Reflections

Felipe Diaz Morales, Basic Pedagogy Student, Utalca, 20 Winters

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Reflection 8

The concept of "Technology enhanced language learning" refers to the need that the non-native learners have because for learning a language in a really effective way the learner needs to be in a real and natural English environment and using the technology we can live and experiment this environment.

From my perspective, a student has a lot of possibilities to improve his English today using the technology because he/she could find a lot of different activities to do it. For example, the student can make some exercises for improving his pronunciation like listen to a word and recognize it writing on the IPA system. Also, he can make some reading comprehension exercises like read an article and answer some questions related to it. Another good exercise or activity can be the listening skill. For practice, exists a really good page called "Lyrics training". In that, you select one song and you have to complete the lyrics listen to that song.

From my perspective, using games, watching videos and give a learning use to social networks are the most innovative ideas to teach English. I believe this because are activities that children do every day. They play a lot of video games, watch a lot of videos and use their social networks more than any other thing. So I think that if we teach them how to use their favorite activities to learn English in a faster way they will enjoy that process.

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Reflection 7

Today in class I explore two websites that could help me to improve my pronunciation. These websites are Antimoon and English Media Lab. In both sites, I read about pronunciation tips. the articles and videos in these pages can be helpful because pronunciation is one of the most important aspects when you speak with someone else. Also in Antimoon, I read about the importance of learning English and about the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA) and how to write it using a computer in the ASCII system. 

After read some articles I started to make some exercises to check my pronunciation and as a conclusion of the results, I notice that the principal aspect to improve is the diphthongs. Especially the diphthong that contains the Schwa sound.  

From my perspective, it's impossible to have a perfect language because perfect things are unreal, however, we have to improve our skills with the objective of having every day a better pronunciation.

In my opinion, the majority of the activities can be helpful in our classes of Oral English because all are orientated to improve our pronunciation especially focus on vowel sounds. For that reason, I think that all the exercises available in both websites can be used in classes to improve our pronunciation. 

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Reflection 6 Technology

Today we visit a website called “Blog de Cristina” and it is a blog that provides a lot of exercises to improve the different English skills and it can helpful for teachers, students or any person who want to improve his/her English skills.

After did 4 different activities (Listening, reading, writing and teaching with songs ) it seems to me, that these activities are very useful and effective because all the activities that people could find on the site are separated by English levels (A1, A2, B1, B2 or C1) so every person be able to choose activities according to their English level and step by step improve the English skills and in that way move to another level (A2 to B1 for example).

From my perspective, this blog is a powerful tool for all the people who want to speak English in a better way considering all the activities that the blog provides to you, for example, different speaking activities based on different levels. Also, you can find sections related to grammar and vocabulary that can help you at the moment of write something in English, for example, a report a reflection or an essay.

In my opinion, Cristina put all these information in her blog because he has the objective of giving to the people a website that provides a lot of exercises for improving your English and in that way doesn't lose your time searching different exercises. So, in other words, she wants to create a website or blog that contain the essentials exercises for having a better English level.

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Reflection 5

In my personal opinion, the best way to search for information on Google or any other search engine is using specific words and ideas related to the topic that I am looking for. For example, if I am looking for information about a specific soccer team I need to write the name of that team in Google. This example is also applicable to any topic because if I am looking for information about Greece I need to put what information I’m looking for.

After view two videos I learn to search information in Google or any other search engine in a more specific way. For example, if I am looking for: business information system, and I search in that way, probably I obtain a lot of results with a different order in the words. For example information system for business. But if I write the words between quotation marks, "business information system", the results of the search are more specific and only appear results with exactly the same phrase that I put in the quotation marks. Also, I learn to search for a quote with a missing word putting an asterisk in the missing word. For example, to search for the lyrics of a song called bonfire heart in this way "no one * you a *, no one * in the eyes". If you write in that way you can find the quote with the missing words.

To know if the information in a website is reliable or not is important to look if the page provides some links that can support the information. Also is good look the domain of that web because it can give you some clues of the purpose of the website. Another way to prove if the information is reliable or not is for the presentation of the website. This mean if I have the chance to search the information that I need in a few clicks. In addition to these points is necessary to look the last update of the page. Sometimes you search the information in websites that have the last update one year or ten years before so it's not a good site to take the information. Every person has the chance to judge if a website is trustworthy or not, for do it you need to check the aspects that I mention before and another few things.

Finally, my process to find an epal friend is good. I have two friends, one is from Indonesia and the other if from Norway. For me, this process was easy because I could talk with some persons really fast. In these weeks we talk about some cultural things as the lifestyle in the city that we live and also about personal anecdotes.

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Reflection 4 Technology

Digital natives and digital immigrants 

The digital resources have a really important function in our lives. We can communicate, share our special moments, read about news from all the world and a lot of other things but not all can use this resources at the same level that is because the young people and older people have different knowledge about it. For that reason was created the term digital native and digital immigrant.

The term originates in an article of Prensky. He Affirms that Digital skills divide into 2 groups: people who grown up with technology and people who have become familiar with technology later in life called digital immigrant. The first difference between both terms is the age. Digital natives tend to be young people on the other hand digital immigrants tends to be older people an example of this can be students and teachers. Students know how to use it the digital resources in some cases better that teachers and are because they grow up using this kind of resources. Another difference is in the process for process information. According to Prensky digital natives process information quickly, enjoy the multi-tasking and also enjoy gaming. From another perspective, digital immigrants process information slowly, work on one thing only because it’s difficult for them to work in a multi-tasking way and don’t appreciate less serious approaches to learning. An important difference for my point of view is the dependence on digital resources. A digital native person need be connected to the internet the most of the time it could be for example chatting with friends or using Facebook, Instagram or twitter. Otherwise, the digital immigrant doesn’t feel the need to be connected all the day because when they grew up they don’t have access to these resources.  The last difference that I found is the way to communicate with another person. From my experience most of the digital natives prefer to communicate using the social network as WhatsApp, Facebook, Instagram etc. but the digital natives tends to prefer to speak in person, or call the other people.

In my opinion, a digital immigrant can learn and be a digital native because if he learns how to use the digital resources in a more advanced way, he can use it as a digital native. In other words, if you are a digital immigrant you can improve your skills and be considering as a digital native.

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Reflection 3 Technology

Social media functions

Everybody knows that exist a lot of different social media websites. These sites share some similarities and have a lot of differences. This is for the different functions that every site have. Exist seven functions and these are presence, identity, groups, reputation, sharing, relationship and conversation. The principal function of a social media site depends on the objective for it. For example, the most popular social site is Facebook. In this, you can communicate with people from differents parts of the world, share pictures, and a lot of things. Therefore facebook has a lot of functions as presence, conversation, reputation, identity, sharing but the principal function of it is the relationship. Another example of social media is Youtube. Youtube is the most used multimedia site. In this site, you can search and find a lot of different videos, songs, movies and other things. The function in youtube are groups, reputation, and conversation but the most important and the principal is sharing. That is because every person can upload songs, videos, movies, screencast and people in worldwide can watch the content that you upload and make comments. Another example is LinkedIn. In this site, you can find work information related to a person. The functions present in this site are reputation and relationships but the dominant function is the presence because every person can see the information and choose who is the most prepared person. In conclusion, when every person says that prefer specific sites is a consequence of the things that ever person is looking on a social media site for example for me, it's really important the conversation function because I like to make discussion with people over the world about specific topics. Another function that I use is sharing because sometimes I write things and I use the social sites for upload and read the opinion about people and finally, the relationship function because every person has the chance to meet new people from differents parts.

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Reflection 2 Technology

how useful are the different internet forums?

  In my opinion, the internet forums are very useful for people around the world. In this forums, you can share with different people about a similar topic, make discussions for a point with people from different parts of the world and for that reason with different culture and points of view for the same problems. Some examples of forums in the world are Dogforum, Ultimate-guitar and craigslist. The first example, dogforum is a forum for people that love animals and pets. In this forum, you can read, ask and answer topics related to animals and pets. Another example is Ultimate-Guitar. In this website, you can upload guitar tab, bass tab and guitar chords for any song that you want and also has a forum when people share information and experiences about musical instruments like electric guitar, acoustic and classic guitar, bass and drums. In South America exist one web page similar to ultimate guitar called La cuerda and it's very used in Chile. The last example is Craigslist. This forum is for advertisements of different topics as job, housing, items, services and has a discussion forum. This page has a lot of differents pages depending on the country, for example, you have Canada Craigslist. In Chile exist yapo.cl a similar webpage. In conclusion, the internet forums have a lot of different purposes, for example, find a job, house sales, learn to play songs, discussions about pets and it makes our life a little easier because you can find all these things from your home if you have a computer with internet.

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Reflection 1 Technology

is it good or bad use technology in the classroom?

Personally I think that use technology in the classroom is really good for the students. First, they can learn to be autonomous learners because they discover new ways to obtain a lot of information and learn in any place without the presence of the teacher. Another reason is that they have access to a lot of new information from different authors, differents opinions and of differents sources. Another positive reason is the develop of different skills by means of the computer, for example, make summary because they have a lot of different information and they have to select and after that explain with their own words. But if we use technology in classes we need to teach to children to use in the correct form, as a learning tool, a communication tool, an entertainment tool but not create an addiction to the technological objects, as computer or cellphone quite the contrary create a culture for use this objects and uses with moderation.  In Conclusion, the use of technology in the classroom is good, because we have access to a lot of information but we need to teach how to use it in a responsible way.