Han Yu Tian Di

中国是一个人口众多的国家。

I like the tools for creating podcasts very much. I experimented with  using Zamzar to convert audio and video files to podcasts. Converting a wave file into mp3 format in Audacity is my favorite part. You have to have the Lame decoder installed before doing a conversion. I used the windows sound recorder a lot to record students’ voices for their digital portfolio or storytelling projects before. I’m glad that Audacity can convert these wave files into mp3 files. This makes digital storytelling process much more convenient. Many multimedia programs like Windows Movie Maker doesn’t work with wave files.   I create multimedia projects such as digital stories with my students every year. Kids love to record their stories, project reflections, and self-assessments. They enjoy scripting, recording, and listening to their voice.   One of the podcasting ideas  is to let students publish a language class podcasts as a audio/video newsletter to help them polish their language fluency and also teach others how to speak the language.
Here is one of my podcasts. it is for learning Pinyin, the phonetic system of Chinese language!

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Google Document and Presentation provide a nice platform for collaborative activities. The most convenient feature is that, when you make changes to a shared document, your collaborators can get your changes instantly from the same file. you don’t need to save the file with several versions as we do with Word and end up getting confused.  Here are some of my ideas about using Google doc in the classroom.

1. Homework: Use Google Docs to assign homework such as worksheets to students. Ask students to save a copy of the worksheet, complete it, and submit assignments by using the “Share” feature.

2. Peer critique: assign students a writing task.  Let students use Google doc to process their writing tasks and then use the “Share” feature to invite peer reviewers to give critiques about their works.

3. Group project: use Google Spreadsheet to create a budget project in business application class. Divide students into 2-3 person groups. Let groups create their team budget worksheet in Google Spreadsheet, use the chat feature to communicate about cost and income analysis, financial status, and sales strategies. Groups need to present their project in Google Presentation. Each member will have several tasks in this project. They will work on the budget spreadsheet and the presentation collaboratively.

Searching Youtube and Teachertube videos is a fun experience.  Youtube gives more search results than Teacher tube does. Though the quality of the video clips are various, you often can find ones that are nicely done with a professional taste. I searched several movies about Tibet for the study of the ethnic cultures in China in Youtube. They look great. I’ve uploaded them to my blog for my students to explore. There are many skill tutorial clips in Youtube. One of them is about using Audacity to make podcasts. Since Youtube is a public domain, Safety seems to be a quite challenging aspect when we use Youtube resources with students.  Teachertube is a safe place for students to explore. Many Teachertube videos are created by teachers and students for teachers and students. I explored several projects created by high school students. Here is one of them. It is about the first emperor of China.

A Youtube Movie about Tibet. It can be used for studying ethnic cultures in China.

Youtube movie on how to create podcasts in Audacity.

I explored these foreign language podcasts–Coffee Break French, Coffee Break Spanish, and one minute Mandarin from the Grazr directory.  They are beginner level lessons. Most of the lesson topics can be fit into the topics a foreign language beginning class offers. They can be incorporated into a language course for reinforcing students’ communication skills or used to introduce lessons. These can also be introduced to students as self exploratory activities. Students can download the files to their ipods and retrieve the files whenever they want to. I also subscribed to the PBS education podcasts through iTone. I’m going to share these ed trends and issues with my colleagues. Podcast is a useful tool for creating a language learning environment and meeting the communicative demands of foreign language acquisition. It changes human communication dramatically. Because podcasts are online, so it can be accessed easily. Also, they can be downloaded and saved into an mobile device like ipod, which gives learners unlimited access anytime and anywhere.
Here is the Coffee BreakFrench podcast site
http://rlnvault.com/rln09/2009/05/lesson-53-coffee-break-french/

Coffee Break Spanish Podcasts

http://rlnvault.com/rln09/2009/05/lesson-23-coffee-break-spanish/

One Minute Mandarin

http://rlnvault.com/rln09/shows/other-languages/one-minute-mandarin/

PBS Educational Podcasts with John Merrow

http://feeds.pbs.org/pbs/merrow-audio

If Delicious is an connected tool for cataloging and sharing online resources, then librarything is an connected toolfor cataloging and sharing personally owned printing resources. Both of them have some common characteristics. First, They all allow individual owners to share their collections and resources in a global network; second,  people with same interest or profession can network through Delicious and Librarything to share their thoughts and ideas, third, both tools are user friendly and straightforward. These are the tools really for teachers. I really like the Zeitgeist and Group features in the Library. Here are some of my ideas on using the Librarything with students.
1.  Invite students to Zeitgeist to find top authors and books, and decide a book for the class to read. This activity will give students a sense of ownership for their learning.

2. Zeitgeist is a good place for finding book news and updates.  Arrange a time once a week or as one of the daily morning Kiosk activities, let students go to the Librarything to check book news, and help students form a habit of checking book news periodically. it is also one of the ways to encourage students to read.

3. the Group feature is great for students from 4th grade -up.  English or language art teachers can use this feature to set up a reading & discussion group. The discussion can be based on an assigned book, a topic, or a reading level to help students read and share their thoughts.

4.  Organizing a new club is definitely a great leadership accomplishment for high school students. however, it seems a kind of hard to add a new club since many high schools normally have already established all of the clubs people can think about.  How about organizing and leading an online reading group in the Librarything?

As a life long learner and an educator, having a handy tool box or resource bank is something enssential. Delicious is one of the most useful tools for organizing, sharing, and browsing online resources. It is a connected way of collecting and building instructional resources, which I like the most because I can quickly browse through everybody’s bookmarks to locate some relevant web resources to use with my students in case of an urgent situation. I can make my bookmarks available to much larger population of same interest. This reminds me many hours I spent several years ago to locate quality online resources for classroom teachers. Another time consuming task was to organizing my web resources into the technology resource site for teachers to access. In terms of saving time, this connected/online bookmarking tool is really a breeze. I especially like using the tags to catalog my resources, very simple and straightforward. This tool definitely needs to be in my toolbox! here is my delicious page: http://delicious.com/Westmin09.  More bookmarks will be added on soon. If your school has Chinese language program, please share my bookmark site with your Chinese teachers since I’m building a  collection for Chinese language teaching and learning.  You are more than welcome to use these resources!

I explored quizlet.com. It is a great tool for creating online quizzes, flashcards, worksheets, and tests.  Quizlet is quite dynamic and allows teachers to create many types of materials with user friendly interface. I only explore the feature for creating tests. You can configure the feature  to create match test, multiple choice questions, true or false questions, and so. It’s a handy tool and can accommodate the needs of different subject areas such as social studies, language arts, math, science, and foreign language. I guess many teachers know this tool well since it has been around for a while. Here is the quizlet URL http://quizlet.com/

Here is a quiz I just created in quizlet.