ePals--- an useful educational website

    Recently I have devoted myself to a new-found website called EPALS, which is a good recommendation for educators and students. EPALS is a social learning network in the field of educational technology that provides a place to build worldwide learning community and share resources. I found a very interesting part named Global Community. Users can find classroom to join classified by different language and age range. This is very helpful for students and parents to locate a suitable class quickly and conveniently through EPALS. Another part I found very helpful named Learning Center. There are lots of learning resources in many aspects. For example, Smithsonian Center will lead you to enjoy the largest museum all over the word, The Writing Center provide a lot of articles and activities related to improving writing skills. In addition, educators can download a large amount of useful materials freely from Teacher Resources part. In a word EPALS is a amazing website for us and need to be explored more.

Gamification in language room ----- Serious Games

I want to practice gamification in another type of game called serious game, which is focus on a particular purpose and environment and no end to play. What I chose for this time is My Beauty Spa Panic from a gaming website OgiGames.

    I design learning objectives with four levels depend on the different difficulty class. First is describing walking routes of characters (Customer goes straight and then turn left). Second is vocabulary about spa (towel bathtub massage). Third is verb-tense (The waiter is doing nail polish for the customer now and they finished shower just now.). Fourth is story-telling. Students are asked to tell classmates what happened in his spa panic. I plan to assess my teaching goal by two ways: peer mediation and expert mediation. The whole class works in pairs to play this game and be required to practice learning objectives with each other by turns. Then I will call some students answer my questions related to the lesson.

Gamification in language room ----- Escape the Room Games

Today I have learned a new concept called gamification, which means applying game-design thinking into non-game activity that can make things more fun and engaging. I never thought that online game can be a way to teach, but after reading 7 Things You Should Know About Gamification and What is Gamification? I have some clear idea about gamification. It is helpful for teacher to active learning atmosphere and involve students in lessons. That is amazing. So I am going to try it by myself. I choose a game from a online-game website Big Fish called Room Escape: Floors. Personally I have played this game twice, the second time I searched its walkthrough in Google, because I have a big trouble obstruct me to complete successfully.

If I use this game in my language classroom, my learning objective is mainly on vocabulary, which must be chosen from these three aspects: furniture (pillow desk sofa piano), color (red green white black) or preposition (on, next to, behind, below). The whole class divided into six groups to play, each one focus on one of the six keys needed to escape. Then let them exchange their findings to pass the game together. I will give the oral walkthrough to assess whether they have mastered new vocabularies. Teacher play role as a mediator and promoter. I will give students a hand when they meet troubles in learning process and supervise them keeping new words in mind.

Thoughts about Twitter after reading

   I have chose two articles from my teachers` Diigo. These are useful to me. One of them tells me about actions what I should not do in Twitter. It lists ten actions like doing advertising, showing being loved and judging professional things with own prejudice. I totally agree with the author and this article reminds me a lot as a beginner in Twitter. The other article recommends me some awesome twitters classified by their subject. It is convenient for people looking for particular fields. And this collection of helpful twitters is valuable. I think Twitter is a place people can share various resources, exchange ideas and get responds immediately. I will check it usually from now on.

Article 1：10 Twitter Mistakes You Should Avoid

Article 2: Using Twitter for Teachers` Professional Development

Twitter Chat

It is not my first time to use this kind of chat, but in twitter with professional topic, I have never been in.  I have attend a chant called #web2.0tools. This group mainly focus on the Internet technology in education. People share their idea about the advantages and influence of various learning websites, and also do lots of recommendation. I have tried some, they are very useful and I never knew it. I think TC can be a good way for teachers to get knowing about the educational tendacy which is changing rapidly. Teachers and students will keep pace with the world by twitter. Being on time must raise the learning effciency of student as they can gain more help and creative methods. In adiition, people exchange ideas in anytime under the same chat topic. They can help each other and improve together.

Classroom 2.0

    This website provides a place for thousands of educators talking about their same interests. There are lots of communities based on different topics, participants can exchange their idea with other members.Also you can find abundant resources here. It is very useful both for teachers and students.

A learner is like a cell phone

According to materials the 590 syllabus gave, the image of connectivism in my mind becomes clearer and clearer. It is really a creative concept to me and I agree with this idea. I think a learner is like a cell phone today. What cause my thought are two reasons: updating and communication.

There is one key principle of connectivism is “Capacity to know more is more critical than what is currently known” (George Siemens). I think this is very important. If an advanced learner does not have ability or desire to keep learning, he will be a loser finally. The world is changing every day, staying means retrogressing. I also watch the video about network learning, which shows influence of network on learning. Nowadays we more rely on some software to learn knowledge or exchange ideas. Actually we did communication naturally in the past by letters and phone calls, but now we extend it to available technology like blog. It means that connecting oneself to others and the outside world is a important elements in learning. Idea in the video has similar stand with the article: “What we know today is not as important as our ability to continue to stay current.” “The way we are connected to other individuals is largely responsible for our ability to continue.”

In the result, the function of cell phone is communicating with others to exchange ideas and share information. This is more like what a good learner needs to do. Also people want to have a cell phone which can be updated constantly in order to keep pace with the times. That accord with what I talked just now, good learners should use more convenient and effective ways to improve themselves.

Article: Connectivism

Video: The network is the learning