Monthly Archives: October 2015

Podcasts in the classroom

Urban Adolescents

I think that podcasts can be both a great way to engage adolescents with a large variety of topics, and an excellent forum for them to express their personal opinions and on topics covered in class. So much of media, from television shows to movies to advertisements, advance the sometime dubious agendas of large corporations, whose first concern is delivering a profit. These types of media also tend to follow strictly prescribed parameters for timing, content, etc. Podcasts, on the other hand, are non-profit entities, and rely on donations and sponsorships. The people who produce them often work for themselves and are passionate about a particular subject. Podcasts are as long or as short as the author wants them to be, and they can cover any topic. The result is free-flowing, serious explorations of a whole range of issues, done by interesting, engaging, and passionate people. Unlike other democratic media platforms like YouTube or Facebook, where posts and videos vary in quality and usefulness, podcasts generally tend to be of higher quality. There are certainly some podcasts that are not as strong as others, but based on informal observation, on average, podcasts deliver excellent content.

Educators can use podcasts in the classroom in two ways: they can both encourage students to consume podcasts, and require that students produce their own podcasts. Educators can require students to consume podcasts either to pique their interests in any number of subjects. Actively following a podcast on a topic is an enjoyable and educational experience. People who listen to podcasts often become quite devoted to their podcast, and form a sort of emotional bond with the podcaster. Given the seemingly infinite number of podcasts, I think it would be highly beneficial for adolescents to select any topic that interests them, and listen a high-quality podcast about it. I think of it as a sort of 21st century version of the independent reading students are often required to do in earlier grades – pick any book of your choosing, enjoy it, and report back. It is certainly not the cornerstone of a class, but it is an important part of it. It allows adolescents to dig deeper into anything that interests them. Furthermore, enjoying one podcast might pique their interest in other podcasts. They might see podcasts as an effective and enjoyable way to learn something, and search out more. Educators can also use podcasts in a more focused way. Podcasts can serve as an excellent complement to any lesson plan. While audioclips of podcasts can be played as part of a lesson, again, I feel that one of the real benefit of podcasting as a particular form of media is its serial nature. You get the most out of podcasts when you listen to their every installment and get excited for the next episode. If you were to get a class hooked on particular podcast that’s pertinent to whatever the class is studying, then you’ve done something valuable – you’ve gotten the class as interested your subject matter as they would their favorite TV show.

The second way educators can use podcasts in the classroom is by having students produce their own. This approach has obvious benefits. It assesses student knowledge in a way that allows students to be creative. I can imagine that if you assign students to create a podcast, which can often follow the format of a radio show, many of them will relish the opportunity to sit behind a microphone and feel as though they’re broadcasting on the radio. I feel like this activity will be particularly meaningful to students if they already know and enjoy a podcast – not only will this give them a better sense of how to complete the podcast, it will also make the fact that they are now the one producing a podcast more significant and exciting.

Wechat: Assist Students to Learn Foreign Language (Chinese)

eLiteracy and Social Media(tion), Media and Technology Critiques, Urban Adolescents

Checking Wechat has been my daily habit. As a social media app, Wechat had been reported to have more than 200m subscribers at the end of 2013. Not only be the first in China, it’s now becoming popular in the US and UK. According to reports, it’s a trend that teens are attracted by such app from “traditional” media and have become the biggest group of consumers. Today’s teens are digital natives. As a foreign language teacher, I am thinking about how to use Wechat to get students more involved and active in Chinese teaching and learning. Continue reading Wechat: Assist Students to Learn Foreign Language (Chinese) →

Facebook as a community builder

eLiteracy and Social Media(tion), Media and Technology Critiques, Urban Adolescents

I think social media networks, such as Facebook, have great potential as learning tools for adolescents. Facebook, though not as popular with adolescents as it once was, provides students with many opportunities for expression and interaction in a way that can be monitored by the teacher and other students. It can be used as a great tool that promotes engagement, collaboration, and a sense of community.

Social media has played a tremendous role in both perpetuating injustices and fighting them. The success and/or survival of many social and political movements has been due, in great part, to organizing on social media such as Facebook. Students, with the guidance of teachers, can also use this platform to explore societal issues that are of personal interest to them and create awareness about topics they care about, including promoting social justice. Ideally this would motivate them to interact more and create a space where they could form respectful relationships in a cooperative, supportive environment that values differences.

While there are many dangers and negative aspects of this site, they can easily be greatly diminished with the proper administration and oversight. For example, teachers can design a class site and set it as private, ensuring the safety of the students from possible predators, and put rules and guidelines in place for students to follow. The teacher can monitor what is being said and work to create a safe, healthy culture within the confines of their private page where bullying and disrespectful behavior would not be tolerated.

A very positive and useful aspect of Facebook is that it is very easy to post many different media formats on there, which, in my opinion, gives it an advantage over other social media sites.  It is very user friendly for teachers and students who can post videos, articles, and music which they can comment on and create discussions about. It is a place where the class can share information and interact with it and the other students in deep, meaningful ways.

Another really good aspect of this site, and others like it, is that many adolescents who might feel insecure about speaking in class would likely feel less timid online and be more inclined to share their true feelings and ideas due to the online format. This could in turn instill more confidence in them and inspire them to be more active in the classroom. For that reason and others, these sites are particularly useful for second language learners because they give them the chance to practice the language in a safe, non-threatening manner which can serve as practice for the classroom and give them more of an opportunity to become more active members of their learning community and the larger society. Because the language is written, the teacher would have many opportunities to identify strengths, interests, and problem areas to work on. Similarly, students who are hesitant to share in class because of an image they are trying to uphold or a role they are pursuing, could be afforded the opportunity to explore different kinds of roles and different aspects of their personality. I think many students feel more freedom to express themselves online than they do in the classroom.

Adolescents generally love to communicate in this format. So, if they are motivated and engaged with the format and material on the site, there are many possibilities for the teacher to help them learn how to be respectful, contributing members of a respectful community; a skill they can surely transfer out into “the real world”.

A big drawback could be if a student didn’t have access to a computer because of socioeconomic reasons. This would be terrible because it would serve to perpetuate the social injustice by marginalizing the student more because of their disadvantage. In order to prevent this from happening, the teacher must ensure that all students are able to participate by providing ways to contribute in the case that the students lacked the necessary tools. For example, one way to accomplish this would be for the teacher to give them access to school computers during the day or after school.

Regardless of the personal opinions and preferences of teachers, technology is here to stay, and students love to interact with it. It is our job as teachers to integrate it in beneficial ways that contribute to students’ learning and growth and, as a result, to societies’ well being.

TED Talks-Amazing tool for presenting ideas in classs

eLiteracy and Social Media(tion), Media and Technology Critiques, Urban Adolescents

Media Critique

Junqi Huang (Kay)

TED Talks-Amazing tool for presenting ideas in class

Nowadays, it is the era of science and technology. One coin has two sides. On one hand, technology makes our lives more easier, such as we can communicate every where with our cellphones; we can pay various bill by a push of a button; and we can rely message more efficient with text and email; on the other hand, sometimes technology still has its cons. For instance, our personal information can hacked and be exposed to the cyber world. If the computer with important information is down, we might be hard to retrieve the information we needed. Nevertheless, as educators, we find that technology can be utilized as useful tool in class.

As I was in college, TED Talks seems to become a mainstream tool for teacher to present concept in the class. I remembered the first time I was exposure to TED Talks was in sociology class. The professor was presenting the topic of the bias of gender. In order to direct her students to form critical think in the subject matter, she showed us a short presentation, called “Killing us softly” from TED Talks. The speech impressed me. After watching the presentation, I felt like I accessed large amount of information from it in such a short time. Since then, I start watching some interesting presentations from TED Talks. When I watch speech from TED apps, I can also choose either to show the subtitles or not. For my understanding, reading subtitles while watching TV or video is beneficial for people to learn English, especially for the people who are at the beginner level. It helps people to understand the concepts better. Therefore, I believe the TED Talks is able to enhance students’ language level.

In a classroom, motivation plays an important role in students’ learning process. I believe those amazing speeches from TED Talks are able to grab students’ attention, especially for adolescents.  Adolescents are energetic and on-going processing the knowledge from the world. TED Talks is divided into many categories. Every topic is related to the social factors and reveals the common phenomenon in the society. Each presentation is well organized and precise. In class, teacher can teach class by showing them one of related presentation; and then, lead them to think critically. According to previous class, we notice that teenagers are lack of concentration. However, the TED Talk only required a short amount of time to watch, which aids students to access the largest amount of information in the least amount of time period.

In general, there could be a downside for the TED Talks, but either playing an educator’s role or student’s role, I only see the advantage of the TED Talks. It helps students to open their mind and gain a deeper understanding of new concepts.