Final project on ICT

My ICT in ELT final project aims to introduce new English words to a seventh grade class using a website (http://www.abababc.com) especially designed to expand the vocabulary to learners of several languages, English among them. This strategy is designed as a result of the need to teach English vocabulary through a dynamic, fun activity in order to increase and maintain the motivation towards the subject.

Expanding Your Vocabulary

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E-Assessment

What’s the difference between evaluation and assessment?

Often these are confusing terms. In simple words, I’ll try to clarify the difference between them:

• Evaluation implies the idea of “value”. When we evaluate, we engage in a process designed to provide information that will help us make a judgement. We assign a “value” or grade, to the student’s performance in a required task.

• Assessment is an on-going process, aimed to obtain relevant information relative to the student’s achievement of specific learning objectives and goals.
• Useful assessment tools are:concept maps, surveys, oral presentations, rubrics, written reports, case studies, and many more.
  

"An e-portfolio is a purposeful aggregation of digital items - ideas, evidence, reflections, feedback etc, which 'presents' a selected audience with evidence of a person's learning and/or ability."
Sutherland and Powell (2007)

E-portfolios are products created by learners, a collection of digital artefacts articulating learning (both formal and informal), experiences and achievements. Learners create 'presentational' e-portfolios by using e-portfolio tools or systems.Therefore, e- portfolios become comprehensive instruments to assess learning through the student's presentation.

Web- based lessons

When a teacher incorporates one or several Web sites to a lesson, we are referring to Web-based lessons. These lessons might be conducted in a traditional classroom with an online component, or entirely online, from every participant’s own house. Web sites can be used in a language lesson for a variety of purposes, including learning any language feature, research, collaboration with teachers and learners around the world, and many others.
Of course, teacher surveillance plays a critical role in the success of a Web-based lesson. In order to point students in the right direction, Web-based lessons should include specific steps describing how and when the site will be used during the course.

This is an example of a lesson plan for a Web-based class:

Class/Level: ESL / EFL basic level
Computer Time: One academic hour
Aim: To learn (and practice) the use of superlative form of adjectives
Objectives:
To learn (and practice) basic Internet navigation skills
To find and summarize information on a Web site
Web Site: Roadside America http://www.roadsideamerica.com
Steps
Pre-computer classroom activity
1. Class Brainstorm/Mind Map:
a. Do you know some tourist attractions in NYC?
b. What are some of the largest, smallest, tallest, strangest and most amazing things you know or have heard of in the United States?
Computer- online activity
2. Go to Roadside America at http://www.roadsideamerica.com
Explain to students that this is a Web site that features the most unusual tourist attractions in the U.S.
3. Click on The Electric Map
4. Instruct students (working in small groups) to select three states. Students click on the state (from the map or the list) and read about the tourist attractions on that state. At each state instruct students to make a list of the largest, smallest, tallest, shortest and strangest attractions they read about. They can also write short (three lines) descriptions of the attractions.
5. Ask students to report back to the class on the attractions they visited.
Follow-up activities:
Ask students to select one tourist attraction from Roadside America they found interesting, funny or weird and to write a detailed description of the selected attraction. Switch descriptions between groups and ask them to draw a picture of the attraction above or beneath their partner's text. Ask students to share the illustrations in class. For fun they can compare their drawings with the photograph of the attraction on the Web site.

WEB Conferences

The Venezuelan Association of Computer Mediated Language Learning and Teaching (AVEALMEC, from its name in Spanish: Asociación Venezolana para la Enseñanza y el Aprendizaje de Lenguas Mediados por (el) Computador) is an association dedicated to promote the use of Information and Communication Technology (ICT) in the language classroom.
AVEALMEC aims to bring together Venezuelan and Latin American teachers, students and researchers dedicated to the computer mediated teaching and learning of languages in Venezuela in order to improve their practice and professional development.
From November 5 until November 8, 2009 they hosted an ambitious event called Social Networking: Thriving as a Community of Practice 2009 Virtual Conference where participants from different parts of the world shared ideas about social networks and their potential to create communities of practice.

Second life

Second Life (SL) is a virtual world that enables users to interact with each other through three-dimensional self images called “avatars”. In SL, “residents” can explore, socialize, participate in and organize different group activities, from parties to virtual conferences on almost any topic. Second Life is used as a platform for education by many institutions, such as colleges, universities, libraries and government entities. Instructors and researchers prefer Second Life as a more personal mean for distance learning.

Here’s my picture (Lourdes Galaxy) exploring my surroundings during my first visit to SL:

Podcasting

Podcasting is a free service that allows Internet users to pull audio files (typically MP3s) from a podcasting Web site to listen to on their computers or personal digital audio players. The term comes from a combination of the words iPod(a personal digital audio player made by Apple) and broadcasting. Even though the term is derived from the iPod, you don't need an iPod to listen to a podcast. You can use virtually any portable media player or your computer.

(retrieved 12-18-2009 from http://computer.howstuffworks.com/podcasting.htm )

Recording a podcast is almost as easy as listening to one. Here's how the process works:

1. Plug a microphone into your computer
2. Install an audio recorder for Windows, Mac or Linux (free software for audio recorders includes Audacity, Record for All and Easy Recorder V5).
3. Create an audio file by making a recording (you can talk, sing or record music) and saving it to your computer.
4. Finally, upload the audio file to one of the podcasting sites (FeedForAll has a tutorial on how to upload a file).

I’d like you to listen to my first snapvine podcast:

Send Me A Voice Comment! | Copy This

Web 3.0: the virtual world.

Also known as the semantic web or linked data, web 3.0 is a web in which data is linked to allow for more meaningful, actionable insight to be extracted.
The next generation of the Web -- Web 3.0 -- will make tasks like your search for movies and food faster and easier. Instead of multiple searches, you might type a complex sentence or two in your Web 3.0 browser, and the Web will do the rest. For example, you could type "I want to see a funny movie and then eat at a good Mexican restaurant. What are my options?" The Web 3.0 browser will analyze your response, search the Internet for all possible answers, and then organize the results for you.
The Web 3.0 browser would even be able to act like a personal assistant. As you search the Web, the browser learns what you are interested in. The more you use the Web, the more your browser learns about you and the less specific you'll need to be with your questions. Eventually you might be able to ask your browser open questions like "where should I go for lunch?" Your browser would consult its records of what you like and dislike, take into account your current location and then suggest a list of restaurants.

Strickland, Jonathan. "How Web 3.0 Will Work." 03 March 2008. HowStuffWorks.com.
November 28 2009.