We have come a long way since the beginning and I would like to thank Dr.Sauro for sharing all of her wonderful resources! I wanted to compile a list of all of the sources we have in order to help us in a CALL classroom and tell WHY we like them.
Hot Potatoes- This is a great site where you can make an assessment just for the needs of your class!
Quest Garden- A great resource for webquest! You can find a wide range of content and grade level material, not to mention you can create your very own!
FREE WIKIS!- A free site to impress your class or colleagues with! Use this site to collaborate with others to create something bigger and better.
Blabberize it! Make any project personal and engaging with this site!
Since we are talking about resources in Call that we like-- I love blogs! They are so fun- the experience of being able to collaborate and share ideas via our TESL Callspot has been awesome! So adding to your list I definitely say blogs. They are like small forums that can be used in a plethora of ways!
ReplyDeleteI also really love the idea of the blog. I saw many ways that we could use blogs this semester. I am sure I can implement them in my teaching in the future. Another resource that I am very glad we were taught was the corpus based language learning. I had never been introduced to corpus based language learning and love the idea of being able to use sites like MICASE and google in the future. Corpuses are a great tool for me to use in the future when my students are asking the really hard questions. :)
ReplyDeleteHi Kara!
ReplyDeleteI think you mentioned one time in class (and I agreed with you) - that why try to spend all your time trying to learn the back end knowledge of creating a program that can create a test/provide some sort of learning technology for teachers when there are already so many resources that already exist at our disposal. I definitely see Hot Potatoes (even with some of it's limitations) in this light. There is no way I could ever create a program that could create tests and the fact an application like Hot Potatoes makes it so easy for me to just plug and chug for various types of tests is an indispensable tool.
I also enjoyed completing the WebQuest homework and I found Quest Garden to contain quite the variety of quests for different interests. For fun, I ran a search for "ballet" and "dance", uncommon subjects for most classes and I came across a WebQuest researching cultural/folk dances. I completed that WebQuest for my homework because I was so excited it even existed. As a teacher, I can save so much time (granted some of the WebQuests did need a little maintenance) searching through Quest Garden for some interesting topics. I also liked that in your Wikispaces, you had some really interesting WebQuests.
I would have to add that the most surprising technology/resource that I found to be a lot of fun learning how to use was the podcast. I am not an auditory learner but I have had students in the past who learn best this way. In addition, I had SO MUCH FUN (and I don't know why) listening to everyone's podcasts. There were so many different kinds that catered to so many different student audiences. I'd like to learn more about how I can incorporate this type of technology into a curriculum instead of just supplemental materials.
Well, although each one of the homework assignments were time consuming, I am excited about everything I learned from them. They are all great resources for teachers and students. I would incorporate them in the curriculum based on a the needs of the students and the content itself. I still need to experiment further with some of them to get confident about the many ways to make use ot them. If anyone else has any additional technology resources to share with teachers that can be used in the CALL field, I would really appreciate it if they would provide them.
ReplyDeleteIn fact, Call class is one of the best classes I have taken in my study in UTSA. It has opened my eyes to the possible uses of several kinds of software which are free of charge, such hot potato, web quest, and wikis. I see technology as an excellent resource for classroom use as well as a supplement to traditional learning materials. The only concern I have, is that some schools cannot afford the expense of owning and maintaining computers. This is particularly anissue if you are interested in teaching overseas. In general, CALL will help us in our teaching where it is available.
ReplyDeleteI really love this class because I learned a lot useful software in this class. I like the hot potatoes best because I can use it for quizzes to test if I need to change something in my class. Although it take a while to make a quiz, I still think the different quizzes can help my students review what they learned before. Also, the wiki project is an interesting assignment. I read many of the definitions on the class wiki web pages and I really enjoy watching those videos. I think I would like to use the wiki for our final project.
ReplyDeleteI have had sort of skeptical mind in the very beginning, but now I got myself in better mindshape. Let's say I was nervous. As a student from abroad with very little experience of technology in profession life I was trying to measure my CALL class my oun size and I always got confused. In two months of styding I have realise - it is time to break all stereotypes! CALL class wanted from me a lot of reading, thinking and focusing on details. OK, I got it! I like Podcast the most, but I think all stuff shown up above is a great source and indeed can be used in teaching profession!
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ReplyDeleteThank you all for adding to our list of resources! Now, is the challenging part of finding the best way to integrate them into the classroom!
ReplyDeleteI really liked the idea of the WebQuests. I had never even heard about them, but now I think they're a really cool project to incorporate into classes in order to add a fun cultural or grammatical component.
ReplyDeleteI also think class wiki could be a lot of fun, especially for advanced learners trying to grasp idioms or prepositional/phrasal verbs.
I'm also a big fan of the corpus websites. I teach university-level students or adults and I think it's a fun way to look at grammar or registers in a real-text context.
I'm definitely a big fan of the blogspot but also really enjoyed the Wiki spaces.
ReplyDeleteHowever, my absolute favorite has been the Voki character because I've been sharing this with so many people and we all love making ourselves into cartoons! LOL!!!
I think my favorite of all CALL technology was MALL, particularly mobile phone apps. Having a rather busy lifestyle, one in which I typically lug around bags of books, having language resources readily available is a big plus! Granted, they do not go too in depth, but as I a beginner language learner, right now it suits my needs.
ReplyDeleteI like the idea of using a WebQuest and the collaborative effect that is brought out through this type of activity. It is a great way to learn a language while working on a task. The corpus homework we did showed me that there are a lot of learning opportunities using a corpus and concorrdancer
ReplyDeleteI love, love, LOVE http://www.kidblog.org. It's the best blog program for young learners that I've been able to find. I'd always been interested in incorporating blogging into my classroom, but I hadn't found a software that was age-appropriate for 6 and 7 year olds until coming across KidBlog. Seriously, if you teach younger learners, KidBlog rocks!! We've been blogging up a storm since.
ReplyDeleteThis is excellent feedback. It's very interesting to see which of the technologies seemed most relevant for each of you.
ReplyDeleteAnd good points raised regarding the usefulness of CALL in a wider variety of contexts where computer access may be limited.