Tuesday, January 15, 2013
Introduction
This is my 2nd year in the MATESL program at Northern Arizona University (NAU). In the past I have taught a number of different skill classes at the Program of Intensive English at NAU. I have also taught ESL in China and at Humboldt State University. Outside of teaching and studying, I'm interested in cycling and hiking.
I have experimented with a number of CALL applications as I have taught different classes. My current technology interest is in digital curation and CALL vocabulary applications. I am very excited to learn about different CALL technologies and the ideas other people in the class bring to the table for using them. As someone going on the job market for TESOL jobs, I have found that many employers are looking for teachers with experience with CALL, so I feel that this class will be very beneficial to my job application process as well.
My main expectation for this class is that it will help make me better prepared to evaluate the use of different applications for use in the language classroom. I think that there are a lot of teachers out there who simply use technology for the "it's cool" factor. Last year I attended a couple of presentations at TESOL where it seemed the presenters were simply introducing technologies to attendees because of the cool factor and not necessarily because they were beneficial for language learning and teaching. These were the presentations I ended up walking out on. So I hope that I can come away from this class with the knowledge of how to determine whether a specific application is appropriate or not for teaching various language skills.
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Hi Randy,
ReplyDeleteI think I have been inundated by the "its cool" factor with technology for years now, and its one of the reasons I'm reluctant to incorporate it in my classroom (or my life, for that matter). I think it is extremely important to consider technology as a tool, a tool that can help deliver specific results, in language teaching and all else. Otherwise, it ends up being a waste of time for myself and my students. I look forward to hearing your tech-savvy suggestions and evaluations!
Marianna
Marianna, I can understand your trepidation in using technology. There are so many technology tools on the web these days that brand themselves as being helpful to educators. In the past, I have literally spend endless hours combing through some these resources. Some of this time was really wasted, but some of it was fruitful as well. What I think can help us as teachers is to choose a select few of these technologies and spend time experimenting with them by integrating them in our courses. Over time, I think you can become a sort of expert in using one or two specific technology tools in your classes.
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