BA IN ELT

2013
Educational Technology
and the Internet
Study Guide Week 3
creatiga
U N I V E R S I D A D A U T N O M A D E S I N A L O A
BA in ELT Study Guide 2
EDUCATIONAL TECHNOLOGY


2006 Universidad Autnoma de Sinaloa
Unit 2 Technology Tools

In this unit

2.1 Computer Software
2.2 Educational Satellites
2.3 Movies and Video Clips



2.1 Computer software
Most students nowadays have access to computers at home, at school or both, and
somehow use them to interact with the language they are learning. Do you use at
computer to reinforce your language learning? What do you normally do with it?




Quit often the activities done in a computer are based on software designed to facilitate
students learning. Many institutions nowadays have specialized departments working in
this area. We can always find something new especially if we have access to internet.

Below we have links to experience an example of computer software. Visit them!
http://hotpot.uvic.ca/
http://www.jmadden.info/Hot_Potatoes.htm


After your visit explain some details from it.
1. Name
2. Designer
3. Purpose of the site
4. What can language learners do there?
5. What can language teachers do there?
6. Type of tasks
7. Links to other sites
Quite
a
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EDUCATIONAL TECHNOLOGY


2006 Universidad Autnoma de Sinaloa



Hot Potatoes
The Hot Potatoes suite is a set of six authoring tools, created by the Research and
Development team at the University of Victoria Humanities Computing and Media
Centre. They enable you to create interactive Web-based exercises of six basic types.
The exercises use JavaScript for interactivity, and will work in Netscape Navigator and
Internet Explorer versions 4 and above on both Windows and Macintosh platforms. Two
of the tools, JMatch and JMix, can also produce drag-and-drop exercises, but these will
only work with more recent browsers, because they use the W3C Document Object
Model. The authoring tools will also handle accented characters, so you can create
exercises in any language based on the Roman character set, including French,
German, and many other languages. The Windows version will also allow you to create
exercises in any language, using Unicode.
Although the exercises are constructed using JavaScript, you don't need to know
anything about JavaScript to use the programs. All you need to do is to enter your data --
texts, questions, answers etc. -- and the programs will create the Web pages for you.
Then you can post them on your Web site. However, the programs are designed so that
almost every aspect of the pages can be customized, so if you do know HTML or
JavaScript, you can make almost any change you want to the way the exercises work or
to the format of the Web pages.
If you work in a non-profit-making educational institution or context, and you are
prepared to share your exercises by placing them on a publicly-accessible Web server,
then you may use the Hot Potatoes suite free of charge. If you are working for a
company or in a commercial context, or if you password-protect your exercises or
distribute them only on an intranet, you will need to buy a license (contact
http://www.halfbakedsoftware.com/ information).

Visit the links below and propose some ideas on how to exploit them so they can be
useful for you and your students.
http://web.uvic.ca/hrd/hotpot/wintutor/
http://www.netc.org/classrooms@work/
http://www.netc.org/openoptions/index.html

Write your answers here:
Do these exercises and tell us what advantages and disadvantages you found.

1. http://michel.barbot.pagesperso-orange.fr/hotpot/geography/gb_uk/match.htm

2. http://michel.barbot.pagesperso-orange.fr/hotpot/mov_sounds/luzhin/luz2.htm

3. http://michel.barbot.pagesperso-orange.fr/hotpot/mov_sounds/bttfuture/bttf1.htm

4. http://michel.barbot.pagesperso-orange.fr/hotpot/mov_sounds/luzhin/luz2.htm

5. http://michel.barbot.pagesperso-orange.fr/hotpot/mlk/comp.htm

6. http://michel.barbot.pagesperso-orange.fr/hotpot/US_census/US_pop1.htm
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EDUCATIONAL TECHNOLOGY


2006 Universidad Autnoma de Sinaloa



2.2 Educational Satellites

Before looking at this topic, It would be interesting to know how much information do you
have about it. Can you answer these questions?








Do you know how a satellite can be used to promote education?
Do we have any satellites available for that purpose in Mexico?




You should know that satellites can establish the connectivity between urban educational
institutions with adequate infrastructure imparting quality education and the large number
of rural and semi-urban educational institutions that lack the necessary infrastructure.
Besides supporting formal education, a satellite system can facilitate the dissemination
of knowledge to the rural and remote population about important aspects like health,
hygiene and personality development and allow professionals to update their knowledge
base as well.

To discuss the application of satellite technology in education further, it is useful to take
a look at how generic educational activities can or might be supported by satellite
services and where such services are most suitable.

What educational activities are supported by satellites? Complete the table.
Whats a satellite?
How does it stay in orbit?
What are their main uses?
Who makes them?
How expensive are they?

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EDUCATIONAL TECHNOLOGY


2006 Universidad Autnoma de Sinaloa


Educational Activity supported?
Accessing Digital Library Resources









Overview of Satellite Supported Education Applications
You might want to visit the following site to expand your ideas on the activites that can or
might be supported by satellite services and where such services are most suitable.
http://www.jisc.ac.uk/sat_report4.html#4_1_2

These sites contain information related to the use of satellites in education. Visit them
and make a rsum on the usefulness of satellites for education.

http://www.education.noaa.gov/tspace.html
http://spaceflightnow.com/news/n0409/20gslv/
http://www.adec.edu/satellite-resources.html



2.3 Movies and Video Clips
Have you ever taught an English class using a Video or a DVD? What techniques can
you use with these types of technology? Check the ones you think are the most popular.

Silent Viewing _____ Sound-only Activities _____
Jigsaw Viewing _____ Freeze Frame ______
Normal Viewing _____

These five techniques mentioned above have become popular for teaching language
with video. All suggest working with short sequences of action (one to three minutes
long), repeated several times. A typical class period, or even a single activity, may
incorporate more than one technique.

What technique are we describing below?





This technique is simple. Press the Pause or Still button on the
video recorder so that the picture stays on the screen. You'll need a
Normal Viewing Silent Viewing JigsawViewing
Frezze Frame Sound Only


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EDUCATIONAL TECHNOLOGY


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video cassette recorder (VCR) in which the image stands still and
clear for about a minute. Don't worry about "burning" the picture into
the screen or damaging the tape. These problems are no longer an
issue due to advances in VCR technology.

What you will now have is a picture. (Think of a video as being
made up of millions of pictures.) All of the activities you do with
pictures in the classroom are still valid: describing the people or
scene, introducing new vocabulary, making inferences about the
characters' habits, livelihood, or economic status from their clothing
or physical shape, and so on.

The magic of video, however, is that the characters move and
speak. Use it just at the point when a character is about to respond
to a question, at a crucial moment when he/she must make a
statement or reaction, or when he/she has an interesting expression
on his/her face. Ask the students to guess what he/she will say or
do. Then release the pause on the VCR, and let them compare their
answers with what actually happens.

This technique is useful, too, for pronunciation and grammar
practice. Stop the tape when a character has used an intonation
pattern, grammatical structure, or idiom that you want the students to
practice. Rewind slightly so that they can hear the utterance again,
and repeat it, either along with or following the character's voice.

Think about how much information we get through our eyes: we
make judgments about a person's age, physical appearance,
economic status, and mood. We know the time of day and the
season of the year. When two people are talking, we infer much
about their relationship and personalities from their body language.
If we observe small details, as we can through video close-ups, we
can find out additional information: whether a person is married (Is
she wearing a wedding ring?); relaxed or tense (Is he smiling
broadly or grinding his teeth?); or concerned about appearance (Are
his shoes shined or dirty?). All of this information is readily available
for class discussion if you use this technique.

In addition, video scenes usually present many unsubtle clues to
their content. (In fact, if you ask your students to tell you about what
they have just seen silently - both the sequence of events and the
content of the characters' conversation - most students will give
surprisingly accurate descriptions.) By watching a scene with the
sound off, students gain two major benefits: 1) time in which to
absorb the content of a sequence without the anxiety of having to
understand the language and 2) a chance to fit the language that
they hear on a second viewing into a context. Not surprisingly, their
level of comprehension in the second viewing is greatly superior to
that of a "cold" first viewing that includes both sound and picture.
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EDUCATIONAL TECHNOLOGY


2006 Universidad Autnoma de Sinaloa



To use this technique, turn the volume control to its lowest setting so
that the soundtrack is inaudible.

This technique is excellent for stimulating speaking and writing:
students want to communicate their interpretations of the people
and actions they have seen on the screen.

While Silent Viewing involves getting information through our eyes,
this other technique involves listening for aural clues to the action.
These include sound effects such as ambulance sirens and car
horns, animal sounds, doors slamming, a baby crying, a telephone
ringing, and so forth. To use this technique, turn the brightness
control until the television screen goes dark. (If this is awkward, or if
you still see some of the picture, cover the screen with a newspaper
or cloth.)

What is left is, in effect, an audiotape. Students listen to the sounds
and the accompanying conversation and make predictions about
what is happening: Who and where the people are and what they
are doing. They can also try to describe a character from listening to
his/her voice: Is he/she tall or short? old, middle-aged or a
teenager? friendly or unfriendly?

This technique may also be the chosen one when you want
students to pay particular attention to a small piece of dialogue,
while avoiding the distraction of the activity on the screen. This is
particularly interesting when body language and verbal language are
contradictory; focusing on each separately can lead to interesting
student observations.

The major advantage of this method over audiotape is that students
can positively confirm their guesses (or laugh at their mistakes)
immediately upon viewing.

This technique is based on the idea that student partners will each
know different, but incomplete, versions of a story. In order to
recreate the original story, they will need to share their information.
While creating materials in print or on audiotape to use with this
technique is an arduous task, video, with its separate visual and
sound tracks, adapts quite easily.

The "classic" mode for this technique requires the ability to send
half of the class out of the room for a few minutes. The remaining
students watch the video with the sound off. The students then
switch places, with the students who just watched the video without
sound leave the room and the remainder listen with the picture off.
(If you have a second room available, you can make an audiotape
copy of the sound track for the listeners so that both groups can
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work simultaneously.) You will want to create a viewing and listening
task sheet for the students to complete separately. Then they will
come back together to share their information.

An easier, quicker way is to rearrange the students' seats so that
half of the class faces the screen and can see and watch the video;
their counterparts sit with their backs to the screen and can only
listen. This creates an information gap - the listeners lack vital
information and must question their counterparts about the setting,
the characters, and the characters' actions.

As the students watch, those who can see may describe what is
happening. Or you may tell the students to wait until the sequence is
finished; then the listeners can question the watchers.

One word of warning: choose a sequence of no more than two
minutes in length - the listeners get very jealous of the watchers!

At first glance, watching a video with both the sound and the picture
on does not seem to fit the label of "video technique." It qualifies,
however, as a technique in an educational sense: you, the teacher,
are choosing to show the video in this fashion in order to give your
students the visual and audio information they need to complete a
task.

Because the combination of both the visual and audio tracks
supplies an overpowering amount of information, it is best to show
very short sequences to your class - one to two minutes of tape
generally works best with students.

You will also want to create very structured tasks for your class if
this technique is used as an initial viewing. While you can't expect
detailed comprehension from your students, you can create activities
that focus on sequence of events, checking off things that they see
(or do not see), listening for paraphrases, and gaining impressions
that can lead into writing assignments.

The most common use of this technique, however, is on a second or
third viewing of a tape segment, after students have a general
impression of the content gained through silent viewing. Now they
can concentrate on activities that require recall of specific
vocabulary or language exchanges.