Nik's Techie Blog

The posts I read had to do with chat ,collaborative learning, and music . In the chat post, it talked about a program called Chatmaker and how to use it with your students. When I hear the word online chat I think about a whole bunch of strangers in a room chatting about nothing. This post helped me understand that chat rooms can also be set up to help in classroom. You can post different topics or questions for students to chat about or provide different skills for the students to practice during the chat session. There have to be certain things to consider first though before setting up the chatroom. The collaborative learning post dealt with setting up a social network for students and/or teachers on Ning. Social networks are good for collaborative/collective projects because it cuts down on having to meet face to face. Social networks take lots of time, so you have to make sure that you have to time and also have interesting things to collaborate on. The music post I learned how to use RedKaraoke, which allows to start a social network for music. This site can help ELLs because music is a good motivator for learning language. This also sounds like a fun way to get the students to interact with each other and at the same time be immersed in the language.

Larry's Resource Sites for ESL/EFL Teachers

This blog includes sites for teacher resources to use to help educate English Language Learners. Some of the picks listed are EFL Classroom 2.0, the Peace Corps site, The Internet TESL Journal, Teaching English from the British Council, and Ideas at Dave's ESL Cafe. Two Listservs are also mentioned, Teachers of English as a Second Language (TESL) and National Institute For Literacy (NIFL). Most of these sites are free of charge to use.

Larry's Online Video Sites for Learning English

This blog focused to online video sites that helped students learn English. The sites had to provide engaging content, be free, have follow-up activities, and have appropriate classroom content. There were 7 video sites that fit most of the criteria. The best 2 online video sites for learning English were English Trailers and English For All (EFA). English Trailers has poplular movies with comprehension and cloze activities. English For All (EFA) has videos that cover many life skills and has online activities.

Larry's Places For Students to Write Online

This blog deals with the best places for students including ELLs to write online. The blog included places for students to blog like Edublogs, Posterous, and a new site called On Sugar. There was also mention of mini-blogs like Tumblr, Diary, and a new one called "You Are". The blog also outlines places to write online books on Tikatok and The Tar Heel Reader. Picture History, Smithsonian Images, and Nations Illustrated were mentioned as good E-Card sites. The last site that was mentioned was a site for slideshows called Bookr.

Wicked Wikis

The information about the Wikis didn't quite give me much more information about how to participate in a Wiki. The information did give me an idea of how to use the Wiki once you're able to participate. I didn't feel that the information on the links were informational enough for someone who is trying to start a Wiki. Wikis are a good resource, but I would like to know how to get more information about them.

Blogging and Writing

I read "Blogging vs. Writing" and I thought it was interesting how the teacher had the students blog and then compare it with writing. The students had good thoughts about how much easier it was to blog then to write. They were also thinking of the security aspects of it because once you put something out there on a blog people around the world can read it and not just people in your class. So, I guess you have to think about what you are putting in your blog.

Web 2.0

The article, "Basics for Beginners: What is Web 2.0" took you through the beginning of the internet and internet language. I remember in the early 90's when my father had a computer built for me to go on the internet. It was something new and exciting and I wouldn't wait to get online. Things have changed since then and the vocabulary has changed. Before taking this class, I knew about Google and Facebook. I hadn't heard of Twitter or Twittervision. I will have to write RSS readers down and Google it in order to expand my vocabulary.

Teaching Blogging to Students

This blog was good to read if you are thinking about teaching blogging to your students. The blogger broke down the steps she took to teach her students about blogging. She gave some suggestions about how to take the students step by step through the process. She was skeptical about blogging at first as was I and wanted to experiment with it. Now that I see how it works, I think it's alright. I don't feel comfortable enough to teach my students yet though because I'm still working through it myself through trial and error.

Student Blogging

The blog was really interesting because it gave lots of suggestions for ways that students can blog. I think it would be a good idea for students to use the blog as a way to communicate with their peers in their classroom as well as children around the world. This would be more practical than having the students write letters or email.

Who Knew?

The video http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pMcfrLYDm2U was very informative and provided many surprising facts. It was interesting that the number of emails and instant messages exceeds the population of Earth. I found it also interesting that it took only 4 years for the computer to reach the market, but 38 years for the radio.

Computer Access

I have computer access at home and at school. I have my own laptop at home and a laptop that belongs to the county. There is also 9 computers in my room for student use.