The role of WebQuests in learning a foreign/second language?”

Webquests  incorporate cooperative and collaborative learning, since students work on projects in groups. These concepts can play a role in teaching with Webquests. 

 

Web Quests can also help students meet standards focused on critical-thinking and analysis skills, and may be particularly useful for social studies and science. By using multimedia, WebQuests also help with multiple intelligence work. Alternative kinds of assessment can be used to judge the results of WebQuest projects. And, obviously, WebQuests are one way to use the Internet in education,

and it also can be used to develop critical thinking skills among students to learn foreign language. 

WebQuest can promote critical thinking because it requires each member of the group to carry out a specific, meaningful role, and then pool their respective research findings to formulate a response to a complex, open-ended problem.  there can be multiple solutions to the problem in a Webquest. A good Webquest focuses on an issue that has multiple viewpoints, such as social, political, environmental, or health-related. It also requires more than information gathering; students must process the information in order to form their opinions. Webquests help develop higher cognitive thinking by requiring students to sift through extensive information from the Web until they can construct an understanding that not only connects to their schema, but also builds new knowledge .

a WebQuest is "an inquiry-oriented activity in which some or all of the information that learners interact with comes from resources on the internet, optionally supplemented with video conferencing .

This tool allows learners to complete various tasks using other Cognitive tools (e.g. Inspiration, MS Word, PowerPoint, Access, Excel, and Publisher).

 The conclusion When students are motivated they not only put in more effort, but their minds are more alert and ready to make connections. Webquests use several strategies to increase student motivation. First, Webquests use a central question that honestly needs answering.

The second feature of Webquests that increase student motivation is that students are given real resources to work with.

Lastly, the answer or solution the student teams develop can be posted, emailed or presented to real people for feedback and evaluation. This authentic assessment also motivates students to do their best and come up with a real group answer, not simply something to fulfill an assignment.

By Alaa

A collocation thesaurus concordancer that produces word clouds!

On the surface of it Just-the-Word looks just like any other online dictionary or thesaurus, but start using it and you will soon find that it's much more.

If you type in a word, you can ask not only for alternatives just like any other thesaurus, but also word combinations for use with you key word.

The word combinations option produces a great list of collocations for the word, and what's better, if you click on the collocates, you get the kind of list that a concordancer will produce, with the expressions highlighted in context.

That's great, but there is still more, because if you click on a small button that says 'View in Wordle' the site will link through automatically to Wordle and create a word cloud of the most frequent collocations.

All of this is great, but there could be even more to come. There is also a button to select for 'Learner errors'. I haven't been able to get this to work yet, but to be able to search common learner errors really would be a very useful addition to such a site.

Wordle for EDU401

Reflection On the Three Weeks On EDU401 Course

        This course is different from all courses .It is very interesting from which I learned new teaching methods. At first I felt the difficulty, for I did not know before about the Blogs and wikis and their uses, for I do not use much kindly
But after I learned I found it very enjoyable, especially in education .  “I think that blogs are best for sharing thoughts and ideas; I think wikis are best for sharing information and resources.” That’s a good line to draw, since blogs are mostly one way (ideas out, only comments back in) and wikis are group projects (multiple editors with the potential for constant change to text, design, media,etc.). The discussion board in Blackboard is certainly another way to go for idea exchanges (one comment at a time on a larger idea, with comments possible on comments). It really just depends upon what lends itself best to your subject and your students (and yourself!).


 I do not know more than that, my words are always a few, but if others people came will write volumes about this course.
This is really interesting in education is not boring like the rest of the course.

“How would I use blogs, wikis and delicious with my EFL students?”

I would likely to use blogs, wikis and delicious throughout the lesson, before or after the lesson.


Blogs

I can easily use the blog to organize a collaborative learning environment in which students can peer edit others’ postings. Students should be encouraged to comment their partner’s postings, which can also 
be shared by other classmate.
 I believe that students who are aware that their postings and comments will be read by their classmates will be more careful before they post them.

Wikis

I could upload or link to videos or images and set group or pair work tasks for students to do. I could use the 'To do' feature of the wiki to set up tasks for different groups or students.

The wiki also has a lot of communication features so I could set up online discussion / forum tasks with students so that they could discuss the story and make decisions about how they want to change or develop it.

Wikis are a wonderful tool for students to work together and produce high quality texts.

Delicious

 I can ask them to go and search on delicious few useful sites related to the vocabulary that can be associated with the lesson that they've already learned it in class, and even upload their recommended websites.

Technology really help developing and enhancing the learning process. It would expose students to more useful technologies, therefore, they can benefit its uses.

Application of Bax Normilasation in Saudi Arabia: The how!

Stephan Bax argues that, "Our aim should be to attain a state of `normalization' in which the technology is invisible and truly integrated"

The most important thing according to Bax is that CALL will be normalized when computers are regular used lesser to learning itself. Computers will be used to serve the learners’ needs. He have tried to discuss in specific details what this means for CALL and the teaching of grammar, vocabulary, language skills. Currently, these aspects are not generally observed and based on his words; it actually may take many years for these practices to be defined as a routine. However, he said it’s possible and suggested to plan for this normalized position and then moves towards it. Thus, Bax proposed three steps. The first step is to identify the criterial factors which normalization requires. The second is to review the practice of each teaching perspective in view of these criteria and the final step is to adjust our current practice in each aspect in order to encourage normalization. After following these steps or this procedure, it will provide each institution and each teacher a clear outline within which to check growth, and within which any barberries to integration and normalization can be recognized and can be dealt with.
Stephan Bax summarized the possible growth of CALL towards normalization to fit our purposes and contexts as the following:
Stages of normalization in CALL:

1- Early Adopters; teachers and educational institutions need to adopt the technology out of curiosity—and that would be one of the initiative steps towards normalization.


 2-Ignorance/Skepticism.


 3- Try once; people would try it at first but reject it because or early problems. They can’t its value.


4- Try again; someone would tell them that it really works so they’ll try it again. And they would see its relative advantage.


5-Fear/awe; more people start to use it but still there is fear along with exaggerated expectations.


6-  Normalizing; gradually it will be seen as something normal and usual.


 7-Normalization; the technology will be so integrated into our daily lives to the degree that it becomes unseen—normalized

Application of Bax Normalization in Saudi Arabia:   
In my opinion we can apply this normalization in Saudi Arabia but this is not easy , In the Saudi classroom, usually we see the teacher explain the lesson and use traditional materials to support her lesson such as, board, chalk, book, pen, worksheets…etc. Also, sometimes teacher use projector to support her lesson. So, the students have motivation less to learn. Therefore, the teacher must vary materials to help the students to get more motivation to learn. So, the teacher should be tried to use the technology in the teaching process as a normal called normalization. In this case, the teacher uses a technology to make the teaching process more attractive and motivated. There are many different styles to use normalization in the Saudi class such as teacher use power points or presentation to support her lesson. Also, the teacher can send the assignment or extra activity which related in the subject through email or on an any online web. All of these help students to used the technology in the right way to get information and learn English in different way.. Therefore, the teacher must be used the technology tools as a part of lesson where the students don't feel by the teacher used it. Then, they consider that tools are important in the subject and lesson. In a few years ago, in Saudi classroom, the teacher used the technology or computer in the language teaching process especially in the high level. Now, also the teacher assists her students to use the technology at the beginning level. For example, my sister is student in the primary school, her teacher asked her to find the picture of fruit in the web that begin by (A) letter. My sister was happy when the teacher asked them for that and her motivation was become high.

I suggest .......

1-Technology requires an understanding of cause and effect and building up knowledge of control and a sequence of actions. 

2-Make sure you provide appropriate technology 


3-Review your technology: it’s not important to have a lot of technology, more to make the best use of what you have, can make or can obtain for free. 

4-Use technology: digital cameras, camcorders, web-cams and movie makers, to record children’s personal learning stories. Encourage children to become involved in recording their learning e.g. through taking photos of something they are making using a camera or web-cam.




    To conclude, use the technology as a normal in the classroom is a great tip to develop educational process. Also, the teacher plays important role in this case. . Finally, we must improve our classroom by including the technology as a part of subjects.

I Wanted to Change the World

'' I wanted to change the world .But I have found that the only thing one can be sure of changing is oneself "