I created this movie in order to introduce correct English pronunciation to Korean learners. I think I can use the movie in an English class to teach English pronunciation. In reality, it is difficult for many Korean English teachers to teach English pronunciation. Although the Korean English teachers know how to correctly pronounce English words, that's not enough to teach, because when they speak English, they still have Korean accent. So, I believe that English pronunciation particularly should be taught by native speakers.

Since there is no common pronunciation between Korean and English, students must learn all sounds again. But, particularly, some pronunciations which are more confusing should be taught first. Most Korean learners make some typical mistakes in pronouncing English words. For example, when many Koreans say "deep," it sounds like "dip." This indicates they confuse "/l/" with "/i/." Moreover, when they say "ask," it sounds like "esk." they also do not distinguish "a" from "e. So, this movie dealt with those sounds.

In the other movies, I can introduce other pronunciations: “v” and “b,” “f” and “p,” etc. In case of "convenient," many Korean learners pronounce like "conbenient." When they say "comfortable," it sounds like "comportable."

Reflctions from readings (June 23 2009)

Chapter7. Designs for Using Information

As technology has developed, the quantity of information quickly expands: “Information in the sciences doubles approximately every 5.5 years (Norton & Wiburg, 2003: 161).” These days, having a lot of information does not always mean competent. Instead, ability to manage the information has become much more important. So, teachers must let students know what appropriate information is and how students should use the information for creating and communicating feasible conclusions. Priscilla’s example in chapter 7 shows the problem many students encounter: the student did not know what a wise decision is in terms of choosing information. Although the student could find a lot more useful information and pictures about the theme he was looking for on the Internet or other references, he did not want to adventure. This example indicates the students lack information literacy that is the ability to know which resource is possible to bring in what kind of information. Therefore, educators should consider two methods to settle those problems: An integrate approach & process approach. Unlike traditional instruction which is often isolated from life situations, integrated instruction emphasizes on combining instruction and students’ real needs. The process approach gives an emphasis on developing students’ ability for effective use of information by raising students’ awareness of using various resources such as an encyclopedia, reference materials, online databases and Internet sources. One of the successful methods based on those two approaches for helping students be competent users of information is SSCC which stands for Search for information, Sort and judge information, and Create and Communicate ideas and concepts. “Each of these activities can be supported by a range of tools, related to a particular problem arising within the domain of particular content areas, and woven together with knowledge, problem-solving, and literacy abilities.”

Reflctions from readings (June 23 2009)

Chapter8. Designs for Community

The authors point out that there is discrimination for students of lower socioeconomic status and minority students in terms of using computers. For example, Anglo students get much more opportunities to access to computers in schools than other races’ students. Moreover, wealthier students direct the computer, but poor students are opposite to wealthy students: poor students are directed by the computer. In addition, boys have more access to computers than girls. However, the authors overlook the surveys might be out of date. The surveys were conducted in 80s or early of 90s before the Internet emerge. Since the authors published this book in 2003, they should have more concerned about the evidences for supporting their argument that is students from lower income family and minority races get discrimination in accessing computers. I believe that the kind of discrimination was already getting disappeared in 2003, mainly because computer price in 2003 was getting much cheaper than 80s or early of 90s. Thus, to bolster their argument, the authors must provide more recent evidences, because this kind of technology issue might be quickly changeable as technology development.

As lifelong learners in community, students should learn various knowledge domains to contribute to development of the community. Especially, as technology develops, students must learn about virtual communities. People in virtual communities can do almost everything people do in real life. The virtual technology enables even busy people to engage in brainstorm, exchange knowledge, and intellectual discourse by using telementoring and Impersonations. So, teachers should design lesson plans to provide chances for learning about the extended community of the world by virtual technology.

Reflctions from readings (June 16 2009)

Chapter9. Designing Systems of Assessment
Assessment is an essential part of education both students and teachers. Testing enables students to reflect their achievement and provide them with motivation to study harder. For teachers, testing plays a vital role in discovering what and how teachers teach by analyzing results of the test. There are traditional and alternative assessments and teachers should know how to design both assessments. Traditional assessment is standardized testing that consists of short-item and multiple-choice format that help evaluate students’ learning process. This kind of standardized test is the most proper for large-scale assessments, or credentialing examinations, because of its objective forms. But, this traditional assessment should be balanced by alternative assessments which include more direct measures of assessments such as students’ writing, performance, and portfolio. These alternative methods enable students to produce answers not to select answer by using multiple-choice. But, I believe that these alternative assessments work well in graduate setting, largely because of the relatively small number of students per one teacher. For instance, this course, Technology for Educators also provides a variety of forms of assessments encouraging students to engage in a multiplicity of goals. Assessment of this course occurs in many contexts such as student presentations, individual projects, pair or group works, journals, class discussions, and various weekly homeworks enabling students to create electronic portfolios including blogs, websites, and edited video clips.

Reflctions from readings (June 16 2009)

Chapter6. Designs for Literacy

Literacy plays a pivotal role in learning knowledge. Since ability to read and write is a very basic tool for learning, students learn them in the early grades. Today’s students have to work with modern electronic technologies such as the television and the computer. So, learners should be literate not only in print environments but also in multiple symbolic environments. Teachers should know how to design lesson plans to provide opportunities for their students to develop various kinds of literacy. In this sense, I like Mrs. Festa’s lesson plan for her third-grade classroom, one of the examples in this chapter. She taught not only how to read text, but how to read numbers, pictures, and music. This means her instruction enabled students to learn how symbol systems express meaning.

Furthermore, teachers should provide cognitive strategies that lead to development in comprehension. In the experiments of Eiser and Miller, students who played with the problem-solving software scored much higher in the test than other students who participated in traditional reading instruction. This shows that cognitive strategies such as logical thinking process learning, pattern recognition, and trial-and-error experimentation contribute to improving students’ reading comprehension. When I was a high school student, most of teachers were just transmitters who focus on conveying information related to the Korean SAT exam. But one of the teachers taught students kinds of cognitive strategies which enhance students’ problem solving ability by telling students that why and how students study various subjects in school curriculum. Although he did not provide problem-solving kind of software, his lesson was very impressive to me and helpful for my entire life.

Reflctions from readings (June 11 2009)

Chapter 5. Designs for problem solving

Our life consists of continuous choices, and the choices bring about problems. So, whether teaching students problem-solving process affects not only students’ school record but also students’ entire life after graduation. One of the examples in chapter 5 raises awareness for designing problem solving. Participating teachers in the example hoped to find job opportunities for their students. They look like Korean teachers who only cherish results I mentioned in chapter 4. But, the participating teachers should have realized that their students would not survive if the students do not have ability to deal with various technology softwares to solve problems. So, teachers also must learn how to use the technology tools and design their lesson plans for problem solving using the tools.

Last semester, some TESOL students and I had to prepare important presentations about international students’ challenges in the States for Ethnography Form and Penn TESOL East. We found that we should use several technology softwares such as Power Point, Photoshop, and some video editing program to give audience best presentation. But, nobody was available for video editing program although we really needed to edit the video clips including interviews with international students. Fortunately, Aness Cho (Hyon-Sook) who took the course, Technology for Educators, last year, taught us how to use Window Movie Maker that is the most accessible and easiest to use for video editing in Teaching Circle, which is a series of discussion sessions for TESOL students who want to learn how their classmates connect theories introduced in their courses to practical teaching situation. That was a valuable experience to help me realize that using electronic technologies plays a pivotal role in developing knowledge of disciplines and solving problems.

Reflctions from readings (June 11 2009)

Chapter 4. Designs for Knowledge

The ultimate goal of education is not that teachers make each student a scientist, historian, and professor. Instead, teachers should aim to make the learners into disciplinary thinkers who can have ability to translate from information into wisdom. Thus, the author emphasizes that educators have to design lesson plans focusing on disciplinary learning including knowledge of structures and processes. One of examples about emphasizing the role of structure in this chapter is Mr. McCannon’s history class. He tried to identify seven structures to help his students. Moreover, in Mrs. Suedkamp’s class, students learn process knowledge by doing a role play activity.

The author puts great emphasis on teaching the disciplines as “ways to think” about experience in school education. This is because, I believe, many people who crammed for exams forget knowledge they learned in school after graduation. For example, I do not remember a table of trigonometrical function. The math teacher who taught me in a high school forced students to quickly memorize the table. I still remember the teachers’ goal was to increase the number of students who earn high score in Korean SAT and make them enter prestigious colleges in Korea. Since that kind of knowledge is impermanent and almost useless after graduation, it is important to teach students how to think. From perspective of lifelong learning, people will face a lot of challenges they must overcome themselves and they need to learn the disciplines as “ways to think.”

Reflctions from readings (June 9 2009)

Chapter 2. Designing opportunities for learning
As technology develops, educational strategies for designing learning experiences for students should be changed. By inventing the printing press in the fifteen century, print era started. Inventing the internet in the twenty century is also the turning point from analog to digital. So, teachers should have new approaches to learning in this new ear. Unfortunately, some teachers still behave as transmitters who just teach their students without deep consideration about how they should teach. But, constructivist concepts of learning are totally different from traditional views of learning. Each learner should build their own understandings of the world where they live. Teachers should be facilitators to help the learners to be constructivists, considering these several questions: What do today’s students need? In other words, what do teachers have to teach in the Internet era? Which activities and tools encourage students to actively participate in learning through construction? What system of assessment might teachers design for their students’ learning?

Chapter 3. The FACTS of design.
Chapter 3 consists of careful explanations and answers about questions related to FACTS that stands for Foundations, Activities, Contents, Tools, and Systems of assessment. Those are all about how teachers help learners to be constructivists who can have ability to solve their problem by themselves. So, activities should be based on a problem-centered curriculum that helps find the solution to a real world problem of interest. Teachers are able to use a variety of tools such as multimedia programs to create the activities. Since young generations are very familiar with using technology in their life, using the computer and Internet in the class might be more effective than only using textbook. Therefore, teachers should choose encouraging tools to help learners’ intellectual challenges.

Reflctions from readings (June 2 2009)

Hypertext and Linear Text

Hypertexts offer a different way from linear texts in terms of online-reading and multiple related links. In linear texts, readers have to look up a dictionary or other references when they had some questions. But in hypertexts, it has become much easier for readers to access information and enables readers to save their time to look up a dictionary. One of the issues that this article raises is the role of readers’ abilities. Compared with skilled readers, poor readers’ decoding skills is less effective and they are likely to more depend on the context to understand the text. I believe that one of the reasons is poor readers have less background knowledge than skilled readers.

Reading hypertexts requires extra processing load to readers by making readers navigate the text. In other words, there are a lot of choices which information readers will take in hypertexts. That can be a great advantage for skilled readers whereas that freedom can be disadvantage for poor readers. This is because poor readers are likely to be controlled by interference from the additional task of navigating the text. Therefore, since readers’ ability plays a key role in hypertexts as well as in linear texts, readers should recognize difference between texts and hypertexts and learn readers’ strategies to enhance reading comprehension.

Reflctions from readings (June 2 2009)

Designing Metacognition Activities

Metacognition is the mental process of regulating and monitoring cognition. Many research show that students do better job when students participate in metacognitive activities such as self-assessment and monitoring. But, generally students do not have any chances to engage in metacognitive activities. So, this article tries to suggest an outline to design metacognitive activities. The framework this article proposes is a balanced metacognitive training involving both strategy training and creation of social environment.

I was interested in when I read prompting of strategy training. Some researchers such as Berardi-Coletta et all (1995) and King (1992) used prompt cards to help students produce metacognitive questions. From my experience, this is a very powerful tool to help students more deeply think about their work. I often go to a WLRC (Weingarten Learning Resources Center) to revise my writing (Especially, grammatical error correction). According to Writing Center’s policy, instructors at WLRC do not provide any idea about contents of students’ work. Instead, the instructors stimulate students’ self-explanation for metacognition through prompting. When the instructors want to encourage students to produce more ideas, they ask students prompt questions; “What is another example of this phenomenon?”; “Why do you say so?”; “How does A effects B?” Sometimes, I do not produce new ideas despite of their prompting question. But, in many cases, the prompting question encourage me to generate some ideas that I didn’t think of before. So, I believe that the using prompt cards or questions should be considered when designing metacognitive activities.