Technology into my teaching??

Spend a little time thinking about your role as a teacher scholar. Write about practical ways you might incorporate technology into your pedagogy and research to take yourself in new directions or to reenergize your established practices.
Set a few small technology-based goals for yourself for the upcoming academic year.
Before deciding which pedagogy for classes, teachers should think about goals for the class. What do you want to accomplish? What do you want students to learn from your class? Technology is a useful tool to facilitate teaching somehow. I have ever heard one teacher told to her students. “If students don’t know some pieces of information, many teachers may say, “ Googling” When I heard that, I was so confused and wanted to question about the functions of teachers in the class. If your answer is just one single word, then most students already know the answer. Why do they need to be here?

Internet pedagogy is becoming so popular in Taiwan. Many teachers ask students share their personal experience or their works on Internet or in public place because of global audiences- real audience? From teacher’s perspective, yes, students can exchange their information via blog or Internet, meet friends, collect feedback from peer’s and etc.. However, if students feel uncomfortable about this activity, do they have a right to say NO? I don’t want to post my work to public? I am sort of interested in this question for a long time.

I would like to bring up the second thought of applying technology in literacy teaching. Definitely, technology is an efficient tool in the class. Students can write for global audiences not only teachers; they also can read in a wide range of topics and research many resources. Simply just surf the Internet, students can find out much information or maybe “their knowledge”. However, just heavily rely on resources from Internet shallows our thoughts. For example, many students may spend one-two minutes for one page and go on next. They basically skim the information and may not read through it critically since they don’t want to stick to one page for a long time and read it and think it or even reflect their thinking. Second, after reading few pieces of information, readers may think that “ I probably can be a doctor as well since I can research or terminology from Internet and I can consult any symptom I have from Internet.

Another problem is that many students create their or new language in chat room. Where is Standard English which many teachers consider in the classroom? Some words such as ORZ, IBM draw their attention immediately. I found out that many students write fragment sentences or grammar; however, it may cause a big problem because as long as they cultivate this writing behavior, they may gradually change their writing style.

I am not trying to persuade that teachers should apply technology into the classroom because one coin has two sides. It may optimize one purpose and not others. How can we adjust and adopt technology pedagogy into your classroom. We should contextualize our teaching method with your institution and out local context.

The Best

Eric Clapton - Tears in Heaven

Literacy

How do you understand literacy, based on what ayou read and your own experiences?
As literacy teachers, what should your goals be? what are we trying to do when we teach literacy?

The definition of literacy is considered to be the ability to read and write. The United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization ( UNESCO) has drafted the following definition: “ Literacy” is the ability to identify, understand, interpret, create, communicate, compute and use printed and written materials associated with varying contexts. Literacy involves a continuum of learning to enable an individual to achieve his or her goals, to develop his or her knowledge and potential and to participate fully in the wider society. so, i think literacy is very important in our society and the only way to solve the problem of illiteracy is via eucation. however, the education system in Taiwan is amazing-? maybe terrible.

I think teaching literacy is more than just being able to teach students how to read and write. I think teachers should let students to understand that reading is fun and exciting. Having students have a enjoyable introduction to the world of literature and trying to motivate students to read extensively, enjoyable and read a wide range of subjects, they will show a tendency to seeing reading and writing as one of their enjoyments. ........

thoughts about the technologies

Discuss your personal thoughts about the technologies we've tried out so far (film, home pages, Second Life, and now blogs). How might these technologies shape your future teaching? How might they shape you as a person/scholar?

I like blogs because blogs have become global communication tools. Blogs are type of website which allow for the publication of text, images and sound files. I also can up-dated easily and frequently, with the latest changes clearly visible to my visitors. It is also a good place for teachers to collect writing and create a collaborative learning environment—providing learners with a language forum to exchange with peers and to reflect on their work, and to foster learner’s autonomy and learning strategies. I believe that technologies can facilitate teachers' teaching and motivate students' learning. However, teachers should be aware of not teaching students skills of technologies but teaching them real function of language usages.

About Dissertation

Discuss your current ideas for your dissertation. What are you thinking about researching? Why? What do you think is the most exciting aspect of the dissertation topic you are most interested in.

Service Learning in Composition for College Students in Taiwan and E-Community is the main idea of my dissertation. I would like to apply John Dewey’s philosophy of education into second language teaching in universities and aim to use service learning to increase students’ critical thinking and consciousness of social responsibility in composition classes in English Applied Department. In addition, I attempt to investigate 1) how education systems and teaching approaches affect second language learning in Taiwan, 2) how the pedagogy of writing and critical thinking are linked dialectically, 3) to look at the research on service learning and relate service learning to teaching and learning for language acquisition and writing can be used as a learning vehicle to help students learn and think critically about service learning. My further intention of dissertation is to try to encourage English teachers in Taiwan to apply service learning for benefiting students’ learning in composition class.

About IUP

So far, everything is going well with me. I like to be a IUP student now.

What has your experience as a student been like so far? What challenges have you faced? What aspects of the experience have been most interesting, positive?