Reading Prompt 3

*LEVY – Ch. 8. Technology
*BLACKBOARD - Soares, D. d.A. (2008). Understanding class blogs as a tool for language development. Language Teaching Research, 12(4), 517–533.

What challenges did Soares face when using blogs with her ESL students, and what lessons did she learn? How does she feel about using blogs with students in the future? Levy describes several types of technologies Choose one of them and describe how you might want to use it (or have used it), and discuss some of considerations that need to be taken when using this technology with ESL students

Soares came across some issues when using blogs with her ESL students, such as students liked to open class blogs in class, but they didn’t like to leave or reply comment; students were not highly motivated or active; and students tended to copy information from web instead of creating their own writings. By carrying out Exploratory Practice, as well as online surveys, she noticed that the technical problems and time limitation were the main reasons which account for these challenges. She felt that in using blogs, teachers need to give students a tutorial on the basic operation, and choose the right platform to fit their needs. Teachers also need to spend more time to do blog activities in class. She also felt that blogging is well used in all classrooms worldwide, teachers should be ready to use blogs in their educational contexts.
Levy introduced several new technologies for language learning, and I am pretty interested in “Mobile Learning”. Almost everyone has mobile phone, and right now we have smart phones, 3G phones, they have multiple functions to allow you to upload, download, listen to music, watch videos, surf internet, etc., they just like a small “notebook computers”. This technology should be used in language learning, so that students can exchange E-mails with teachers, have small “phone conference”, receive “mini-lessons”, search information, etc. And they are so small and can be carried easily, and can be used freely, no matter when or when learners want to study, they can use it. But it has some limitations need to be taken into consideration, such as the screen is small, the keyboard is inconvenient, and also the cost of downloading from internet.