My introductory video to Web 2.0 for language learnning
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Transcript
0:15 hello my name is Graham Stanley and I'm
a teacher of English based in Barcelona Spain I'm particularly interested in the use of emerging Technologies and language learning and what I'm hoping to do with this short presentation is to introduce some of the tools of the new 2.0 and hopefully show you a few examples of what can be done to engage our 21st century language Learners I'll also be taking a quick look at the exciting virtual world of second life which is buzzing with educational activity and full of promising possibilities and which some commentators have already predicted could be the Prototype of what the worldwide web may become in the not so distant future a three-dimensional web or web 3D as some have called it but before I move on to the third generation of the web what about the second generation Web 2.0 as it's been name what seems to be true is that the way in which many people interact with the web and what they want from it has changed the same is true in education with a lot of people so what are these new tools and how are they being used by a lot of them are transformative tools that are being talked about in lots of different fields especially where media is involved as they're all about making it possible for anyone to do at home what previously only professionals with expensive equipment could accomplish this new media is transforming the Press radio and television and the tools are blogs wikis podcasts and video and they're particularly useful for publishing students work online so let's start by having a look at blogs and how they are being used in English language teaching blogging appeals to language teachers because it's a way of opening up the classroom walls and showing The Wider world what is happening The Wider world can mean other students in the class or the organization parents other students and teachers in other schools and in fact anyone with an internet connection interest blogs have been used as ways of keeping track of what is happening in the classroom posting homework and linking to internet resources that are relevant to a group of students this is the most basic way of using a Blog and it's usually run by the classroom teacher if however you give each student a Blog then you're empowering the students and providing a much wider audience for anything they write it's also easy to connect with teachers doing the same thing in other parts of the world thus creating a small language community the wiki is the next tool I'd like to talk about a Wiki is basically a website that can be written to easily by a lot of people it's a space where content is given priority not design and any changes that are made to a page can be reversed because the wiki has a function how are wikis being used by teachers well as online classroom web pages that can be changed easily by teachers and students for classroom projects instead of putting students work on displays in the classroom teachers can pour students work on the web and then there are some projects such as wikil which allow students from all over the world to collaborate together about things that they're interested in as well as learning a language it's a little bit like the students the last tool I'd like to talk about is podcasting which is a way of using voice to help students connect to others from around the world as well as providing lots of different resources for students to listen to of course podcast appeals to the digital natives the students of today and the future who think of the web as we the digital immigrants might think of a book or a telephone tools vital tools for getting information or for communicating podcasts well as there audio and video files that can be downloaded and want you can take a language lesson with you and listen in your lunch hour using your mp3 player as many as many times as you want and teachers are starting to produce podcasts for their students and also to share podcasts made by students it's another great way of opening up the classroom to The Wider World students also take greater care of the work that they produce when they know there's an audience there are lots of directories where you can make students work available to the world and also get in contact with like-minded teachers who are running podcasting projects communities have practice online are probably the best places to get in touch with other podcasting classes and this way your students can be involved in producing exciting Intercultural radio shows for example for other students in different parts of the world a truly project when running these projects blogs wikis or podcasts it's also very easy to show the students by using free tools available on the web that there is an audience of students and other people listening to them and this is extremely motivating I'd like to finish off by talking a little bit about virtual worlds in particular second life for many as I said earlier the Prototype of what will become the next generation of 3.0 um is second life it's a virtual world where the residents the people who live there the avatars in this world create just about everything inside there and there is a lot of educational on there are many real life educational organizations especially universities which have started using Second Life as a platform for their students for e-learning and they are creating tools which can be used for all sorts of including language learning they're holding classes for their students especially for distant students and the platform is being used a lot for social networking there are communities of practice such as the web heads uh a community of Educators from around the world who meet together now in the world other organizations such as this many people think that this kind of convergence of the web media's video text and 3D gaming is a very very motivating way of educating the future students who knows it remains to be seen but it's very real and it's happening now thank you very much everybody I hope this has been of interest to you um please get in touch if you'd like to
