Google Form for Quiz

I got this idea from a friend to use Google Form for short quizzes. Since I teach Chinese and I want to make sure the students can write the characters, I was a a bit skeptical about using it for all levels. I decided to use it with Chinese 3, since they will be doing more of the typing in Chinese 4.

Even though the quiz was only five questions, I was pretty happy with the result. The students were to listen to my dictation, type the sentences in Chinese and then translate them into English.

A few advantages I find:

1. This cuts down the amount of time for the quiz. It takes the students much longer if they had to write the sentences out by hand. So I was happy about this.
2. I also made the submission/responses visible to the students, so the students can see everyone's response, and my standard answer, instantly.  There is fewer people asking "What did I get?"
3. I would never lose a quiz again.  I exported them into Excel, formatted the responses a bit, and print it out.  I only have to take 3 sheets of paper instead of 25 sheets, what a deal!
4. I don't have to make guesses on some of the chicken scratch handwriting...no more arguing with the students about whether they actually put in that stroke or not.

There is a little bit of complaint on the use of the input system, but that has nothing to do with using Google Form.

21st Century Content, 21st Century Learner, and 21st Century Etiquette?

While media literacy, environmental, social and global issues, finance, geography, civic literacy, civic engagement are all key contents for the 21st century, but how about etiquettes? Common courtesy?

Today's students are such passive learners, most of them. Perhaps they are overwhelmed with all the curriculum and tests and competitions and pressures. Perhaps they are used to have information pushed to them via digital media. Perhaps they were not taught by human about the proper etiquette and courtesy when it comes to using the digital media and resources.

Many of my students are so short on time and overwhelmed with curriculum/homework that they use technology mostly for socializing and not for learning or producing/making meanings. So how do we, as professional teachers, guide them towards Web2.0?

DropBox for Podcast hosting

So many of my students are running out of room on their edublogs, and blogger does not support audio upload. what's one to do? Well, here's a solution: Use DropBox from Box.net to host their files and link to those files. No more "I can't upload any more!" excuses.

Google Site & GoAnimate

A bit frustrated with Google Site because I feel like I should keep the content to the top page and not make it too long. Perhaps I am trying to do more than necessary.

On the other hand, I am testing out GoAnimate with my smallest/most advanced class and the students seem to like it.  The learning curve isn't too high either.  My biggest complaint right now is that the site, even though designed by people from HK, does not support Chinese, both in the animation and in the comment section.

GoAnimate.com: going to bai4nian2.


Like it? Create your own at GoAnimate.com. It's free and fun!

Google Site Integration?

Learning about Google Site does open up another realm of options. After playing around for a while, I start to think that it looks and feel a little bit like Wiki. Although Wiki seems to have more functionalities and more gadgets. I will have to play around more to get a better understanding.

At the same time, learning all these different tools makes me wonder: Is there a way to integrate them? For example, I would love to embed a blog into a Wiki or Google Site, where I can post time-sensitive information. Is there an option to embed a chat room or discussion group into Google Site? I know we can embed presentations/Google presentation, slideshows/Picasa, and video/youtube files, That would make putting together curriculum in one place much easier. I will need to try to see if I can also embed music videos/Animoto, and digital story/Voicethread,

Stay tune.....

Google Presentation

First time embedding Google Presentation....

Wiki troubles and thoughts

So I started using Wiki with my classes.  For the low and intermediate level classes, I am using it as a place where students will contribute their learnings and be rewarded.  This seems to work well.  Many students are contributing.  I must say, not as many as I'd like, but it's a good start.

I also use Wiki for students to post their assignments.  I will then put comments and the students will go back and edit the assignment.  This also seems to be effective.  The only thing is that, it is time-consuming for the teacher.

For the higher level students, I decided to let them work on the same collaborative-writing  assignment that we did on SocialText.  Little did I know the trouble it was going to stir up!  As the students wrote their parts, some disagreements arose.  It escalated to an online-argument of some sort.  I monitored their conversation to be sure that it didn't get out of hand, but it got me thinking about this onine learning thing.

While I agree with Dr. Bonk that e-learning technology does make the world flat and accessible to more people, it also can be dangerous if used without guidance.

In my situation, I think the students' conflict arose from lack of understanding about each other's culture and the difference in maturity level.  Of course, personality played another part in the conflict.  One of the students eventually came to speak to me and asked if I would intervene.  I explained to him that I was monitoring the exchanges, and I would only intervene if it was beyond something the students could handle.  I also explained to this particular student about their cultural differences and hence the miscommunication.  One good thing that came out of using Wiki is that the students are kept apart when their "argument" took place, instead of being face to face.  They were also reacting to words without emotions, which either lessen or fuel the conflict.

So, what does this mean?  There are so many cultures on tihs world, with the development of e-learning technology and open coursewares, it is inevitable that more and more people will cross paths.  Will there be more conflicts or will people become more culturally awared?  Will this also promote flatness of culture?  Will we "westernize" and "standardize" other cultures?  Is this a good thing?