Website URL: http://www.bogglesworldesl.com/
Grade/Age Level:
Kindergarten to Adult
Language & Content:
Bogglesworld is a treasure trove of ESL resources. There are full lesson plans, flashcards, worksheets, gameboards and more on the site for any teacher or student to access for free. Taken from the website, their “aim is to bring printable quality resources to teachers and parents.”
The worksheets found on this website range from time fillers such as wordsearch activities, to those of real quality. There are conversation based worksheets, as well as grammar, and vocabulary ones. Most if not all of the worksheets are available for download and printing as attachments. For the lesson plans, there are detailed instructions for the teachers.
One of the biggest strengths of this website is the sheer amount of quality materials available. The materials such as flashcards are interesting in that the pictures are colored and often teach a grammar point as well. For example, there are a group of monster flashcards that also teach prepositions. There are numerous worksheets available for teachers to use with almost any grade level. The gameboard entitled ‘Say 4 things’ is such a fun activity to promote student speaking in an active way. Students don’t even realize that they’re studying; they see it as a game.
While the site doesn’t offer interactive assessment or feedback, there are multiple worksheets that allow students to practice with a paper and pencil. The site is also easy to use and navigate with categories listing the available materials on the top. All in all, I highly recommend this website to any ESL instructor. I feel that offering online games and interactive activities would definitely improve the website and expand its range of engaging activities. I also think that opening the site to any user to contribute quality materials would help increase the already ample supply.
Wednesday, January 26, 2011
Wednesday, January 19, 2011
Reflection to the texts: CALL Essentials by Egbert, J. (2005) and New Paradigms in Technology – Mediated Learning by Mark Warschauer
CALL Essentials introduces some definitions for CALL, optimal conditions and standards for language learning and teaching, and offers some guidelines for using educational technology. In this text I was struck by one comment describing negative reactions to new technology in the classroom. Egbert (2005) writes that in history, “books, for example, were thought to damage memory” (p. 4). Wow. No matter the technology that comes into the classroom, it seems there will always be dissenters who hold firm to traditional (and not necessarily perspicacious) beliefs. Look at the calculator for example. Some educators worried that people would get lazy and not effectively learn the skills to solve math problems with pencil and paper. Now we view calculators as just another tool to be used in the classroom and even take it for granted that we should be able to use them.
On the internet, nowadays it’s so easy and fast to look up the names of capital cities or river names with the click of a button. Traditionalists might argue that the internet is degrading from the memories and stores of knowledge that most people should have. I say, why not use the tools that are available to us? The internet is adding to classroom efficiency and making room for other learning. What do you all think? Will the internet make us lazy or less knowledgeable? How has the idea of knowledge shifted with the advent of the internet?
Integrating the National Educational Technology Standards
These standards require that students will be able to perform these tasks upon leaving school: use a computer and peripherals, practice responsible use of technology, use electronic resources appropriately, design, develop, and publish products, gather information, and collaborate with others. I find that all of these tasks are laudable, though I’d like to add one more to the list: the ability to critically assess the authenticity, ownership, and validity of a web source. Students need to realize that anybody can open up a webpage and basically write down whatever they would like. Not only do students need to be able to gather information online, but they also need to be able to discern whether that information is good or bad. How can teachers help students develop these critical assessment skills?
Speaking of the internet, this medium provides just another opportunity for Multimodal Communication to be used by our students. Multimodal communication "makes it feasible for large numbers of learners without specialized training to produce and share their work” (Warschauer, p. 31). I find this kind of communication a great way for students to not only be able to share and ‘publish’ their work, but also to receive feedback and validation on their work. At my academy in Seoul, students have participated in UCC (user created content) contests sponsored by the school. Student videos were posted online, voted and commented on by other students, teachers, parents, and staff. Many students had a lot of fun creating this kind of content and I feel that it was an all-around great learning experience for them. Have you ever had students use video for publishing their work in your classrooms? How did it go?
Finally, I think that blogs could be a good way for students to share diaries or other schoolwork with their teachers and other students. One limitation is that this type of content might be limited to matters that are not too personal. One issue with blogs that I worry about, especially with young users, is the sometimes scathing or abusive comments that people might leave. Generally, comments are positive, especially if you’ve trained your class on how to respond supportively and politely, but if the pages are made public, there could be other readers outside of the class that might not be so supportive. Should teachers protect our students from this kind of action, or should we allow it because they’ll run into it sooner or later and need to learn to deal with it? Thanks for reading and I look forward to reading your comments!
On the internet, nowadays it’s so easy and fast to look up the names of capital cities or river names with the click of a button. Traditionalists might argue that the internet is degrading from the memories and stores of knowledge that most people should have. I say, why not use the tools that are available to us? The internet is adding to classroom efficiency and making room for other learning. What do you all think? Will the internet make us lazy or less knowledgeable? How has the idea of knowledge shifted with the advent of the internet?
Integrating the National Educational Technology Standards
These standards require that students will be able to perform these tasks upon leaving school: use a computer and peripherals, practice responsible use of technology, use electronic resources appropriately, design, develop, and publish products, gather information, and collaborate with others. I find that all of these tasks are laudable, though I’d like to add one more to the list: the ability to critically assess the authenticity, ownership, and validity of a web source. Students need to realize that anybody can open up a webpage and basically write down whatever they would like. Not only do students need to be able to gather information online, but they also need to be able to discern whether that information is good or bad. How can teachers help students develop these critical assessment skills?
Speaking of the internet, this medium provides just another opportunity for Multimodal Communication to be used by our students. Multimodal communication "makes it feasible for large numbers of learners without specialized training to produce and share their work” (Warschauer, p. 31). I find this kind of communication a great way for students to not only be able to share and ‘publish’ their work, but also to receive feedback and validation on their work. At my academy in Seoul, students have participated in UCC (user created content) contests sponsored by the school. Student videos were posted online, voted and commented on by other students, teachers, parents, and staff. Many students had a lot of fun creating this kind of content and I feel that it was an all-around great learning experience for them. Have you ever had students use video for publishing their work in your classrooms? How did it go?
Finally, I think that blogs could be a good way for students to share diaries or other schoolwork with their teachers and other students. One limitation is that this type of content might be limited to matters that are not too personal. One issue with blogs that I worry about, especially with young users, is the sometimes scathing or abusive comments that people might leave. Generally, comments are positive, especially if you’ve trained your class on how to respond supportively and politely, but if the pages are made public, there could be other readers outside of the class that might not be so supportive. Should teachers protect our students from this kind of action, or should we allow it because they’ll run into it sooner or later and need to learn to deal with it? Thanks for reading and I look forward to reading your comments!
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