About my school

My school is the Liszt Ferenc Primary Music School in Hódmezővásárhely.

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Reflections on Using Web 2.0

Web 2.0: http://oreilly.com/web2/archive/what-is-web-20.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Web_2.0
See this strip story, and make similar using Pimpampum:

Reflections on Listening and Speaking with Online Audio and Video

• How can online audio provide more autonomous listening skills practice?

I have never used podcast, but they seem to be very intersting and effective tools for online learning. They serve as autonomous way of providing a radio like content, but it can be listened whenever, whereever and as many times as the listener wants. So they are ideal ways of practice litening in lessons and at homes, too.

• How can you use student recordings in your teaching?

There are a number of ways to use podcasts. First of all, they are ideal tools to practice speaking and listening skills. They are also good for completing projects. Finally, they are ideal for making the lessons more authentic.
I designed an activity with the use of a podcast:
I have chosen the following podcast: Series 01 Episode 07
It is for elementary students. The aim of the activity is practice talking about families. While the children listen to the podcast, they can do the accomanied activities. The activities contain multiple choice questions, gap filling, open ended questions and follow up activities: They have to describe their family to their friends.

• From the sites and suggested lesson ideas what do you think will work best with your learners in your school?

I already have used youtube, but I think vimeo and teacher tube also will be very useful. Regarding the activities the silent viewing and watch and respond tasks will be my favourites.
Here I describe a task for young students:
They watch the video about Matt:



While they are watching, they have to write down as many country names, as they can. After they collect the countries on the board. They can choose 5, and write them down into their activity book. Then they watch the video again, and play bingo; The winner is who has all 5 countries watched first.



Podcasts:
Podcastinenglish
BBC
ESL Pod
Learnenglishkids
Voicethread
Googletalk
YackPack

Create online audios:
Audacity
Podomatic









Useful websites:
http://www.teachingenglish.org.uk/think/articles/podcasting-elt
http://nikpeachey.blogspot.com/2007/09/interactive-presentations.html
http://recap.ltd.uk/podcasting/
http://www.teachingenglish.org.uk/think/articles/video-young-learners-1
http://nikpeachey.blogspot.com/2008/11/things-you-can-do-with-your-webcam-1.html


Using videos:
Wordia
Dotsub
Bigthink

How to use youtube in the classroom?
How to make films?

Task types for using video:

Silent viewing tasks:

• Ask students to watch a clip with the sound muted and try to script what they think the people in the clip are saying. This works best with clips that have two or three people interacting in familiar settings.

• Ask students to watch clips and compare the culture depicted within the clip to their own culture. This works well with clips that depict everyday life in the target culture.

• Ask students to watch a clip and try to describe what people are feeling and why and what kind of character they are. This works best with clips that have people interacting.

• Ask students to watch and order / note down steps in a process. This works well with instructional clips such as cooking videos or showing how to do things.

Listening tasks:

• Ask students to watch a clip and write down what they hear as a dictation activity. This works well when the clip is quite short and the sound quality is good

• Ask students to listen for specific facts and information. This works well when you create true false statements for students so that they don’t have to write too much and they know what to listen for.

• Ask students to listen and answer questions. This works best when the answers required are quite short and don’t require them to stop and write a lot.

Watch and respond:

• Ask student to watch and see if they agree with the information being given. This works well with clips such as interviews where opinions are being given.

• Ask students to watch and decide if they like what they see. This works well with entertainment videos such as music videos or with clips which show other cultures or exotic places.

• Ask students to watch the first part of a clip and then describe what they think will happen next. Students then watch and check. This works well with video clips that show narrative.

Reflections on Using the Interactive Web in the Classroom

• What does the interactivity of Web 2.0 tools mean to my students?

The use of the internet for sharing, sending, getting informations and take part in projects interactively. They already use Facebook, send e-mails, take and upload photos and videos, chat, play games, and many other applications for their entertainment. The teachers' responsibility to teach them to use these tools for learning.

• What am I (and what are my students) already using on the Internet?

They share documents, watch videos, listen to voices/songs/music and send e-mails.

Web 2.0 tools:

• Digg - a news website where users vote on what appears on the front page
• Wikipedia - a user generated encyclopaedia
• YouTube - user generated video sharing website
  
• BigThink - a forum for new ideas
  
• Flickr - a photo sharing website
• TeacherTube - a video sharing website aimed at teachers
  
• MonkeySee - a user generated 'how to' video site
  
• Podomatic - a website where users can create their own radio style radio shows
• Voicethread - a tool for discussing files and photos
  
• VoxSwap - a language exchange site
  
• Palobea - a language learning site for teachers to teach online
  
• CourseLab -free e-learning authoring tool

Reflections on Projects

• What parts of my syllabus would benefit from a project involving other schools and countries?

I would apply international project with my 7th and 8th graders. In their coursebook there are some chapters about the UK, Scotland and Wales. So, during these sections it would be ideal to establish a school project with a school in the UK.

• What emerging technologies can you think of that could be used for school links projects?

Writing e-mails, sending messages, creating a common website, making videos, taking photos and sending to each other, arranging video conference, using msn, skype, internet, so almost every kind of technology resources can be applied.
We had a Comenius project, our website can be seen here.
We had a common ACES project with a school in Austia, our website can be visited here.

Useful links:
Teacher's TV
Globalgateway
eLanguages
Rafiki
ePals

Reflections on Using Office software

• How do I manage my whole class activities?

I like whole-class activities, beacuse it gives opportunity for working together with the whole class. It enables better students to achieve their skills, and gives possibility to weaker students to learn from the better. I mainly use this kind of working method to present new structures, present music and videos and to play games.

• How much time are my students actively engaged in whole class activities?

Maximum one-third or half of my lessons are spent with whole-class activities, I prefer learning by doing, when the children work in small groups or pairs. Actually, it depends on the topic.

• How could these ideas fit into my syllabus?

These are very good ideas, and to any syllabus can be fitted in.

• What classroom management issues may occur from taking my class into a computer room?

There are a number of issues we have to manage when we take our class into a computer lab. Firstly, we have to be careful with the instructions, so we have to tell them exactly what to do.
Secondly we have to agree on certain rules with them: Everybody has to use that website, that we agreed on, (not Facebook), and they can switch on their computer when the teacher allows them. They cannot upload or save for themselves anything that is not related to the schoolwork.
Another important point is that we have to check the computers in advance, if it is the internet connection available, are the softwares all available, etc.
Finally, another important management issue is how to arrange the children? Will they work in pairs, groups or everybody gets one computer?

Free onlin courses: Alison , Microsoft

Good practice of using Power Point

• How could the ideas above be used within my syllabus?

I use many of these ideas, hopefully more and more.
The children used power point to present mini dialogues. You can see some of these here.










Using office software:

• Replace "I" with "she"
• To separate two mixed texts
• Complete the story with adjectives
• Change the tenses
• Power point photo story

Interesting readings:
Creating a dream lab

Reflections on Cyber well-being

• How does the information on this page affect how you view the Web 2.0 technologies you have been looking at?

Despite the many benefits of internet technologies, there are many dangers in it. We have to teach children how to use internet safely. There are three kinds of dangers: Content, contact and conduct. Regardind the contact there can be dangerous adverts, spams, and they have to be aware not to solve personal infos about themselves. When we use web 2.0 technology in the classroom, we don't solve personal information and keep our things defended by passwords.

• How can you pass this information onto parents and children?

The teacher's responsibility to teach the children the safety rules, and pass the rules to the parents.

To be smart!
Digizen

Reflections on Copyright and Copyright-friendly Resources

• How is copyright dealt with in my school?

We use only legal softwares and teaching materials in the classroom. We photocopy some materials, but only from those books that are have bought for the school and photocopy is permitted.

• What are my students reaction to copyright issues?

They do not know much about them, so it is the teachers' responsibility to draw their attention to use only legal photos, images, and any kinds of material during their learning.

Reflections on Searching

• Why are searching skills important?

The internet is an excellent tool for find information in any kind of topic. It contains an enormous amount of datas. But the information, that is stored, is not arranged in order, and the reliability and validity is questionable. Therefore it is essential that we have to teach the children how to use the internet in a way that it solves their aims and helps them to find the required information. Developing the seaching skills allows them to find the required datas quickly, they use reliable sources and can look at the pages critically.

• What can I do to better inform my students?

I can help them in drawing their attention into some important details when they visit a webpage. They always have to examine the author and the organisation of the webpage, is it frequently updated or not, is it reliable or not, are there any references to reliable sources, or not. Apart from this, we have to draw their attention to reliable webpages.

How to search?

Search engines:
Google
Yahoo
Ask
Dogpile
Metacrawler
Videos

Reflections on Integrating the web

• What areas of my syllabus would benefit from integrating the Web?

Using websites on the lessons is one of the most brilliant benefit of the internet. Websites can be integrated in any part of the syllabus. They can be used to teach grammar, practice reading skills, writing skills, and of course, listening skills.

• After using some of the websites in this unit, how did the lesson benefit from the website being used?

Using websites largely motivate students. They love seaching for information, doing puzzles, or any kind of games they can do on the internet. The most advantage of the internet is that children can do and practice the again at home. Anothe advantage for the teacher that she doesn't have to prepare a lot with papers and copies, the materials can be used again and again. It saves time and materials.

• What websites do my learners use? Could they be exploited?

There are a wide range of educational websites, I created a webpage for my students:
It is called Lisztangol. We also have a blog: Lisztangol.
We use Quizlet. We have a group here: Lisztangol.
Our Bookmarks are here: http://www.delicious.com/lisztangol
We do tests here: http://quizstar.4teachers.org/indexi.jsp
We do exercises here: http://www.agendaweb.org/
We use moodle: http://moodle.liszt.hiszk.hu/

Reflections on Evaluating and selecting webpages

• What does it mean to say a website is educationally useful?

The information that is contained is accurate, there are additional references, the information can be verified from other sources. The site is specifically aimed for teachers, and the content is relevant. It can support learners with different learning styles. It has links, or refers to the appropriate stages of the National Curriculum.

• How has the evaluation criteria made you question websites you have used in the past?

I used several websites before, and now I have questioned some of the according to the evaluating criteria. Now I am aware of the method of how to decide if a webpage is appropriate or not for educational purposes.

Useful websites for primary students:
BBC Little Animals Activity Centre
Enchanted learning
Puzzlemaker
BBC Story Time
ESL Games
Phonetics
Starfall Phonics
Clifford
Cubeez
Gamegoo
Fisher-Prize
Yahoo Kids
Switch Zoo
Exploratorium
Hero Machine
Learn English Kids

Reflections on the Introduction on Learning technologies

• What can I do in my own teaching situation?

According to my possibilities, I have to integrate as much new technologies as I can into the lessons. The students are digital natives, and use these new technologies in a brilliant way. The teacher's role to "support students teaching themselves". Thus the role of the teacher changed. They aren't hold lectures, but they are rather became facilitators, who help students to learn how to learn alone with the help of the computer. The technology offers a great variety of tools for the children, but they are unable to use and select this tools to use effectively for their development. That's the teacher's role and responsibility to teach them for it.

• What do my students already use technology for?

They use internet to chat, send e-mails, play games, search, upload and download information on the net. The use cell phones to phone, to send text messages. They use mp3, mp4 players to listen to music, to watch videos. They use cameras to take photos, videos. These tools became integral part of their life.

• How can I meet my students' needs?

I have to negotiate their needs with the pedagogical aims. I have to teach them to use technology as an effective tool for their development.

What are learning tecnhologies?
Computer aided language learning software (CALL)
Office applications
Internet
Interactive whiteboards
Using CD Roms
Mobile phones
DVD players

Useful readings:
The role of technology
Digital natives, digital immigrants
CALL

Using PowerPoint to create a photo dialogue: