school-appropriate.
6. Teachers should check student work before it is posted on the world-wide web.

Using Blogging in the Classroom

As a new teacher, I am always open to all ideas that help enhance my teaching pedagogy without completely abandonning proven methods. I must admit that I haven't had much training in using the Internet as a source of interaction and communication with my ELL students, but I have enjoyed reading through Will Richardson's book, Blogs, Wikis, Podcasts, and other Powerful Web Tools for Classrooms. Using the blogging environment can be used as a supplement to enhance traditional reading and writing techniques. Some advantages include:

• Allowing a shared space to allow teacher/student interaction and facilitating through reading and writing, refection, and analysis. (Even after the bell rings at 3).
• Expanding the walls of a traditional classroom environment, where students can create, experiment, own, collaborate, and enjoy writing with other teachers, professionals, and students around the world.
• Providing all students with a voice in the classroom community as opposed to traditional classroom settings, where some might be too shy to express themselves.
• Blogs serve as a great motivator, inviting students to recognize that the relevance of their work doesn't have to end after the due date. The way they view their assignments can dramatically shift towards the positive inclusion of technology they already enjoy.
• Using the Internet and blogging also teaches our students new literacies that they will need to know in our ever-growing society.
• Blogs can also connect parents with their child's education.

Obviously, there are several advantages that blogs enhance teaching methodology. I could set up a classroom blogging site that includes instructional video's, assignments, and at home English practice with my students and their parents. However, I would like to have some more ideas or perhaps lesson ideas of how I could use blogging with beginning English language learners....

Skunk this!

UGH! Second day of classes and I'm already feeling the pressure. I enjoy a challenge, but sometimes I think my mind disagrees with me...especially after 6 hours of reading. I do feel that I will enjoy the classes I'm taking and the teachers I have. Positive outlook on that aspect. However, my stance with this campus in general is still up in the air. I still continue to get lost. I don't understand the problem, I feel UB is no bigger than Stony Brook, however; I still continue to get lost. Tonight was the perfect example. I had another late night class and I learned from last night the red line bus does not like to come in a timely fashion. I feel unsafe standing outside that late at night and my apartment is further than one might expect, so I decided to drive to class tonight. I parked fairly close to the building in the loop under a well lit area. Three hours later, I find myself turned around and in a completely different parking lot. I've never been on this side of Capen and I had NO idea where I was. What do I do? Begin walking around....well there's a loop maybe my car is in there...no. There's a light, maybe my car is under there...no. SOMEONE STOLE MY CAR!...na can't be...there's no power steering, locks, or windows. I figured I had to be turned around, so I started walking back to the classroom building. Walking in the middle on the grass, I heard a little pidder-patter of little feet. I then hear a louder hissing noise. What on earth?!? I turned my head a little to the left and come face to face with a skunk. Awesome...was my initial thought...go figure. This little guy's butt was in the air and teeth out. I slowly backed away in attempts not to startle him any more and so I could continue on my way. What does that little jerk do? Follow me and hiss the whole way!! I swear that he was worse than any other stalker....and I didn't have a rape whistle or anything to protect myself. Luckily, another student (surprisingly since this parking lot looked abandoned) came walking in the opposite direction, but closer to the skunk. I warned him that this skunk was on the prowl. He didn't believe me until he saw him and started running. I think that grabbed the attention of my furry stalker and he starting going back in the opposite direction. Eventually, I found my car (on the opposite side of the building) and was able to make it out of this stinky situation just fine.