Thursday, January 28, 2010

In Class Task 3.: Blog Entry:.

1. Why do you think evaluation of CALL websites, materials, etc important?

Honestly, I truly believe that the importance of having to evaluate any websites especially CALL webwites for the learning context,is crucially in need due to some factors. To ensure the quality of explicit contents/information/ knowledge is fully acquired or sent to the learner, the aspects of reliability, practicality, authenticity must be considered.
First of all, the reliability should be measured in a sense that the websites offers truthful contents from a wide range of reliable sources with the subject matter is seen as the central focus with lots of exercises in it. For an instance, if the websites is intended to give grammatical exercises on tenses, the right tense must be attended thoroughly by the moderator in charge of the websites.
Second of all, its important to evaluate CALL websites to ensure whether the site is practical to be utilized/ understood and on the learner’s part individually. The exercises offered must fit the learner’s needs and their level of proficiency. Neither in the category of beginner intermediate nor advanced learners. The learners would have the chance to choose which exercises to get it done on their own. If the exercises are too simple or easy, the students can move forward for the challenging one while if its too difficult, they can turn down to the intermediate them, thus making them not frustrated with the exercises.
Last but not least, the authenticity factor. I always believe that the learning process itself should be appealing, and grasp the student’s interest in regard of which levels of proficiency they belong to. The websites and its contents should lead them to think creatively, opens new opportunity to study on their own pace to produce the best impacts and not to become a frustrating one. It should trigger or stimulate the student’s mind at all cost. How the website is looked authentic to the learner? By its appearance, maybe. The colors, the animation plays their vital role too to boost the student’s motivation to learn and explore the language learning on the own sweet time and space rather than doing the traditional sheet of paper.
All in all, the evaluation of CALL websites, materials etc important so that the students could learn and produce the best impacts on their language learning. =)




2. How do you think Hot Potatoes JCloze may help your students learn English? Since the last semester, I have downloaded the Hot Potatoes applications from the internet. Why? Because my seniors asked me to do that as I will be using it in my final semester and another one, it’s free. Hehe. Nothing is free nowadays, right? *I can see you nod your head.Agreed,hehe*However, due to my own ignorance attitude in which I regret now,… I didn’t explore the benefits of this software. What a waste..

Well, shifting from a dull piece of paper to another medium which is interesting to both students and teachers is much fun, isn’t it? That is why I think Hot Potatoes JCloze may help my students to learn English faster and better. No doubt about that.
I believe that teacher knows best on what their students are capable and incapable of in the language learning process. Thus, the interactive short answer exercises application that is free can be fully utilized by the teacher. Creating the exercises based on their student’s needs, level of proficiency, interest and others could really assist to heighten the students’ interest to learn the language stress free. Teachers can use their own creativity by making the exercises very appealing to the students’ senses neither through the colors background, the pictures, the wording, the comments and others in it.
Besides the students having fun dragging and dropping the answers, it’s amazing knowing that this authoring tool is a perfect choice for the students as in the students would have fast feedback on the exercises done with just a click, rather than the teacher have to mark all the papers. Furthermore, this way would also increase the students motivation to do the exercise as in, when the students did scored on the questions, the comments they’ve got- ‘Good’, ‘Great’,’ Well done’, etc will make them eager t do more exercises while if they didn’t do right, the words such as ‘Try again’ will not make them very intimidated.

In conclusion, Hot Potatoes did really help students learn English more alive, fun and meaningful and all the above words are my own humble thoughts on why teachers should utilized the profits of using Hot Potatoes JCloze in their class.

Wednesday, January 13, 2010

WEEK 2 Tasks :)

Assalamualaikum..Hola,Ni hao, Namaste,Good Day,.

For this week's class,we've learnt on the basic things about CALL.How and when CALL is made popular since 1960s..the definition of CALL, the applications-authoring packages and others.From the lectures, I just found out that internet is started to spread with its function in Malaysia probably around 1996. Ha Ha Ha! I just knew it,..what a big shame,right?and one more thing, tracing back yearsteryears, a computer was as big a building!hehe.. Thanks to Prof. Izaham for letting me know about that..=)

Well, below are the works I've done for this week's lectures. Pls comments for suggestions/recommendations, and further improvements.hehe ;p






Sunday, January 3, 2010

A Journey Begins in TSL 641 =)


In Class Task 1.

1. Please introduce yourself.
Salam.Hi, I’m Zuliana bte Samad. I would prefer you to call me by my nickname, Julie.
2. How would you rate yourself in terms of your computer skills and why? (e.g. expert, novice, savvy, geek, illiterate etc)

I would rate myself as a savvy user in terms of my computer skills due to the fact that I often use internet as one of my main source in language learning, with some applications of softwares but not to the extend that I could create a website. Really hope to create one, one day! =)
3. What computer software and hardware knowledge do you have?
Cyberlink Power Director, FLV, Microsoft Publisher, Mcs Offices (Word,Excel, Powerpoint,etc,.)
4. Have you experienced learning via the computer (online, etc)?
Yes. For the Sociolinguistic’s class. We learnt through online lectures and journal.Powerpoint, of course. It helps a lot tyo make the learning more interesting and fun!Downloading songs and vides from Youtube, Keepvid.com and expanding vocabularies through online dictionaries (Merriam-Webster, for an instance) and others was a must!
5. Did you try to incorporate technology in your some of your lessons during your practicum? Was it a success or a failure? If you did not what was/were the reason(s)?
Yes, absolutely! I did incorporated/ utilized the use of techno into my lessons during the practicum days. It was awesome!The students just loved that, in fact they want more and more videos every day. Hehe. I would say that was a success despite the fact that arranging the schedule/ get permission to use the APD room was kinda frustrating. So tedious. But that’s part and parcel of life. I downloaded all the softwares to be sued in my class and the whole lessons turn out to be great till the end of my day in school!Alhamdulillah.

6. What is your opinion on the use of computer/technology in language teaching?
It helps a lot. Once you’ve got an internet connection, you explores the sites, the final effects will be amazing! Not just satisfaction to me as a teacher but the most importantly the students enjoy acquiring the knowledge!
7. What are your expectations from this course?
Learn as much as possible all the computer assisted language learning knowledge and get them applied in my future career.Insyaallah.