Professional Development Resources

With the development of technology and the prevalence of computer network, it has become essential to stay up-to-date on the latest in teaching resources as an educator in this new era. In the hope of better professional development, I have put together a list of some of my favorite blogs, online newsletters, and other web pages relating to teaching and technology. It includes many technology integration resources to help teachers as they seek to creatively incorporate digital tools in their classroom. Education blogs written by professionals provide a great source of strategies, tips, and advice for teachers. E-newsletter sources allow teachers to be posted on what is happening in the world of education. I also included three websites relating to the Chinese language teaching field. 

Click here to view my professional development resources.

Digital Posters

Digital posters are an interactive way to introduce a subject to students. Teachers can create digital posters with text, images, videos,  hyperlinks to access webpages, and more for students to explore.  Students can learn more an element of his/her particular interest by simply clicking on the icon. 

I created a Glog about Mid-Autumn Festival, a traditional Chinese festival. For this digital poster, I used YouTube videos, images, links, and helpful graphics. It provides information about its origin, related legend, activities and special food, in an engaging way. This digital poster will help get student's interest as well as build some background knowledge.  I could also extend this activity and have my students make their own Glogsters on other Chinese festivals. 

Click here to view my Glog.

Internet Search Tools

Facilitating current digital tools and resources to support learning has become an extremely important skill for teachers to create an effective learning environment. While most of us have been using some of the most popular Internet search engines, such as Google and Yahoo, they may not be the best engines for teachers, and students in particular, to use, due to various reasons. In the hope of meeting teachers' and students' needs, I have researched Internet search tools and listed below are my top five favorites. 

KidRex

KidRex is child-friendly website powered by Google Custom Search and Google Safe Search which is used to keep all the results as antiseptic as possible. It also has its own database of inappropriate websites and keywords to filter inappropriate material. The interface is just like a child’s crayon drawing (the dinosaur stands guard). One thing I particularly like about KidRex is that it has a link on the homepage for parents to click on, and it links to a page explaining how the engine works as well as online safety tips. A potential setback would be the subtle insufficiency of the filter so it is still possible to have inappropriate material in a search. Yet there is not one search engine with a 100% accurate filter, I would recommend KidRex to students for research on projects. 

Ask Kids

Ask Kids is a search engine designed for kids specially from age six to twelve, from Ask.com’s pool of web resources. The search page resembles a school note book. Apart from the search box, there are five preset search categories – Schoolhouse, Movies, Games, Videos and Images, to help children research all kinds of information. Kids can jump from the search results to images, narrow or expand the search, find related names and other information. A neat feature of Ask Kids is the simple formatting which makes it easy for kids to navigate. The only thing I will complain about is that the amount of targeted subject is noticeably smaller compared to other search tools. However I will absolutely use it for some board topics in my classroom. 

InstaGrok

instaGrok is an amazing interactive search engine for students. It provides quality educational materials on any topic while presenting information in an engaging visual way, and helps students develop research skills. InstaGrok displays the context of a topic as a dynamic, visual map with the search key word in the center, and supporting concepts and relationships surrounded aside. Another unique feature is that students can navigate this map based on their particular interests and adjust difficulty level based on their knowledge level. They begin to grasp the topic by looking at the Key Facts, and then explore deeper into academic articles, videos and images. Once signed up for an account, students can create online journals which are saved to their account and teachers can track students' progress by viewing their journals and making comments. I would absolutely recommend my students to use InstaGrok for research paper.

Yahoo Kids

Yahoo Kids is another kid-friendly search tool that can be used for both educational and entertainment purposes. It was established by Yahoo! to give children a venue to find appropriate, safe Internet content. The homepage is colorful, engaging, and full of cool stuff to keep children engaged. There is a variety of resources on this website, such as encyclopedias, dictionaries and fun facts and answers. It also provides online games, movies, news and music. It is a wonderful tool for getting help on spelling, definition, grammar, science and nature. The most outstanding feature of Yahoo Kids is that there is a section called Homework Help where kids can ask questions about their homework. One of the drawbacks of this site might be the time it takes to get response from their "Ask Earl" section. Overall it is a great tool and I would definitely use the videos and craft ideas on Yahoo Kids in my classroom.


Quintura Kids

Quintura for Kids is also a kid-friendly search engine powered by Yahoo. Unlike other search engines, it has a more visual way of searching using a keyword cloud with other picture icons that are linked to a specific search item. For example, when I click on the football icon, the website lists search results for sports and recreation. Quintura for Kids has a very aesthetically pleasing interface and would be my first choice for a home page for classroom computers. A minor setback is that it only displays five search results at a time.

Educational Websites

Today I have come up with a list of excellent resources for education that I'd like to share with students, parents and fellow teachers. The list includes websites for general educational settings and my teaching area, Chinese language. 

Educational websites are important and helpful tools for teachers, students and parents. The teacher resources are specifically helpful for lesson plans, work sheets, creative teaching ideas, and classroom management, they also allow them to interact with other educators around the world. The student resources that I chose include a help center for all school subjects, a kids-friendly search engine, and two Chinese learning tools. For parents, I include a few sites that provide information on education news, parenting advice, and craft ideas and games to do with children.

Click here to view my Educational Websites page.

Photo Stories in the Classroom

A photo story is a form of technology between a movie and a powerpoint slideshow.  It is a great tool to use in the classroom because it is more interesting than traditional books and thus keeps students engaged while still exporting the important knowledge. There are various programs available on the Internet to produce a photo story, including Photo Story 3, Windows Movie Maker, Animoto, IMovie and more.

The following video is produced by using Animoto. In this video I present a story about a girl's adventure in the Magic Kingdom, in the hope of teaching ESL students vocabulary of amusement park. The pictures presented with the story of an adventure help to keep students interested, instead of forcing them to dully memorize the words. A majority of the photos were taken with my digital camera while I was in the Universal Studio and Disney World in Florida. By organizing the photos and adding captions, I was able to create a fun presentation that can be used in my future ESL classroom.

YouTube Video Playlist: Chinese Zodiac

This generation of students in the new digital is particularly fond of videos rather than books or lectures in terms of obtaining new information. YouTube video playlist is an efficient and fun way to introduce a subject to student. It gets students excited and makes the content easier to comprehend, especially for the visual learners. A YouTube playlist is very easy to create. Once you've created an account, you can upload videos of your own, or create playlists from existing videos.  When you find a video you would like to use, click the "Add to" tab below the video (next to "Share" and other options) and select the playlist you would like to add it to, or create a new one.  Once you've created a playlist, you can edit the list and the individual videos from the "Dashboard" and "Video Manager." 

For this assignment, I have created a playlist, including four videos, on the subject of Chinese Animal Zodiac. The first video is an introductory video that explains the playlist. The other three are videos explaining the origin, the symbolic meaning and the practical use of Chinese Animal Zodiac in daily life. This playlist would be a great way to introduce the Chinese culture and get students interested in exploring it.

I invite you to watch the videos and think about the following questions:
  
   1. What are the twelve animals in the Zodiac?

   2. Which animals represent the following qualities respectively: diligence, courage, loyalty,     smartness and flexibility.
    
   3. If you are born in the year of monkey, you are compatible with people born in the years of what animals?

   4. How is Chinese Animal Zodiac different from Western Twelve Constellation?

Assistive Technologies

The rapid and constant pace of change in technology is creating great opportunities for students to achieve success in the classroom, especially those with disabilities. Several decades ago, people with disabilities barely went to a regular school and found it extremely difficult to perform academic learning task. Today, with the assistance of technology, students with disabilities have the change to enjoy learning like the others. There are many software and hardware available from text to speech devices that allow students with hearing or visual disabilities to gain knowledge. For vision impaired students, the Intellitalk is a very helpful device. 

IntelliTalk is a word processor that allows students to combine graphics, text, and speech to support and enhance writing and communication skills. It is intended for beginning readers, people with visual or learning disabilities. It is also beneficial to students with Autism Spectrum Disorders as well as auditory processing and auditory memory deficits. Intellitalk is an ideal tool for creating curriculum activities.Teachers can easily modify activities for English language learners or any student struggling with reading or writing.  It includes a number of predesigned activities that allow students to hear letters, words, and sentences as they type. It also provides visual and auditory reinforcement of content within the programs.

This type of assistive technology enables students with visual impairment to participate in classroom learning like never before. Below is a video that gives a brief overview of the Intellitalk.  It demonstrates its target audience, its features, how to use it and it provides examples from the program.