How would English language teachers use blogs, wikis and delicious with their students?

 Now a day, technologies are an important part of the new generations’ life. They used technology most of their days and they cannot get along without it. Regarding to Saudi Arabia schools most of our teachers were not used technology such as blogs, wikis and delicious in Saudi EFL context but if they use they will make differences in English language learning. Most of our teachers in Saudi Arabia do not see the importance of using technology in teaching English as a foreign language. Many teachers disregard the importance of using technology in teaching to those students. They did not realize that today's students are different from old generations’ students or from 40 years old age. So, teaching method should be change and traditional way of teaching should be change too. In additional, teachers should enhance the important of technology by using it with their student. Definitely, students learning will develop because they will feel that learning is relevant to their real life. Moreover, students’ education will be more interesting and enjoyable.

•          Teachers can use blog to encourage students’ skills. For example, teacher gives them an activity such as reading an artical and writes the meaning of underline words on the texts. In this activity teacher will check students understanding of the texts and their writing skills at the same time. Also, she can give them a story and ask them to write a conclusion of that story. This will test their writing skill. Also, if the students faced any difficulty in English language, they can use blog in order to share it with others and learn it. For example, most of the students have a problem in making perfect tenses. In this case, teachers can use blog to help student to learn how to use this tense correctly. She could ask them to write some sentences by using perfect tense. Then, she will correct it to them and give them her feedback. In addition, in blog students can comment on their friends’ blog to develop their writing skills.

•           Wiki is an amazing source for sharing information with other people. Teachers can give their student an activity or assignment that requires the student to create their own Wiki and to fill it with the information that related to their course. For example, if the courses about Phonetic and Phonology, the students would have to seek out about information that related to this course and fill the information on their Wiki. This searching will enhance students’ knowledge about their course because they read a lot of the material and seek out for the information by their own. Moreover Students can put a picture in their personal profile and can edit information or link easily. Wiki is a helpful web site for a large class student. It’s easy to use for both, the teacher and students.
  
  
  
  

• Using Delicious in language classroom could help student to develop their foreign language skills.  For example, the teacher could ask the students to create a delicious a count, fill it with links that could lead to various web sites or links. Teacher could ask the students to put labels or key words in order to facilitation the searching process for the links.

Digital Natives, Digital Immigrants By Marc Prensky

-Who are Digital Immigrant teachers and Digital Native students as categorized by the author? 

Digital Native students are those students who are well known with this new technology. Also, they are all “native speakers” of the digital language of computers, video games and the Internet.

 Digital Immigrant teachers are those teachers who were not born into the digital world but they know this technology at some later point in their lives. Then, they follow these changes of the new technology and became captivated by it.  

-  List down 3 differences between Digital Immigrant teachers and Digital Native students? 

Digital Native students are used to receiving information really fast, and they like to parallel process and multi-task. Also, they prefer their graphics before their text, and they prefer random access (like hypertext). They function best when networked, and they prefer games to serious work. But Digital Immigrants are different from digital native students. They prefer to teach- slowly, step-by-step, one thing at a time, individually, and above all, seriously. Digital Immigrants don't believe their students can learn successfully while watching TV or listening to music because the immigrants can't. Also, they think learning can't be fun.

-What is meant by Digital immigrant accent? List down three examples of “digital immigrant accents.”

 It is a language that used by Digital Immigrants' and it shows the lack of technology.
The "Digital Immigrants accent" can be seen in such things as turning to the Internet for information second rather than the first, or in reading the manual for program rather than assuming that the program itself will teach us to use it. There are hundreds of examples of the digital immigrants’ accent. They include printing out your email (or having your secretary print it out for you- an even "thicker" accent); needing to print out a document written on the computer in order to edit it(rather than just editing on the screen); and bringing people physically into your office to see an interesting web site (rather than just sending them the URL). 

-According to the author, what is the biggest serious problem facing education today?

According to the authors, our digital immigrant teachers who teach lessons/lectures by using the traditional way of teaching is the biggest problem facing education today. The reason for that is this way of teaching does not fit with these kinds of students (Digital Native students). 

They need a new way of teaching that fit with their generation and their way of thinking. Moreover, it will facilitate their learning process. Also, they will be very interesting and get a benefit at the same time.

-   “Should the Digital Natives learn the old way, or should their Digital Immigrants learn the new?”

The world has become a sophisticated with new technology now a days and by the time this technology evolution and show a lot of hardware and software. So it is not easy for students to go back forward and teachers must keep pace with this development.

- What should the Digital Immigrant educators really want to reach Digital Natives?

Digital immigrant teacher are able to reach Digital native students if they have a strong desire to learning the use of technology. They just need time to learn step by step in order to achieve it. 

Welcome

Welcome every one to my blog (:

This is my first time i use blogger. I really enjoyed in using it and I hope we can learn from each other 

Recently, I have an account in Delicious(:

I hope you will follow me and share things together

https://delicious.com/hibahAbdullah

"The Possibility of Reaching Box’s Normalisation in our Saudi context: Why is it possible? When is it possible/reached/achieved? How will it be reached?

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

 In the article of Stephan Bax we found that he discussed the development of the CALL through the past, present and future. Also, he found the three phases of CALL which divided previously by Mark Warschauer. These phases are Behavioristic, communicative, integrative.

These phases were the basic points that Bax used in his argument to answer the three main questions which are; where has CALL been?, where is CALL now? And where is CALL going? And he explain the goal of CALL through his theory of normalization which means any kind of technological innovation and refers to the stage when the technology becomes invisible, hardly even recognized as a technology, taken for granted in everyday life. 

            Bax suggested that there are three steps that can bring normalization if computers are used daily by students and faculty:

1- Daily and regular use and determine criteria.

2- Evaluate all teaching context and its purpose.

3- Adjusting to the use of this technology.

     In my country, Saudi Arabia, most of our schools and universities applied the traditional way of teaching, but in recent years teachers started to apply the modern technological tools and devices such as projectors, computers, i Pods and smart boards in the class room.

In Saudi Arabia, we need to teach the student and even the parents about technologies and what the benefits of it. Also, they should learn how to use it in their life, whether in educational system or anywhere else. So, teachers need to encourage their students in order to make some changes in educational system to reach normalization. I asked my relatives who live in Saudi Arabia if their schools used any technologies in their educational system or provided it to them. One of them said yes and others said no. Those who said yes, her school gave her a laptop to do her work and she would have to return it at the end of the year.

   It is not impossible to reach normalization in Saudi Arabia. We just need to believe in technology and how it will facilitate the learning process and to make the lesson more understandable and obvious for the student. At the end, our educational system will be changed but just we need time because of the usage of technology, which is the base of improvement and to reach better level of learning.