Week 5: Wonderful Web Quests

Hi all,

The more I learn the more I realize the benefit of making use of technology for instruction. I have talked with my colleagues about Web Quests and Rubrics. No one knows about the former but some know some of the latter. However they do not know that we can create the rubrics through websites contributing assistance in doing so. Since I am very new to Web Quests, video clips pertaining Web Quests help me a lot to understand what it is, what 6 common attributes of it are and why we should use it. In my context, I think using Web Quests searched through the Internet is suitable for the time being because it takes time to create our own. However, this could be our project in the future.

I, accidentally, met a secondary school teacher talking with him about using technology for language teaching and I told him what I have learned from this course and what technology I am using now. He has been interested and would like me to introduce it to his friends in English program. Next week, on Thursday evening, I will informally visit the secondary school for a couple of hours and hopefully I have something to share with you. Even though I am not a technology expert, I feel happy to share what I know with others.

Last week, the second week of semester 2, was my starting step using technology in classes. The problem I encountered deals with equipments provided in the teaching rooms. The computers have been used for many years when they were connected to the Internet, they processed very slowly. I solved the problem by taking my own computer to class but it was not compatible with the projector so next week I plan to borrow one from the university computer center.

In my freshman classes, through the projector, I demonstrated how to use CD dictionary to my students, showed them how to access a website concerning computer tutorial. They were enjoying the lesson because they could listen to native speakers and read subscript. In addition, they could interact with the lesson if they access the Internet themselves. To follow up the class activity, I had them extract 20 sentences from the subscript they read and translate into Thai. 

For the senior students in Education program, I encouraged them to use technology for their future career by forwarding my favorite websites collected on delicious resource and suggested them to register delicious.com for their own website collection. One thing I have learned from this class is that many of them are better at technology than me. In other words, we learn from each other. Can this be called cooperative learning?

Best,

Moo