Blogs, Wikis and delicious be used in the Saudi EFL context

  There are a lot of teaching methods which should be used on what to be adequate with the way learners. For example, there are blogs, wikis and delicious.

 

 

The blogs are very helpful for the use of Saudi EFL context. Writing upon the blogs can improve the students’ writing skills by writing in English. This makes them sharing or providing.ideas about the lesson and following the  latest updates and comments toea chother, and the teacher can also know about their comments and feedback.

If I were ateacher, I would put down some activities on my own blog for example writing activities: e.g.: Write about 500 words for digital immigrants.

The delicious is very helpful on the use of Saudi EFL context. They can storage links on it, make a list of websites which learners want to explore or enjoy and they can search other users’ tags for whatever they want and even if they don’t have their own computer they can accesses it from any  where.

On delicious I searched for writing quizzes and I found one site which involves games, activities, and quizzes related to reading skill. I’ve highlighted the bookmark as the following link:

http://www.real-english.com/new-lessons.asp

 

The Wiki are very helpful for the use of Saudi EFL context. On wiki, the teacher may post different questions or thoughts which they want the students to respond to. At the same time students can also create their own pages to display the final work.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Digital Immigrant teachers and Digital Natives

 

       From time to time changing techniques and methods used by humans to the lookout for new knowledge and electronic digital life are evidences of these changes. The people who were working on the technology found that technical filed is divided in to two. They are categorized as Digital Immigrant teachers and Digital Native students.

Firstly, the digital immigrant is the person who was born before the existence of digital technology and adopted it to some extent later in life. Secondly, the digital Native students are the people who are all “native speakers” of the digital language of computers, video games and the Internet.

 

There are a lot of differences between digital immigrant teachers and digital native students. The digital Immigrant teachers come with self-education, a lot of patience, and they like to learnstep-by-step. One the other hand, the digital native studentsare receiving information really fast, like parallel process and multi-task, and they prefer their graphics before their text rather than the opposite.

 

The digital immigrant accent means the people who used to turning to the internet for information. Furthermore; they prefer in reading the manual for a program rather than assuming that the program itself will teach us how to use it. For examples, they use to send the URL links by email rather than to share it with other by using a delicious or the edmodo or they may not know about them either, also they need to print out a document written on the computer in order to edit it (rather than just editing on the screen, and they still are usingold methods of lecturing and teaching.

 

In the field of education there are a lot of problems. One of these problems is that teachers who are not on the experience in the area of these new technologies insist on teaching originally. They feel more settled and familiar with it and comfortable with enough traditional way of experience most of the times.

 

A strong competition between the rejection of digital natives to deals with the old ways of their teaching methods, and the persistent of digital immigrants with their old ways of teachingI think that the quality of education must be the goal for both sides and the digital immigrants have to introduce themselves to the newworld, so they can help others and help those in need of their expertise.

 

If the digital immigrant educators really want to reach digital natives they have to follow up the methodology and the content of the digital natives. Moreover; they have to learn how to communicate in the language and style of their students.

 

     Finally, I’m very happy because I live on days where every thing became much easier and I’m proud because I'm one of the digital natives.

Normalization and Call

Bax argues that, "Our aim should be to attain a state of `normalisation' in which the technology is invisible and truly integrated"

4. Reflect on reading 3 and post:

a. In brief, paraphrase the changes which Bax suggested and the means proposed of achieving normalizations.

b. Explain how these changes and means could be applied to our Saudi context.

c. Your first post should be entitled: "The Possiblity of Reaching Bax’s Normilasation in our Saudi context: Why is it possible? When is it possible/reached/achieved? How will it be reached?

     Stephen Bax is a Professor in Applied Linguistics, his 2003 article on CALL won an Elsevier prize. According to his analysis of the CALL, he Changes form phases to approach then he provides three phases and CALL, their dates and a little.

    The first approach was the behavioristic CALL which is related to practicing, drill, behaviors, and theories; the second approach was the communicative CALL which is based on flexibility when dealing with the students, the third approach was the integrative CALL which is depended on multimedia and on the internet. It allows us to use a variety of media such as sound and video. He also provides a tree steps in order to achieve the normalization of CALL. The first one was mentioned to identify the critical factors that are needed for normalization, the second one was mentioned to make sure that the teaching context drives by these criteria, the last step was mentioned to adjust our practice and experience in each element for the purpose to encourage normalization.

    In my country the CALL may not get as much attention as that normalization. In my opinion even not the time to rely upon.  

My blog

Finally I got my own blog
WELCOM :)