Leading Learning Conference :: Forum

From LL2007 - Creating Open Learning Environments with Web 2.0 Tools
Patricia Glogowski
Patricia Glogowski
Apr 28, 07

Hi Everyone,

My name is Patricia and I am an ESL Instructor at York University teaching upper-intermediate academic preparation courses. I have been incorporating technology (blogs, flickr, googleearth, googlealerts, lecturepodcasts, 43places) into the ESL curricula in many different ways (journal writing, collaborative projects, listening exercises, research projects) to enhance students' langauge learning environment. 

Some of the tools (googleearth, googlalerts, podcasts) were used by my students to access information they needed for their projects; other tools (blogs, flickr, 43places) allowed students to create their own online presence (blogs were used for writing reflections), create groups (flickr), or connect to others (43places).

My questions for you are:

1. What Web 2.0 tools have you used with your students? What did you use them for?

2. How did the students react to these tools?

3. What were the benefits of using these tools? What were the challenges?  

Looking forward to our discussion! Smile

 

Quentin D'Souza
Apr 29, 07
My experience comes from working with teachers.  From some of their feedback on Google Earth, I would have to say it is a great visualization tool for cross-curricular applications.  There are so many different possiblities with the layers, pushpins and overlays.  The fact that students can download there own version for free makes it easy tool to get to know.  One resource that was shared is http://www.googlelittrips.org/ as a way to visualize the novels that students read.

Patricia Glogowski
May 01, 07
I agree, Quentin. Google Earth is a great tool that allows visualization. The reason why I really like to use it with my ESL students is because it offers a richness of resources on many different topics. My students who have to do research projects find it extremely useful as they can access text, video, and images, all in one place. Thanks, Quentin for the link to Google Lit Trips. It looks really fantastic, especially for content-based classes. Will explore it further! Smile

Patricia Glogowski
May 08, 07

Dear All,

I've posted my presentation notes ("Creating Open Learning Environments with Social Tools") on  my wiki page. I also want to post the PowerPoint slides - still working on that though.

I really enjoyed meeting you all today at the conference. I think the discussions we've had were phenomenal and show how much we all care about our students and the future of learning! Fantastic! Let's all continue to share here and further build our social network (just like our students do!) Smile


Add new comment...