xLingo Review 4-29-2013

There are many e-penpal sites out there. Here's a review of one:

xLingo Review

xLingo allows users to create a profile in order to connect with speakers of other languages. You can present the languages that you speak and the types of communicative activities in which you’re interested in participating like email penpal, skype partner, etc. The website matches users up with people who have reciprocal language learning goals. That is, you can say you want to learn Arabic and you speak English, and the site will find someone who speaks Arabic and wants to learn English. Users can select their proficiency level. The site is free, but there is a premium account for $20/year.

Advantages

• Site has built-in messaging abilities, chatrooms, blogs, avatars, and flashcards.
• There appear to be speakers of a wide variety of languages beyond English.
• You can select communication partners that fit a specific profile (i.e., if you want to talk to a woman, you can specify that criteria.)
• You can select whether or not you want to communicate with a teacher or a learner.

Disadvantages.

• Site seems to have fake profiles created by commercial companies for spamming.
• There seem to be few users online.
• The site may be trying to do too much (see the first advantage).
• It might be difficult to learn a language; that is, the site may be better for general communication in a conversation partner capacity.
• The platform language is only in English.

Tips

• If a person says they speak all the languages that start with A and are from, say, Berlin, it might be a spammer.
  If you were planning on moving to another language, you might use this site to learn the language beforehand.

Electronic Portfolio

Here is a link to my Electronic Portfolio.

Assessment and CALL

This week, we focused on using CALL for assessment purposes. After taking Dr. Jamieson's course in ESL Assessment, I think many an MA-TESLer falls in love with assessment in some ways. The connection between objectives, daily lesson planning, and designing summative assessments becomes clear and takes on new importance. Personally, I gained a lot of respect for assessments because of the profound impact they have on students' lives. Making good tests is so important for our students. Part of good teaching is choosing/making the right test. I found that assessment reoriented me to teaching. Developing and achieving course objectives was suddenly something measurable, and something that I really needed to spend time thinking about and working hard to teach in my lessons.

Regarding technology, DuBravac's (2013) chapter provided an excellent review of key assessment terms and concepts, as well as a discussion of the strengths and weaknesses of CALL in assessment. From our discussion with Geoff, we came up with some key points regarding the big three in assessment: practicality, reliability, and validity. If computers are available, this kind of assessment can be very practical for test administrators, as data is collected immediately. In terms of reliability, CALL tests can more easily provide the exact same experience for test takers than a human proctor. On the other hand, if the test isn't given in a language lab, questions of security and identity pose a serious threat to the reliability of the test. Finally, whether a CALL assessment is valid depends, as always, on the intended and actual use of test results; and also on the the constructs tested. If, for example, only true/false or multiple-choice questions are asked on a writing test, how much of the writing assessment construct is being tested? Does it match with the test-maker's expectations? What are stakeholders expecting to know based on these test results. Recent improvements to the e-rater technology used in the TOEFL test are changing the landscape of writing assessment. Ed White, a renowned scholar in the writing assessment field, suggested that computerized assessment is the 300-pound gorilla in the room for any discussion of writing assessment. While I can't really wrap my head around how this technology might assess my essay, I am trying to heed Dr. White's advice and get hip to the new trends.

Cultured CALL

The teaching of culture begins with a complex definition of the concept of culture. Somehow everything that a group of people do, make, or believe; but somehow not.

In my own teaching, I often avoid explicitly "teaching" culture. As an undergrad, I studied Sociology, and often got tangled up in the idiosyncratic aspects of culture. How representative of a culture is any one person? Anyway, this isn't the venue for that discussion. In ESL, pragmatics and cultural expectations seem important. The concept of what is negotiable is familiar to PIE teachers, as our Saudi students often want to negotiate things that, in typical American interactions, would be non-negotiable. I think these lessons are hard because they aren't necessarily only linguistic. They involve understanding what your interlocutor expects, and knowing how to show respect for that person.

I think that technology offers several useful ways to teach culture through collaboration and exchange. CMC speeds up the process of interacting with what would've been pen pals generations ago. The tricky part of teaching culture is finding out what is culture. Whose culture? The activity that Alan, Karen and I made was about food in Phoenix. Students' explorations of the menus and the resulting inferences about culture suggest that they are "learning" Phoenix food culture.

Clearly, culture is something that we ought to teach students, or at least provide avenues for discovery. The how, and the WHAT remain lingering questions for me. I'll have to keep thinking about this.

Culture and CALL

Jena, Alan, and Karen's Activity

Week 11 Reflection

In class on Wednesday, we were discussing how some efforts to prevent plagiarism (i.e., having students write drafts by hand in class) are no longer totally authentic to the changes in the writing process brought on by increased use of word processing software. I'm feeling about 30 years behind the curve in writing that statement; yet, the point of the discussion--changes in how we write--is an important consideration. With word processing software, we may edit more as we go, using the curser to add, subtract and move chunks of text in the blink of an eye. A word-processed draft is different from a hand-written draft in many ways. In CALL this week, we discussed the teaching of writing and grammar, and it's clear that technology has enhanced these areas of our teaching.

Teaching grammar through technology isn't a new idea. Certainly the language laboratories of the 1960s were working on grammar, if in a somewhat non-communicative way. Current applications have more to offer in terms of contextualized activities, or in the case of programs like Criterion, advanced text analysis capabilities that can offer students individualized feedback on their written work.

The teaching of writing has been altered by trends in technology. Arguably, collaborative projects have never been more easily facilitated than by wikis or Google Docs. Blogs provide a space for students to post written assignments for a larger audience than traditional hard copies turned in to the teacher. As Katie described, using blogs for simple assignments like ENG 105 Reading Logs helped her students take the assignments more seriously, and maybe think more deeply about the ideas brought up by their classmates. The next time I teach a writing class, I want to make more use of these technologies in my classroom.

Materials Development #2: Podcast Vocabulary

For the second materials development assignment, I kept the top level of an EFL IEP (adult students) as the context. I wanted to use the idea that I had during Bek's AWL Important Words presentation for including more listening skills in vocabulary logs. I think that the use of technology in this lesson would facilitate skill and strategy development in a meaningful way. Happy reading!

Link to the Lesson Plan

Link to the appended Vocabulary Log worksheet

Week 10 reflection: Podcasts

Hey CALLers:

I really enjoyed last week's discussion on listening and speaking tools. I also enjoyed browsing blog posts from members of our class who reflected on the week's readings. I agreed with Erin A.'s comments about how podcasts can seem sort of overwhelming in terms of how long they take to prepare, record and edit; however, I also related to how Bek's presentation made her rethink the time versus the outcome for students. In a listening/speaking class, podcasts might be a viable alternative to finding barely-related YouTube videos that have unpredictable quality and vocabulary. Especially for Bek's podcast on vocabulary, I saw many connections to activities that I already to do in class. Vocabulary Logs are a staple of learning in my class, and my one qualm with them was that they barely require any listening or speaking skill to complete. During Bek's presentation, the light switched on in my head that students should be listening for the information and transferring it to their vocabulary logs. I think this is a good application for podcasts because students could relisten as many times as they want.

In a more interactive sense than what is offered by podcasts, Skype and other VOiP technologies offer a platform for SCMC. Applications like Skype have some serious limitations in terms of how many different functions are available; yet the simplicity of the Skype interface makes it highly accessible to a variety of learners and teachers.

Week 9 reflection

Well, it's about time that I get this posted. Like most of my colleagues, I spent last week in Dallas at TESOL. What an interesting culmination of MA-TESL coursework!

So, week 9 CALL reflections. We had readings and a test about using CMC in the classroom and teaching reading and vocabulary. These are two things I haven't done much of. As a Writing-turned-Listening-Speaking teacher, I had a harder time really sinking my teeth into some of the applications mentioned in the articles; however, since we are all indeed vocabulary teachers, I hope to get some use from those resources in the future. Regarding CMC, asynchronous CMC has played a large role in my life this semester, as I took an online class that did not take advantage of what ACMC can do for thinking and language. In my own teaching, I try to use ACMC with a purpose. I have students  recording short responses on Vocaroo that I grade similarly to the speaking tasks on larger assessments.

To me, CALL applications seem very appropriate for doing things that are too monotonous for humans, like generating word frequency lists or estimating difficulty level based on algorithmic things that I wouldn't touch with a ten-foot pole. Maybe that's too strong. I'm really interested in the potential ability of a program to turn any online text into a learning tool. How awesome would that be? Students could pick any high-interest, authentic text, and this software would generate word lists, gloss words, and essentially make some "decisions" about what kind of information to follow up with to help the learner get through the text in a meaningful way. Clearly, major challenges of the push for authentic material are vocabulary and the mismatch in intended audience (i.e., native speakers have more shared background knowledge and cultural intuition). For students, these barriers could be decreased through advanced CALL software.

Audioboo Reflection for Week 8

This is my attempt to use Audioboo with remnants of a head cold. Enjoy!

listen to ‘Jena Audioboo’ on Audioboo

Week 7 Reflection

This week's discussion of TBLT helped me reflect on the teaching practices currently valued in this field.

Tasks are a big deal for sure.

Lai and Li (2011) discussed the interrelated nature of TBLT and technology. In CMC TBLT, learners typically produced more language, a wider variety of discourse functions, and more linguistically complex speech/text. Of interest to me is that some research shows that participation is equalized through CMC TBLT. Students who may be hesitant to speak up in class participated more equally with their more out-going peers over CMC. In my classroom, the majority of students are from Arabic-speaking countries, but I have three Chinese students. The Chinese students employ a very different (much more reserved) communication style, and because of this, sometimes get linguistically run over by the Arabic students who prefer to speak spontaneously as soon as they have an idea. I think that CMC might benefit my class in terms of equalizing participation for these groups of students.

Good task design is very important. Although I constantly read about TBLT and task design, in practice, I have to keep refining my knowledge about how to design tasks based on what actually happens in the classroom.

Having a clearly defined end point, that is, a goal for completion is most important to me. As a student, few things frustrated me more than not knowing when I'm done with an assignment (because I feel like I need to keep working on it). Task directions should include some kind of indication (e.g., 10 minutes, 5-7 sentences, 2-3 pages, etc.) of what and how much the teacher expects. In broader terms for TBLT, Folse (2006) advocates the closed task, in which a final "answer" is available. This stands in opposition to the open task, in which no "answer" exists.

From the teacher's perspective, a lack of end point results in difficultly in stopping or, conversely, maintaining, an activity; difficulty in assessment; and ambiguity in dealing with student complaints. I'm learning to delineate my tasks more carefully to avoid these pitfalls.

Until next week...

Week 6! Reflection

As a student of the NAU Applicd Linguistics program, it seems almost mandatory that I know, understand, and love corpora. For the most part, I do love them, though I'm not sure I know or understand them well enough yet. What I find so intriguing is the massive amount of searchable data that can maybe work to answer my most pressing questions about frequency in language.

I appreciated the discussion and refutation of possible shortcomings of corpora at the outset of Flowerdew (2009), as it's always appropriate to consider the limitations of the technology used in the classroom. Promoting bottom-up processing, being somewhat decontextualized, fostering mainly inductive reasoning, and even the sheer number of choices that may bewilder students (and teachers) are interesting starting points for a discussion of language teaching and the use of CALL. I see these points as valid, but I don't think that they acknowledge fully the variety of approaches and viewpoints that are necessary to reach many groups of learners.

I haven't done much with corpora in my classroom yet, although I'd really like to try using corpora to develop students' stylistic choices in writing. Even as a graduate-level writer (we hope), I sometimes have inconsistencies in register that break up the flow of my writing. For L2 writers, the challenge of mastering a new register like academic writing is daunting, and any tool they have to ease the transition is a good investment.

MD#1: Maps in Myanmar

This entry houses my first Materials Development project. It was designed for an EAP EFL context in Myanmar. Follow the links below to see my activities.

Lesson Plan

Socrative Quiz: import quiz SOC-856820

My Google Map


View Adv L/S Map of Yangon in a larger map

Thoughts from Week 5

Technology is becoming easier to integrate into my classroom. I am excited about trying to use technology, and I've been incorporating some ideas from class (socrative, digital stories, etc.).

The midterm helped me to cement some of my ideas about sociocultural theory. One idea I'm still working through is the idea that technology changes the way we think. How can that be? I mean, on one hand, I totally get it. I do think that I try to access information via mental "folders" in the same way that I store documents. I feel like my brain has a search function. But has the technology changed this, or was have our brains been this way forever?

It's easier for me to accept the other major tenant  of sociocultural theory--the need for social learning. I'm drawn to the idea of making the ZPD work for us. Interactions in the ZPD have the potential to be well-scaffolded for the learner and to have value in the negotiation of meaning. I appreciated DuBravac's distinction between Krashen's i+1 (focused only on the learner's ability) and the ZPD (socially-oriented and involving all participants' abilties).

Socrative: a recommended app for teachers

In class yesterday, I used Socrative to review vocabulary. The intuitive interface of this application was simple enough for me to put an activity together in a matter of minutes, which is a very practical aspect for teachers.

The Space Race function proved exciting for my students, even though (or maybe because) they had already practiced using the application in Karen's class (we have the same students). During the activity, I noticed that having one device per group was much more effective than everyone using individual phones/tablets because students were reading the questions aloud together and, wait for it, *discussing* the answers in English (Yes!!!).

One problem that I during class was retrieving students' answers or locating the questions quickly to review with students following the activity. I assume that with spending a little more time with the application outside of class, I will overcome these difficulties. Tips and tricks welcome.

My overall evaluation of this application is positive. Quick, easy, and engaging. Students were literally signing and dancing after they answered questions corrected--something I may not be able to attribute to Socrative, but a nice touch nevertheless.

Another Attempt at Digital Stories

I created this animation for my Level 5 Listening/Speaking class. We will begin a unit on intelligent machines in two weeks, and our textbook reading is about artificial voices. Because one of our course objectives is to raise awareness and correct use of suprasegmental features of English, the opportunity to compare and contrast NS and artificial voices was too great to pass up. I simply typed the text from the book into the text-to-speech boxes on xtranormal and this is the animation I plan to share with my students. Students will follow along in their books as the artificial voice reads the text. Then, we will have a discussion about the features of the artificial voice that do not match those of native speakers. Because students will also be getting content information from the reading, we will continue to discussing content questions. Wish me luck!

Teaching Philosphy

Teaching Philosophy (CALL emphasis)
Jena K. Lynch

Teachers of English as a Second or Foreign Language have the responsibility to not only help learners develop language skills, but also become independent life-long learners and users of the language. In my teaching philosophy, I acknowledge the difficult task of meeting students' complex needs, and I will show how  Computer-Assisted Language Learning (CALL) applications factor into my teaching.

A curriculum is a program-wide educational framework that is agreed upon by teachers and administrators. The curriculum guides lesson planning and decision making day-to-day and in the larger picture. As a teacher, I am a vital part of carrying our the curricular goals, but I am also the vehicle for change, when necessary. Needs analysis, both as a preliminary measure and as an on-going method of data collection, is a critical step in maintaining a dynamic curriculum that is adequately meeting students' needs. This data collection process could be incredibly low-tech, via face-to-face interviews, or, to save time and energy, an application like Google Forms could be used to easily collect and compile student data for teacher review. From this information, I can better serve my students.

As a language teacher, I try to provide as much input and target language exposure as possible. Students need to listen and read the target language to develop an ear for the language. I try to make my physical classroom is rich in text, via word walls, realia (newspaper or magazine clippings), as well as hanging up posters or any relevant images to reinforce our content learning. Input and exposure should always be meaningful for students, and Technology should aid students in accessing meaningful input and exposure. I try to direct students to online resources, such as YouTube videos that are relevant to our course content, and target our key vocabulary words. Any CALL application to be used in the classroom should be evaluated for its relevance to the learners' needs.

In addition to creating environments where student maximize input and exposure, I plan lessons and activities around the communicative language teaching principles of output and interaction. Students learn from interacting with others and having the opportunity to test their language hypotheses in real time and get real feedback from classmates and from me. I realize that production of language can raise students' affective filters, and I think that CALL applications can provide a suitable mediation here. In some CALL applications (e.g., voice recording software Vocaroo or Voxopop), students can practice producing language and interacting in a safe, low affective environment. Students can work on their own terms and practice when they feel prepared and relaxed. Technology allows me more flexibility as a teacher, and accounts for some individual differences that students may have.

Part of creating a dynamic lesson that includes input/exposure and output/interaction is careful planning and attention to the kind and amount of feedback that students are getting. Attention to planning is important at a curricular level for consistency within a program, especially in terms of assessment. Collaborative technology, such as Google Documents, email, and even Skype can serve teachers well as they work to plan lessons together. Similarly, Learning Management Systems (LMS), such as Blackboard, give teachers and students a second classroom, in some ways. Teachers can post assignments and references for students to access on their own time. LMSs also offer a venue for electronic feedback.The Review and Track changes functions of Microsoft Word are indispensable for writing classes, and may also be useful for other skills. Online, software informed by corpus linguistics (e.g., Compleat Lexical tutor and COCA) can provide students with useful and individualized feedback about their lexical and syntactic choices that would be very time-consuming for me as the teacher.

Language learning principles of input/exposure, output/interaction, as well as feedback and planning guide my planning and teaching. CALL applications are one of many tools that I have to help students build a strong foundation for autonomous learning. I see technology as a growing influence in my field, and I am continually researching and refining my own uses of CALL in the classroom in order to best meet my students' needs and improve my teaching.

My Digital Story

My Digital Story

I chose to use Story Bird because Karen recommended it to me. The interface is very intuitive and the results are beautiful. I wanted to make something that I could potentially use with my level 5 Listening/Speaking class. We are working on a business ethics unit right now. My digital story is a springboard for conversation about ethical decision-making that I think will bring up some of the vocabulary and content that we have been discussing.

http://storybird.com/books/a-question-of-ethics/

Here's the activity to accompany the story. I'm thinking that it could work for any skills class, not just L/S.

1. Students have been learning about business ethics in class.
2. During class the teacher goes through the story with students
2. As homework, students reread the digital story and decide how they would fill in the last pages.
4. The following class period, the class discusses how they would fill in the blank pages and vote on a decision.
5. The teacher updates the story.

Week 4 Reflection

This week we are reading about SLA and CALL, and our homework is to create a digital story. The resounding theme, still, is that "pedagogy, not technology, should be the driving force in CALL use' (DuBravac, 2013, p. 63). On one level, I find this statement very un-comforting because it  fails to provide me clear answers about what to use and how to use it. However,  I guess it is comforting to realize that I've nearly got this MA-TESL that informs my teaching on a daily basis; so there's no reason that I can't apply those principles to choosing technology.

DuBravac's overview of SLA in chapter 4 would have been an excellent resource for the foundation sections of the Comps (if you haven't taken them yet--this is a message for you).

As for the digital stories--mine's coming soon--I have a question. What's the difference between creating a digital story and using something like PowerPoint? Is it the element of telling a story? Can I present a series of questions in a digital story just for artistic effect?

One idea that I have with digital stories comes from my brother, a middle-schooler. For one of his classes, he wrote and revised a digital story about his father's life, and then had the book printed. Once he was satisfied with the draft, he and his classmates had a book-giving ceremony in which they presented the books to their family members. Everyone loved the ceremony and the book is a keepsake in our house. I think that ESL students would also find value in such an activity. The act of writing, revising and preparing some kind of presentation speech would be a really nice integration of skills. the students would be motivated to do a good job because of who is receiving the final product. Something to think about.

Digital Storytelling

http://domo.goanimate.com/go/movie/0nd3yiWjUq60?utm_source=emailshare&uid=0opPozrPMdqA

Try this link for a random Domo story. Students can fill in the blanks.

Week 3

Technology.

It's pervasive! I feel like I'm constantly on a computer. Don't get me wrong--I love computers because they make the kind of work that I do in the MA-TESL program easier (and possible, in many cases). I have also grown to appreciate how they enhance my ESL class.

As a 21st century teacher, I think it's part of my responsibility to make sure that my students are technologically literate. They don't have to be super-savvy, but they do need to be able to do the basics (e.g., Word, email, Learning Management Systems). At an IEP, we are preparing students linguistically for the university, but in order to apply these language skills to university coursework, they will more likely than not need to use technology effectively.

CALL class has been enlightening for me so far. I've often shied away from technology because I myself am not so savvy, but that's no excuse not to take advantage of the wealth of resources offered in CALL.

My favorite line from the reading was "...teachers should select a technology palette and use the technology they are familiar  with for the presentations" (DuBravac, 2013, p. 55). Technology palette strikes me as a nice metaphor, not to mention a creative noun-noun combination. What kinds of technology suit your taste? It helps me think about how I won't like all the technology available, but some of it will pair really well with my teaching context and personal preference.

Maybe our class diigo is like a technology tasting!

Maybe not.

Homework from 1-23

Evaluating a CALL resource for a listening class (just like everyone else, apparently!)

YouTube.com 

Business Ethics Video (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vmVu66Fpd9U)

This is an actual non-LL video I chose to use for an achievement test (PIE level 5 L/S) in the unit on business ethics. 

• vocabulary
• Mostly appropriate for level 5. Some challenging words, but also many of our vocabulary words
• pace
• Natural pace for native speakers. I think my level 5s might have trouble to keep up in some sentences
• voice clarity
• Clear English. 
• background noise
• None. Listeners can focus on the voice
• interest level
• This is an appropriate video for the assessment, though I don't think it's particularly interesting.
• authenticity
• While this was a staged lecture-conversation, I think the content, pace, and credibility of the speaker contribute to a sense of authenticity.
• register choice
• The register is suitable for academic contexts or more casual conversations that students may have at the university.
• length
• About 5 minutes--excellent for level 5.
• content
• This lecture is well-oriented to our unit on business ethics, so I think the content is a real strength of this site.
• cultural awareness
• I think this story is suitable for Saudi and Chinese students, like those I have at PIE. I think most groups of students would have something to say about it, but I don't think it's offensive.
• visuals
• Some ppt support helps students pick up main points as the speaker talks. Speaker is visible the entire time.
• copyrights
• No apparent need to ask copyright permission.

Listenings on YouTube are something that I often turn to when I'm looking for listening files; yet, I'm always looking for ways to avoid spending entire afternoons sorting through a bunch of bad YouTube videos (there are a lot out there). Luckily for me, my efforts this time paid off as the excellent sound quality, content, and extras (e.g., video and ppt support) of this video make it a useful resource for the assessment.

Evaluating Technology

Dear Readers,

This week's readings were about evaluating CALL resources for the L2 classroom. I chose this topic as my wiki entry for two reasons: 1) there were only two choices left, and 2) I'm actually very interested in  learning more about how to pick the right resource. Using technology just for technology's sake has frustrated me in the past because I wasn't sure how to use the resources (limited as they might have been) effectively. When I taught in Cambodia, I remember putting on a pirated DVD of a hit movie in the media room, dimming the lights, and thinking I was really making the most of my technology (insert buzzer sound here). Not exactly. But, through the MA-TESL program, I have learned more effective methods and techniques for teaching in general, and now I'm uncovering more ways that technology can serve me and my students in the classroom and beyond.

While as a novice I often find a comparison of three or more evaluation frameworks daunting, the DuBravac chapter was an excellent introduction for the Jamieson and Chapelle (2010) article that I will be presenting on Wednesday. Chapelle's six-pronged framework includes these criteria: language learning potential, learner fit, meaning focus, authenticity, impact, and practicality. I think her framework shows the most essential things to consider in evaluation, while not overwhelming the selection committee with data. Other models with more thorough lists, for example the Susser and Robb (2004), seem a little cumbersome to use efficiently.

One takeaway that I had from this week is that evaluating technology is not that different from choosing a textbook. In many ways, knowing the curriculum, the learners, and the culture surrounding the use of a  technology are some of the most important considerations. With some guidance, teachers are capable of evaluating whether a technological resource is appropriate for their purposes.

Introductions, experiences, and goals

Hello Cyber-world,

I'm Jena, and while I am no stranger to the blogoshpere, I still a novice when it comes to using technology in language teaching and learning. In the MA-TESL program at NAU, applications of technology have been introduced as important elements of language teaching in the 21st century. The introduction of these resources has been useful, yet, since I haven't necessarily had a chance to implement them into my classes (ENG 105 or PIE Listening/Speaking), I don't feel that I have gained solid command of them.

My goals for this course, then, are to gain command of more resources that I can use immediately in my PIE class, and also take with me after NAU. In particular, I would like to find a reliable, user-friendly voice recording software program for my students to use in completing spoken homework online. I've used voxopop.com with some success, but the site often crashes for days at a time, which is frustrating for students and teachers alike. The daunting amount of videos on youtube have also been a resource in my classroom, but I'd like to learn how to use this kind of mega-resource more effectively. Moreover, many of my job interests will take me to places that have limited access to technology. A colleague and I presented on making the most of these kinds of contexts at AZ-TESOL last fall, and the topic is still important to me. Even though the access to technology is unequal, the case could be made that most students in this digital age need technological literacy skills to be successful in the English-speaking world. I hope that this class addresses the varying resources available in different langauge teaching contexts. Another goal that I have for the class is to gain a checklist of sorts for deciding when it is appropriate to use technology, and how to use it to best meet students' needs. As I have signed up to create the evaluation wiki next week, it sounds like I'm the master of my own destiny and that this goal will be met very soon.

Until next time.