“Bloom’s Digital Taxonomy in the Saudi EFL Classrooms”

 Bloom's Taxonomy of learning objectives is used to define how will a skill or competency is learned or mastered. 

Bloom’s Taxonomy is not evident in Saudi EFL classrooms. Some teachers only use one or two of these levels  in their classrooms or in teaching context. It is necessary for teachers to use these levels in their classrooms. Teachers should learn stuednts to use all the levels of Bloom's Taxonomy from remebering till create. In future, as a teacher i will use all Bloom's Taxonomy to help my students improve their critical thinking skill and use it with them in a different ways. 

Evaluating Websites

The website we decided to choose is Wacky Web Tales and the URL: http://www.eduplace.com/tales/ This website is for kids who are in the third grade and above! Each of the many tales offered let you fill in blanks to help create the story plot.

The purpose: The purpose of this website is educational, and to provide tales for kids in order to make them learn new vocabulary and listening to these words and try pronounce it in different ways and what kids prefer it. This website can keep kids entertained for hours.

Clarity: The website is very clear and somewhat colorful and visually appealing. The tales are written in a clear way. The page and the links are well organized and there are many pictures. There is no spelling, grammatical or word-usage mistakes.

Accessibility: The website is open, free to use, and everyone can access.

Goals : The website goals is to teach children a new vocabulary and learn in funny way. and it is really effective and useful especially for those who are 3 years and above.
Information and resources the site provide :

• The information is objective.

• The site provides thorough coverage of the topic.

• The information on the site well written and there is no misspelling or grammatical error.

• The site provide a works cited page.

• The site include multimedia elements that help explain the topic.

Navigation :

• the site is organized but not clear to those how use it for the first time.

• the design suit the purpose

• No ads that might distract me

• the site does not take a long time to load

• the site does not indicate when it was first created and last updated

• the links work, and do not lead to error messages, such as “Page Not Found”

• the extension in the URL is eduplace.com/tales/

• the extension tell me about the source of the site

• most of the resources on this site meet all my needs

• this Web site has a variable tales and offer it in a good ways for this , it considers as a better research source than some of the other sites I've already visited.

Name of the group: Rise in Glory

“Wordle in EDU 401”

” The role of WeQuests in learning a foreign/second language?”

In our course (EDU401) every week we learn new thing that we didn't heard about it before, and now we learn about Webquest.

A WebQuest is an inquiry-oriented lesson format in which most or all the information that learners work with comes from the web.[1] These can be created using various programs, including a simple word processing document that includes links to websites.

WebQuest plays a major role in many  in TEFL/TESL field like activating critical thinking, student-oriented activities, enquiry-oriented language use, cooperative and collaborative learning and Project-based learning. It improves the students’ critical thinking. Webquest is very beneficial becouse it helps students improving their critical thinking while they use it in solving survey or snswering question in Webquest.

Project-based learning (PBL) supports the use of webquests..

In future, i will  use Webquests with my EFL students becouse Webquest is very beneficial way of learning and today's students prefer learning via new ways and Webquest is one of them.

How would I use blogs, wikis and delicious with my students?

 

Nowadays, I think (as a teacher) using technology in education is important  and helpful to improve my students' knowledge. Websites like: Wiki, Blogs, and Delicious are the best  of technologies which I would use it with my EFL students. But before I will use these technologies, I will train my
students how to use it in a correct way.

 

BLOG

is a personal online journal that is frequently updated and intended for general public consumption. Blogs are defined by their format: a series of entries posted to a single page in reverse-chronological order. Blogs generally represent the personality of the author or reflect the purpose of the Web site that hosts the blog.

 

 

 

Wiki:

A wiki is a Web site that allows me to add and update content on the site using my own Web browser. This is made possible by Wiki software that runs on the Web server. Wikis end up being created mainly by a collaborative effort of the site visitors. The term "wiki" comes from the Hawaiian phrase, "wiki wiki," which means "super fast”.

 

 

Delicious:

is a community bookmarking website in which I can save Web pages I find and share them with other users or with my students. Because users' bookmarks are made public and viewable by other users, other people often bookmark Web pages that they find within other users' bookmarks. Del.icio.us keeps track of how many people bookmark each site and posts the most popular websites on its home page.

 

 

The Possiblity of Reaching Bax’s Normilasation in our national context: Why is it possible? When is it possible/reached/achieved? How will it be reached?

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.

This article seeks answers to three questions: where has Computer Assisted Language Learning (CALL) been, where is it now and where is it going? 

He suggested to plan for this normalised state and then move towards it.

1- The first step is to identify the criterial factors which normalisation requires. 

2- The second is to audit the practice of each teaching context in the light of these criteria; 

3- the final step is to adjust our current practice in each aspect so as to encourage normalisation.

* Bax suggested that CALL will reach normalisation when computers are used every day normally in the classrooms and lessons like any tool in the class(like pen and book). Also, CALL will reach this state when teachers and students well trained how to use it without fear. They will not depend only on copmuters as the centre of any lesson, but they will play a role in almost all. He also suggested that to achieve normalization we have to identify what are the criteria we need to reach normalization. 

* Normalisation is the stage when a technology is invisible, hardly even recognised as a technology,

How these changes and means could be applied to our Saudi context?

These changes start gradually apply to our Saudi context, but we just need some time.

When is it possible/reached/achieved?

I think many universties in Saudi Arabia start to use technologies nowdays like computers, projectors, smart boards, and iPads as an important tools. Also model schools are start to provide to their students a laptops to do their homeworks.

Why is it possible?

Becouse ministry of education has a possibilities to provides these technologies.

How will it be reached?

1- Give each student a computer to use it as an important tool to do his/ her work and projects. 

2-  If teachers and students are able to use CALL  without any fear.

 3- When students can use it in a proper way.

4- Create eductional programs or eductional websites so the students can get their lessons and homeworks and  dates of the quizes and exams, and if they have any question they can ask and the teacher or the classmate will reply. 

5- When Ministry of Education provides all of the technologies that the teachers and students need it, and they should trained well how to use it.

New blogger

Hi