Tuesday, November 17, 2009

The Effects of using some Technological Tools in Teaching and learning Language:

Abstract

The increasing availability of technologies in the classroom is promoting discussions among instructors & educators concerning the best way to teach students and how can instructors effectively utilize the available technologies to enhance learning. What instructors need to utilize such technologies? The research will demonstrate some technological tools and the effects of the use of each tool to enhance students’ learning experience. Currently, both instructors & students use different technologies in teaching and learning, starting from using computers, and surfing on internet, doing assignments on black boards, creating animations on smart boards and writing daily inputs in weblogs, then ending by Wikis & portable devices.
The importance of this topic is to find out the effects of using some technological tools to meet diverse learners’ styles and the ways to bridge the digital divide. The effects of using these technologies also should include: - Designing suitable curriculum for teaching and learning online, developing methods that help integrate these technologies into curriculum, competence in applying such technologies & equal distribution of technologies among schools, regardless of location, ethnicity, origin or socio-economic of students. Knowing that, it’s so hard to determine one technological tool is the best over other tools to be integrated into teaching/ learning. See experts’ arguments on this issue. http://www.education-world.com/a_tech/tech/tech234.shtml
Introduction:
The influence of technology on our daily life is increasing every minute. It has become very important and necessary to improve the quality of our performance, make our schools more sustainable learning environment & attractive for students and teachers to perform their duties and assignments. In general, the current generation is dealing with different technological tools, such as computer, Personal Digital Assistants (PDA), internet, blogs, emails, wikis, cell phones, Black boards, Thumb drives and smart boards, Since people are very familiar with such tools and they have become part of daily life for communication, why should not we use such technologies to help enhance students’ learning in schools and encourage them to explore knowledge & acquire more skills for their future life.
As accessibility to computer- based technology in schools and classrooms is to prepare teachers to use technology for instructional purpose, in Defense Language Institute (DLI), integrating technology plays an important role in delivering lessons in classrooms, especially in teaching/ learning Language and culture. DLI is teaching more 26 different languages for special purposes and missions. Arabic and Chinese are considered the most difficult languages. Technologies help teachers use hypermedia in delivering lessons, with some interactive combination of texts with pictures, animations, sound, and video. The majority of DLI students who have electronic devices, most likely use them primarily for educational purposes, secondarily for communication, classroom activities, presentation and surfing Internet for fun and pleasure. The popularity of using technologies has changed the way; we assume our tasks, activities and communicate with each other.
The influence of technologies has created a world that is much smaller in aspects, because ideas, information and knowledge through online classes can be shared easily across the globe. I think integrating technology into education and using it in the classroom helps close the digital divide and change the central role of teachers to be facilitators and providers of learning environment and knowledge for students, as well as the role of the students is changed to become proconsumers.
The use of technology in instruction improves students’ skills to be able to do research, assignments, getting online feedback from instructors’ interactive communication, such as chatting, email messaging and discussion to empower collaborative learning, in addition to sharing ideas and knowledge round the world and receives variety of ideas in one topic being under discussion. According to what is mentioned previously, technology can be used in many ways as an integral part of the curriculum to meet the needs of the diverse learners. It gives both teachers and students more opportunities for feedback, reflection, and revision. Technology can also help learners organize and re-organize their knowledge. Using technology helps learners save time, and improves the learning outcomes. According to what have been reviewed from online literature, most writers are putting great emphasis on technology integration in the classroom along with the standards laid down by the National Council for Accreditation of Teacher Education & the International Society for Technology in Education (NCATE & ISTE).
U.S Department of Education Program provides substantial funding to help American schools and Communities bridge the digital divide, reducing inequities in the access to information technology and the internet, most likely through Community Technology Centers.
Research questions:
1- what are the significant effects of using technologies in teaching/learning language?
2 - What do instructors and students need to use & apply technologies in teaching & learning language?
3- How does using some technologies address the diverse learners’ needs?
Objectives:
- Finding out the answers of the research questions.
- Demonstrating an understanding of the effects of using of some technologies in teaching/learning language.
- Reviewing researches on Digital equity & ways to bridge digital inequities
Section: 1: Educational Theories:
Dewey: Theory of Experience:
The theory based on the interaction of two principles:-
– Continuity: is that each experience a person has will influence the person’s future for better or worse.
– Interaction: refers to the situational influence on one's experience. One's present experience is a function of the interaction between one's past experience and the present situation, for example, my experience of lesson will depend on how the teacher arranges and facilitates the lesson, as well my past experience of similar lessons and teachers. Dewey says that “once we have a theory of experience, then as educators can set about progressively organizing our subject matter in a way that it takes accounts of students' past experiences, and then provides them with experiences which will help to open up, rather than shut down, a person's access to future growth experiences, thereby expanding the person's likely contribution to society. Learning by interaction with society in order to acquire main ideas and the experience is an important tool to unify mind and body. “Therefore, how instructor applies technologies on Dewey’s equation (Continuity+ experience+ interaction to prepare an exciting learning situation for students.
Piaget Theory of Collaborative Learning, 1928-1932:
The collaborative learning offers learners opportunities to cooperatively learn and work on assignments/ projects in groups, thus enhances the interactions among the group members to build a cooperative learning community. Every one as part of learning community is assigned to complete his/ her work. Piaget pointed out” collaborative learning has a major role in constructive cognitive development. His theory is consistent with the other popular learning theories Vygotsky 1978, Fox, & Karen; Thomas & Funaro 1990 all are emphasizing in the importance of collaboration. Piaget felt that interaction between peers is equally shared. This contrasts adult-child or a teacher-student interaction, where usually the former is in control and the latter characteristically follows what the former professes, thus not following his/her own natural learning process.” The theory also enhances the notion of student- centered. I concluded that collaborative learning will help build a virtual community, consequently promotes accessibility to online distance learning. Accordingly, digital service can be conveyed to a large number of students in remote areas. It could be also another way of bridging the digital divide.
Section: 2: Literature Review:
Huann +John+ Yuen, T+O+J (2005). Weblogs in Education. Blog Talk Doununder 2005 conference, Sydney, 0, Retrieved 07/2005, from http://www.edublog.net/files/papers/weblogs%20in%20education.pdf
The writers are trying to provide an overview of weblogs. The first section presents some definitions and key features of weblogs and the ease of creating and maintaining weblogs. The second section presents the potential using blogs for educational purpose, as well as some issues and concern. Weblogs can be defined as the writers stated, are an online journal with WebPages link to websites; allowing users to navigate round the websites. The weblogs are organized, categorized, updated and arranged in reverse chronological order, with the most recent entry at the top of the blog (Paquet, 2003; Ward, 2004). It’s easy to create and update blogs. After the blogger has created and updated his/ her blog, blogging platform automatically archives posts and replaces them with the latest content on the front page. This is done without the need for any user intervention. The writers summarized the potential of blogs for teaching and learning. They assumed that using blogs is offering students an opportunity to surface their ideas in a social plane. The ability to comment on these ideas enables individuals to participate in social construction of knowledge and meaning making. The blogging also can be used to positively enhance learning and teaching of language and music. The writers (Tan, Teo, Awe & Lim have proved their assumption in an experiment done in Chinese language. In the experiment students were asked to post and exchange ideas and reflection on their readings through their personal blogs; these reflection collectively formed a reading portfolio over time. Findings from the post- project survey indicated that students felt their writing improved as blogs allowed them to view how others wrote. The students encouraged when they saw the positive comments that were given to their posts. In addition they discovered that their proficiencies in Hanyu Pinyin had improved as a result of inputting Chinese characters using it. Also Chong & Soo (2005) examined the pedagogical efficacies of blogs in undergraduate music education. They found out that blogging allowed learning to extend beyond the classroom and students were encouraged to engage in critical reflection. They added, as evident in the students’ posts, blogging also facilitate the exchange of ideas between peers and process of students analyzing their peers’ posts. I think that using blogs in teaching & learning language can be effective if students have clear instructions and guide lines that teach them how to use blogs to post their work. Blogs offer students an opportunity to learn language from other users (native speaker s) of such blogs and the feedbacks from their instructors to improve their language skills. I concluded that blogs can be an acceptable discussion platform for shy students who most likely hesitate to participate in a classroom discussion in front of their classroom mates, consequently help them build up some kind of confidence in themselves.
Akbulut + Kiyici, Y+M (2007). Instructional use of weblogs. Turkish journal of Distance Education, 8, Retrieved 2007, from http://tojde.anadolu.edu.tr/tojde27/pdf/notes_for_editor.pdf
Akbulut and Kiyici are lecturers and PhD Candidates at the department of Computer Education and Instructional Technologies at Anadolu University, Turkey. Akbulut conducts research on ICT integration at tertiary education, language learning through hypermedia, cyber-plagiarism and academic obsolescence. Kiyici conducts research on web-based training, technology literacy, mobile learning technologies and ICT integration. They explained the instructional use of weblogs and agreed that the weblogs 2.0 can provide learners with increased interaction and online collaboration. They added that weblogs have gained an increasing popularity because they allow bloggers to voice their own ideas and opinions which can easily be delivered to large number of readers through the webs. Weblogs can be integrated into teaching process as they encourage learners to participate and freely voice their ideas and opinions. Thus, blogging enables individuals to practice the language and publish their thoughts on webs in a diary format without using programming or HTML knowledge. The lecturers added that weblogs allow users to:
- frequently update their logs
- publish items by time and date of publishing
- Attach to items facility for comments to be added and for postings elsewhere that have linked to that item to be tracked back. Technologies such as weblogs help students find authentic audiences for their work (Richardson, 2006). I think that blogs offer opportunity to learn language in different ways of communication than traditional web pages. They not only transmit the information to audience as traditional web pages do, but also allow that audience to comment on the content. This interaction creates an important online learning situation. The lecturers here mentioned three types of interactions, between learner-content, learner-instructor and learner - learner interaction. This kind of interaction makes learning happens because there is an exchange of knowledge and information between the audiences. Therefore, blogs will be considered sources of interaction on relevant topics and also as modes of online classroom interaction in the current review (Oravec 2002). In the Oravec study (2002) weblogs are considered as unique tools in developing students’ voices. I think that blogs can be used effectively as a method of teaching/ learning language & communication which serve competently in disseminating information and knowledge than traditional hard copy and reduce the cost of copying and printing assignments. Blogs now is aiming to empower reflective learning, communication and motivate students to generate reflective conversation which leads to improvement in learning. The lecturers summed up the effective use of blogs as follows:
- use of group projects, maintaining conversations on complex issues and allotting more time and grade on discussion might lead to increased interaction. Thus, these applications should be arranged with caution for effective applications of blogs in online classrooms.
- Clear criteria & strategies to get students into responding their peers’ comments should be determined so that the conversations do not exceed the boundaries of anticipated interaction.
- Students with insufficient reading/writing skills, analytical skills development or motivation to tackle with challenging tasks should be indentified and supported. I concluded that, Blogging as an online journal offers students an opportunity to interact with many peers, experts, teachers, and experienced educators from whom they can learn and enhance their skills in reading, listening and writing. Because they will continuously get a feedback from teachers and educators about the topics they have already written about. It’s the necessity to empower the use of blogging in education as an integrated tool of teaching and learning language, as well as to provide access of internet nationwide to assure equal opportunity to those who are living in the remote areas. Thereby, we might realize equities in using technologies and support the notion of distance learning for all learners.
Baber, Eric (2001/04/09). Language teaching in the Internet age.
Eltnewslwtter, 73, retrieved 04/09/2009, from http://www.eltnewsletter.com/back/September2001/art732001.htm
what is the internet?
It is necessary to know exactly what the internet is. According to many literatures I have reviewed to prepare this topic; the writer here defines the internet as an infrastructural network of computers which makes possible share of information between different computers in various ways. However, the common misconception is that the internet is the same as the World Wide Web (WWW, web or/ and e-mail). The writer also emphasizes that the internet is exactly an infrastructure which allowed information to be shared, sent or received in various ways; the World Wide Web and e-mail are actual uses of this infrastructure. He added,” in general, the internet offers some applications in teaching and considered advantages. The first one is the possibility for individual search with browsers before class: students gather information on the topic of their choice and come to class to share the results of their search, compare and discuss it with other students. A second application is making internet as a source of information. The third application of internet in language teaching is the use of forums and other chat rooms for communication and exchange across the net. However, the online educational technology is not only internet and there is also the use of email as a tool to develop communication. Indeed the email offers wide range of complementary applications”. We can use email for internal use by connecting teachers and students outside of the classroom and between session of a given course for advice, assignment, tutoring and information. The largest used internet delivery method for teaching language is the World Wide Web. The WWW allows teachers with some web design skills to put up a website containing contents related to language such as texts for language learners to read through, with tasks that they are encouraged to do in order to enhance their reading skills. Teachers who have better experience and good skills in web design can add self- correcting tasks to the website such as multiple choices and gap filling exercises. Teachers can develop pronunciation skills by recording model words, phrases or sentences, put them on the website, and learners can listen in their own time to improve their listening skills. Those teachers may encourage learners to read their own words or sentences and email the recordings to them for correction and evaluation, as well as giving feedback to students. There are many teaching websites with many advantages which are available 24 hours a day, seven days a week, work to offer help for students. I can say, these websites never sleep, unlike a human teacher, this means that any student who needs help with certain language area, can navigate on these websites to find the answer. Other advantage of these websites is free to get information or relatively inexpensive because many of them were made by teachers in their spare time. Teachers could use email to enhance and develop writing skills; they could set up an email discussion group which allows students to easily email all group participants. This way of communication allows teachers to set a group of students, a task that requires them to communicate with each other by email, thereby encouraging productive writing skills and collaborative group work. The teachers can monitor the ongoing email conversation and make necessary corrections. I think that, using email is more motivated than web- based learning as it offers the learners an opportunity to interact with other students and teachers while they are in different remote locations around the world and have different backgrounds and cultures. The course Eduu: 564 is a good example for what I have already mentioned, students use a discussion board to present their ideas and experiences in different topics; the professor gives feedback online in a way that builds up a virtual community among the participants. Online teaching is highly motivated for many reasons, for some students it may be the first contact with multi- cultural students of different language backgrounds which itself considers a reinforcement element of cultural awareness concept. With continuous improvement of internet connectivity round the globe, sending files with videos seems to be very good, thereby allowing teachers to work on all skills with the students in a complete learning environment and offers them time to solve problems and improve their weaknesses when they occur, thus might be valuable to students. Does the internet go further to replace a human- led teaching or does it take a second place in teaching. Of course financial considerations will always play a part, but like CD-ROMs, cassettes, internet-based self access course are likely to be supplements and not a replacement of teacher- led learning. I concluded that in Defense Language Institute (DLI), for example, Middle East School one; teachers basically depend on the internet in teaching and delivering lessons. Teachers must have to use different technological tools in a classroom such as computer, projector, smart board and blackboard because the whole curriculum is located online and classroom computers are connected with one big server. Therefore, internet is an important technological tool in teaching language at DLI, any interruption in networking might result in many classes and assignments of homework to be postponed, until the damage being repaired and thereby, further research on internet proved that the internet has become an integrated technological tool in teaching/ learning languages as we see in the next literature.

Singhal, M (1997). The Internet and Foreign Language Education: Benefits and Challenges. The Internet TESL Journal, 111, Retrieved 04/26/09, from http://iteslj.org/Articles/Singhal-Internet.html
Internet has become an important new technological tool. The influence of the internet has covered all the aspects of the educational, business and economic sectors of our world. Since the internet is wide spread in many fields and domains, without any doubt, it also carries great potential for educational use, especially languages. Although it is most likely available to all people, only recently have educators been realizing the benefits the internet can have in teaching and learning languages. Language teachers have been using the internet in the creative ways; one these ways is email, a specific feature for the internet. Email can encourage students to use computers in realistic authentic situation to develop communication and critical thinking skills. Both teachers and students can easily build a virtual communication and then can benefit from the meaning full interaction and communication email makes possible. Thereby, email can be used to a communicative long- distance with language learners in different school or even other country for the same purpose. In addition to the communication benefit or advantage on the internet, the internet can also be used to retrieve and access information. The World Wide Web is a very big virtual library at one’s finger tips with huge information for language learners. I believe that the language is not only a subject, such as physics or Geography, it is more than that, and it is a world where learner immerses him /herself into another culture and tongue. Therefore, the essential pedagogical principle of language teaching is one that emphasizes the study of language in cultural context. Understanding the culture of the target language enhances understanding the language. To this end the internet is an important resource to both learners and teachers. The internet will allow the language learner to communicate with the native speaker. In this way the internet facilitate the use of the specific language in an authentic setting. Learner can use the internet to gather information from language resources for variety of purposes. For example, learners can access information from countries round the world and obtain cultural, social and historical information from the countries where the target language is spoken. As Mike (1996) describes, “the use of the internet has been also shown to promote higher order thinking skills. A language teacher, for example, may instruct the learners to search for specific information. Searching the Web requires logic skills. Once information has been obtained, the result must be reviewed which requires scanning, discarding and evaluative judgment on part of the learner. Such an effort permits learner to practice reading skills and strategies”. Thus, might allow the learner to practice certain skills such as negotiating, persuading, clarifying meaning, requesting information and engaging in true life, authentic discussion. Finally, using internet can improve computer skills. In the Defense Language Institute (DLI) Middle East School One, integrating technology plays an important role in delivering language lessons to students in classroom, especially in teaching cultural notes, cultural presentation, and teaching vocabulary through activities, using the smart board, computers, projectors and sound media. These devices help teachers to use hypermedia in delivering lessons with some interactive combination of text with pictures, sound and video. The most reliable website for language teaching is (http://gloss.lingnet.org) which provides students with proficiency level from levels 1, 1+, 2, 2+, 3 and 3+ and also skills that are listening, reading, and writing or topic domain. Challenges: The Internet has potential benefits in learning teaching language. However; there are many disadvantages related to the nature of using the internet itself, when lines are busy due to many users, or cut off the power, it may take sometimes to access information. Lack of training and familiarity on part of the teachers can make it difficult to use the internet in language classroom. Letting the learners surfing on the internet might prone them to unsuitable information for their age. Equity and justice issues also may promote difficulties, when trying to use such a technology in the classroom. These disadvantages might discourage both teachers and students to use the internet to teach or learn second or foreign language. I concluded that despite these disadvantages, it should be known that the internet has great potential benefits in education, one of them, for example, our current Courses of technology Eduu: 563, 564 & 566 which is being taken now online. Therefore, the internet is a technology that has significant implications for teachers and students. The teachers of languages should be familiar with the use of the internet. And also they must learn how to transfer files from net sites to their computers, download and upload sound, videos, software….etc. Schools also should allot some money (budget) to train all teachers to become capable to use computer and search on the internet. Such a situation is challenging the educators, and they must rise up to make a decision about how the internet can be successfully integrated into language classroom.
J+ Kiernan+, Patrick +Kazumi + Aizawa (2004). Cell phones in task based learning - Are cell phones useful language learning tools? Cambridge University Press New York, NY, USA, 16, Retrieved 04/30/09, from http://portal.acm.org/citation.cfm?id=1008784

Authors :
Patrick J: Faculty of Engineering, Department of English, Tokyo Denki University, 2-2 Kanda-nishiki-cho, Chiyoda-ku, Tokyo
Kiernan: 101-8457, Japan patrick@cck.dendai.ac.jp
Kazumi: Faculty of Engineering, Department of English, Tokyo Denki University, 2-2 Kanda-nishiki-cho, Chiyoda-ku, Tokyo
Aizawa: 101-8457, Japan aizawa@cck.dendai.ac.jp

The above writers at Japanese Universities are supporting the use of Cell phones in teaching language and there are new initiatives and researches conducted on Cell phones usefulness in teaching and learning language. It can be said that such initiatives are early attempts of investigation to set up steps of how educators and teachers integrate these handheld tools into classroom learning, since it is known that cell phones are wide spread all over many countries among students in different educational cycles. Indeed, Cell phones as handheld devices are now wide spread in many countries including the USA where we teach Language, are now particularly popular among university and college students, even in public schools. Although they can make distraction in the classroom, functions such internet access and email capability have transformed them into useful communication tools. Cell phones have the ability in building virtual community, such a community will be helpful in teaching language, as learners can have an opportunity to talk and discuss in the target language with the native speakers. The research started from placing the following question. Are cell phones potentially useful in language learning? While task-based approaches (Nunan, 1989) adapted to desktop email are now a growing area of research in CALL (Greenfield, 2003; Gonzalez-LIoret, 2003), cell phones have not yet received much attention. The research was done in a classroom aimed at evaluating the use of mobile phones as tools for classroom learning. The experiment was done on students from two Elementary classes and two lower Intermediate, were first surveyed regarding their cell phones use and pre-tested to assess their knowledge of certain target learning structures. The students were divided into three small groups as follows:-Ø Group A, using cell phones text messages. Ø Group B, using computer email. Ø Group C, speaking. The students were paired, trained with warm-up tasks and assigned to more tasks to complete in a classroom and the other at home. The target vocabulary appeared in the initial narrative task. All messages sent while doing the task was saved for analysis. The speaking task pairs were recorded and a few samples were transcribed for comparison. At the end of the experiment, the students took a post test in order to assess their learning gains. The experiment results drew the attention to some of potential benefits of mobile phones as well as highlighting some limitations, but in general, suggested that mobile phones represent a Language learning resource worthy of further investigations. I think that such a study will excite, stimulate and encourage many educators and teachers who concern about the integration of technologies into education, to conduct many researches and studies about the future use of cell phones in teaching and learning language. Also new application software may be needed to overcome the distraction that might happen to the teacher while receiving feedback from students. I suggested that, teachers can set up time for receiving feedback, answering questions and giving instructions for new assignment. Thus might not make any distraction in the classroom as every day new techtools become available, such as podcast & podcasting. The latest development about the usefulness of Cell phones in 2009 about teaching English language in china is quoted from BBC.
BBC “to provide English language teaching in China via mobile telephones BBC Worldwide and BBC World Service have joined forces to provide educational content for an English language teaching service via mobile telephones in China, following a historic contract signed in London today (Friday 14 March). BBC Worldwide and BBC World Service have joined forces to provide educational content for an English language teaching service via mobile telephones in China, following a historic contract signed in London today (Friday 14 March). The contract, between BBC Worldwide and Sina.com, China's largest website, will enable the 200 million mobile telephone users in China to learn English via their mobile telephones. It is the first time that an international educational content supplier has used mobile technology in this way. Users will receive a daily text message on their mobile containing a phrase in English together with the Chinese translation; they can then log onto Sina.com to listen to and read the phrase as part of a longer dialogue, and to read explanations about the language.” See: http://www.bbc.co.uk/pressoffice/bbcworldwide/worldwidestories/pressreleases/2003/03_march/elt_sms.shtml
Kelly, G (2008). Podcasting: Just the Basics. Kappa Delta Pi Record, 44, retrieved 05/03/2009, from http://vnweb.hwwilsonweb.com.libproxy.chapman.edu:2048/hww/results/getResults.jhtml?_DARGS=/hww/results/results_common.jhtml.21
Podcasting can be thought of as an online, audio broadcast that you can listen to on your PC or your MP3 player. Podcasts can be created for any purpose-entertainment, education- and can run from as little as a few seconds in length to an hour or more, although for educational purposes most people agree that it is best to keep them between 5-10 minutes. The word podcasting is derived from two words I-Pod and broadcast. The EDUCAUSE learning initiative 2005 described podcasting as a “software & hardware combination that permits automatic downloading of audio files (most commonly in MP3 format) for listening at the user’s convenience.” Though used overwhelmingly for music, podcasting is a method of publishing both audio and video using the internet (Clyde 2005, 54). When people subscribe to a podcast, files are delivered to their computers whenever new information or “feeds” became available. They can listen to recorded material on their computers; it can be downloaded to mobile devices such as iPod or MP3 Players. How does podcasting work? Software programs, known as podcast aggregators or pod catchers should be downloaded to facilitate listening to a podcast. This software enables subscription to or management of any podcasts. According to the News Week (2005) the most popular software includes iPodder, iTunes & Doppler Radio. These programs are tools used to subscribe what’s known as RSS feeds which supplies downloadable files. RSS stands for Real Simple Syndication. The pod catchers or aggregators retrieve files in the RSS and automatically add these files to each user’s computer or mobile device. How can teachers use podcasts? It is very easy, podcasts can be used for many educational purposes, and it can be used for: - Curriculum augmentation. - Professional Development- Material presentation by both teachers and students- And effective communication with community and parents.
Using podcast as Curriculum
Podcast can supply an almost endless variety of content in audio & video form. The technology gives teachers one more instructional device that can be used to communicate effectively with their students. Such a communication will be very useful to address the needs of the students who prefer audio or visual learning. Podcasts can deliver educational content for listening or viewing on your computer & I pod, freeing learning & teaching from constraints of the classroom and its clock”, Apple education 2007. They can be used to introduce new material, support current lessons or review material covered in class. Using Podcasts for Professional Development Podcasts can offer teachers a convenient professional development. Many teachers are living very busy lives. There is limited time for staying carried an instructional technology skills or essential issue in education. Podcasts can offer teachers the freedom to select what, when & where they learn. If a teacher wants to learn more about effective communication with parents, she/he can subscribe on an educational podcast with parents. The teacher can listen to podcast from his/ her desk directly from the computer, I pod, while driving or any mobile device at home. The content is available anytime anywhere. Technologies now are opening the door to a way of learning that was not available until recently.
Creating podcast Presentation
Another educational use for podcasts is custom information sharing. The technology offers “a unique opportunity to provide on-demand content in an easily accessible and cost effective format” (Eash 006, 16). Teachers can record lectures, lab directions, project overviews & review material and make it all available for students to download to their computers or any portable devices. Students also can prepare their own podcasts to demonstrate their understanding of content, for digital storytelling, to learn to speak effectively and for presentation among many other users. Podcasts enable students to assume a meaningful role in their own learning, one in which they take pride because they feel ownership (Anderson 2005, 42). Podcasts allow students one more way to express themselves using the language they learned.
Communication with Podcasts:
Podcasts offer opportunity to communicate effectively with community & parents. They supply parents with information provided by their child’s district, School or teacher. A weekly report on the on-goings on of schools interviews with teachers and students involved in a project, extracts from debates & concerts and reviews of sports reports can bring parents more effectively into school community " (jelly cast 2006). Podcasts offer an additional way to keep parents informed. Podcasts have great potentials to engage students in learning situation to practice different language skills as well as meeting the needs of diverse learners. The links below give some examples of how to use podcasts in teaching and learning.
I - http://mabryonline.org
II- http://www.howbase.com/video/gBBsmPlgDR8/Java-Programming-Time-lapsed.html
III- www.ahisd.net/campuses/cambridge/radio/radio.htm
IV -http://thejournal.com/articles/17607
V- www.mpsomaha.org/willow/radio
VI- www.apple.com/itunes/store/podcasts.html
VIII- www.podcastingnews.com/details/
I concluded that Podcasts are really changing the way we teach/ learn, and communicate. Podcasts provide one more method to help teachers build better curriculum, provide students with differentiated instruction, increase their knowledge of educational topics through ongoing professional development, and remain in touch with communities and parents. Podcast allow teachers to more effectively assimilate “chunks” of learning over time versus an all-day session “(Pollack 2005, 2). Joining the revolution is easy. Simply download the required software, select a podcast, and sit back. Get ready to join the growing number of educators "casting the net" for changes in teaching and learning. Generally, the recent studies on podcasts have proved the effectiveness of using video in teaching & learning. Since podcasting is combining sound, pictures, Video tape recording, & animations; it’s considered an appropriate device for teaching/learning languages, for example, British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) offers English classes through TV, Radio and currently Cell phones as mentioned above.
Kpanja, Edward (2001). A study o f the effects of video tape recording. British Journal of Educational Technology,
32, Retrieved 05/10/2009, From http://www3.interscience.wiley.com.libproxy.chapman.edu:2048/cgi-bin/fulltext/118969473/PDFSTA RT
The study aimed at, to investigate the effective method in teaching pre-service teachers. The study took place in Nigeria setting. The study conducted on two groups of student- teachers; the first group practiced skills through micro-teaching with the help of video recording device. The second group of teachers practiced skills through micro-teaching without the help of video recording device. Each group of teachers was twenty and the length of the lesson was 10-14 minutes. During the course of micro-teaching only a supervisor was allowed to sit and watch the performance of participating teachers, the supervisor did not interrupt the lesson but recorded the mistakes which were used to instruct and correct the teacher at the end of the lesson. The participating student-teachers were allowed to give critical analysis of the lesson through questionnaire to help the participating teachers to improve their teaching skills by correcting any weak points. The device used for improving the performance of teachers through micro-teaching was the use of video recording to record the lesson delivery. The teacher with the guidance of the supervisor listens to the recorded tape and discusses any grammar, structure , pronunciation and pedagogical mistakes, what was supposed to be added, omitted or done. Method/ sample, the writer said,” every year a large number of student- teachers from various background and different states in the country are admitted into the Department of Curriculum & Educational Technology. These numbers formed the experimental population for the study.” The sample was selected on the following criteria:- The student must offer education as a major course in the university- The student must be studying at least one teaching subject outside the faculty of education - The student must not have gone out his/her final teaching practice. The Study: The Department of Curriculum Studies is well equipped with necessary technologies and micro-teaching is one of the basic compulsory course taken by the students and sessions are conducted mainly in the micro-teaching laboratory where students are assigned to role play the part of pupils and teachers. The role playing activities were accompanied by video recording guided by discussion and analysis by both teachers and lecturers in charge of micro-teaching course. A total of 40 students were used for the sample of two groups. The first group is twenty students carryout micro-teaching without any video recordings where as the second group of twenty students aided with video recordings. The author was trying to control the study to evaluate the final findings but the following variables are beyond the author control: -The difference in temperament of the university students who were selected as teachers or pupils -The difference in the textbooks which students read in the past on micro-teaching -The difference in the socio-economic status of the students. Procedures: The sampled students were not told that they were being used for any experimental study. Students also were taught by the same teacher. I think using video recordings in Nigerian setting where traditional education was dominating, had few effects on improving the teacher’s teaching skills because the use of video recording was more surprising to both teachers and pupils. They concentrated to record the teacher’s weak points, instead of reinforcing the strong points Thus might draw their attention to focusing on the video as a machine than a tool helps to make the lesson more interesting and engaging them to more interaction. Joshi in 1976 was of opinion that micro-teaching is important in training teachers and the integration of video recordings help to improve the learning of basic teaching skills. Critiques: There are huge literatures that supported the effectiveness of using the video recordings to improve teacher’s performance. However; Linman in 1980 indicated that the use of video recordings may have cosmetic effects on entire training scheme that is the students-teacher who is aware of that the lesson is being recorded by video will behave artificially. Dass in 1976 micro-teaching without video recordings would still be as effective as micro teaching which video tape was used. The reason was that many successful teachers have been able to improve their skills over the years in the absence of video equipment. He added,” the video appeared only recently in the educational scene and that a lot of successful practical teaching had been done before the invention of the video.” They concluded that the result of the Study showed that the group which used the video recordings had significant improvement over the group that did not use the video recordings. Currently, video recording is playing an important role in teaching and learning process. It has changed the ways; teachers prepare and deliver their lessons in classrooms. It has become an integral part of the instructional process, especially online distance learning.
Boulware, J (2005). An Online Learning Assignment Integrating Literacy, Science, and Technology. Journal of Reading Education, 31, Retrieved 04/04/2007, from http://vnweb.hwwilsonweb.com.libproxy.chapman.edu:2048/hww/results/results_single.jhtml;
hwwilsonid=DENK051BVQTJHQA3DIMCFF4ADUNGIIV0
The writer was reviewing the challenge faces the undergraduate pre-service teachers in weaving technology assignment into undergraduate literacy and science course without losing content. The pre-service teachers need to creatively incorporate technology in their lesson plan and delivery in their field placements. The writer selected a web quest format to meet this need as the web quest integrates research supported theories and effective use of the internet in a way that increases students achievement. He went further to say that, using this format, teacher preparation faculty will find creative ideas for integrating literacy, science and technology which can be adapted and used by their pre-service teacher in their school placements. The writer described web quest as inquiry oriented activity in which students use communication technologies including the internet to find all information they need, web quest combines authentic learning across subject areas( reading , writing , social studies and science) with internet resources. In the traditional reading approach which consists of teaching vocabulary, a re-reading activity, a during reading activity and a post reading activity, the faculty worked with pre-service student in developing web quests using children’s literature designed to involve and engage primary students in meaningful reading activity with informational science trade books. The writer assured that by developing web quests, using non- fiction trade books, the undergraduate students have online tools to teach their students to make connections across subject areas. Pre-service teachers can use the materials being put on the web quests to enhance literacy teaching and acquire basic science concepts. I think that, using web quests in teaching/ learning is helpful to both students and teachers. Teachers can plan lessons design with tasks, activities, homework and assignment embedded with specific instructions on each page, additional links for student’s assignment and more online resources. Web quest also helps students work individually or in groups to present their assignments using one of the technological tools, such as power point to enhance speaking skills, Publisher, Windows movie maker or blogs to enhance reading, listening and writing skills. In a real life experience at defense Language Institute (DLI), I used web quest to teach grammar and structures and give my students some assignments, using web quest to search online about Arabic common terminologies. And present their finding in a ten- minute presentation, using power point. The purpose for this web quest is to: - Teach our students how to search online to get information- Talk about the topic in the target language - Enhance language skills. I conclude that using web quest as an educational technological tool for teaching/ learning is a helpful tool, especially in teaching language. It offers students an opportunity to integrate all the language skills in one project assignment, consequently helps students to go towards language proficiency. As the topic is giving an overview of the effects of using technologies in teaching language; it’s necessary to review and evaluate the best websites for instructional use to know which criteria are considered educational use and appropriate to bring it into a classroom lesson as many websites found on Internet can be of low educational value and shouldn't be used in a classroom setting.
Beatty + Ulasewicz, Brian+ Connie (July/August 2006).Online Teaching and Learning in Transition: Faculty Perspectives on Moving from Blackboard to the Noodle Learning Management. TechTrends, 50, 36-45. http://vnweb.hwwilsonweb.com.libproxy.chapman.edu:2048/hww/results/external_link_maincontentframe.jhtml;hwwilsonid=FZ2XH42XCQUG3QA3DILCFGOADUNGIIV
The two writers are assistant professors: Brian Beatty and Connie Ulasewicz, at San Francisco State University started their discussions with the definition of the Moodle and Black board. Moodle is a course management system (CMS) - a free, Open Source software package designed using sound pedagogical principles, to help educators create effective online learning communities. "The Blackboard Learning System (LMS) is a world-class software application for institutions dedicated to teaching and learning. Intuitive and easy-to-use, this product has powerful capabilities in three key areas: Instruction, communication and Assessment. Connie and Brian were discussing the importance of using Black board and Moodle. Connie as an educator in the discipline of apparel design and merchandising, teaches students who are visual learners, who must communicate via words, drawings, colors and fabrications. His pedagogical style is to create an environment where open and active participation in discussions and projects leads to self-discovery and learning. His desire in using an online tool was to further facilitate interaction and create a venue for the one hundred students in his Social Psychology of Clothing class to connect and continue to dialog outside of the classroom. Connie’s experience with other online tools such as Blackboard for online discussions is limited Connie participated in two Blackboard seminars but found the tool was not intuitive, interactive or creative enough to grab his attention. A one-week Moodle workshop inspired him. What initially attracted him to Moodle was the visual presentation of the screen with the three columns of information that could easily be manipulated and updated throughout a semester. Brian has been teaching and using online tools to support face to face instruction since 1990. The growing availability and ease of use of online collaborative tools was a major influence in his career progression from high school science and math teacher to professor of instructional design and technology. At SFSU, he taught graduate courses in instructional design, project management, distance education and e-learning development and he mentored students working on culminating instructional projects in a Masters Degree program. Brian reported comment on Connie. It is interesting that Connie decided to avoid using Blackboard for asynchronous class discussions and collecting assignments, since Blackboard and Moodle provide similar forum tools (with group features) and both provide a way to collect students’ assignments. Interface matters. My input will be focusing only on the effects of using the black board in teaching / learning language at the Defense Institute language. The Black board is widely used web-based content management system. It’s used by millions of teachers and students everyday round the world. Blackboard can make a course available on world web, giving a framework for online teaching / learning community. It also can be used as daily classroom lessons. Black board can be used as a bank of course documents, announcements, syllabi, web links, assignments, assessment and instructions about the syllabi and assignments requirements (organized into content areas). Defense language Institute (DLI) has recently introduced this important technological tool for lessons delivery. It has become an essential tool for teaching different language syllabi, assignments, test, grade book to track students’ learning progress, and communication between teachers and students. It has un-limit storage capacity. The black board also offers an opportunity for teachers to set up an action for diverse learning styles to meet the needs of all learners, prepare assignment for each student according to his/ her needs. It considers a follow-up tool to track when students log in, to work on their assignments whereas teachers have an access to display the dates; the assignments will be available and disappear after that date. Finally, the blackboard includes a discussion board for asynchronous class communication through which students/teachers can share information and discuss class issues.
Section: 3: Students’ Engagement and Digital Divide:
Let’s break the ice and say, when any school or college decides to implement education technology into curriculum, the main goal should be to create a plan and policy for all learners to be engaged & have equitable access and use of such a technology. Technology has become an important tool in teaching and learning process. Technology makes teaching and learning fun and more exciting. It also makes the learners more involved and engaged in lesson activities. It can be said that technology is living within the people as parents at homes recognize the importance of technology. Educators are more enthusiastic in integrating technologies into education. Employers seek workers who have skills in communication, problem solving and production. Therefore, the policy makers, educators, teacher and administrators should be aware of critical need for wider technology access to help make learning and teaching environment more convenient and interesting for both teachers and diverse students. Since the technology has become an integral part in learning process, it must be equally provided for all learners, though making this to happen needs big budget allotment, as buying one computer or software might need many hundreds of dollars. Learners should have equal opportunities, for example, access to internet and use the other educational technologies. None existing of such equities might result in the information gap amongst students. Technology integrated into curriculum can help remove the inequities between inner-city schools and suburbs, rich and poor area schools, thus it becomes a means that equalizes the educational opportunities for all learners regardless of their ethnicity or socio-economic status. Thereby, digital equity will become a way to identify and eliminate all kind of inequities and injustices that negatively impact our schools and society. The main target of digital equity is an instructor and student for their important roles in learning process. Digital equity allows those who have access to the internet more opportunities to be engaged in social and civic issues. On the other hand, non- existing of access to technological resources due to factors such as cost , poverty, living in remote area and infrastructure hinder the people ability to participate in a social institutions (Moss, 2002).. In America, democracy is threatened when certain groups cannot participate in online voting or express their preferences (Wilhelm and Thierer, 2000). Also in communication between Department of education/school districts and remote area schools to announce or convey an urgent message needed a quick response to take an action on an important issue. Social impact is very exciting topic, believe or not only 6% of the world population is online, most of them in North America and Europe. Where are the big continents in this equation Asia & Africa? It’s considered a digital inequity across the globe.
Section: 4: Professional Development:
Both instructors and students should get the required training that enables them to use and apply school technologies, as well as a well designed electronic classroom that equipped with reliable set of teaching tools. Let’s start saying, the power of technology as a learning tool/aid will not be effective unless educators have the training and sufficient skills to use computers and the Internet to improve students' achievement. I have come over many recent studies underscore the need for developing educators’ skills and knowledge in using technology to support higher- order thinking and problem- solving skills. The educators should be more comfortable and effective with technology to use it at all, at the same times; educators who are competent with technology are more likely to use it effectively. Thus, will occur when all schools provide educators with reasonable opportunities for training to become capable in using technology in classroom to improve instruction and help students to develop higher-order thinking and problem solving skills. Educators must be trained and have time to practice what they have learned through teaching- based technology. I think it's not sufficient to learn technology rather than how to use and teach others what had been learned, and be capable to integrate it in the classroom, give students opportunity to engage and involve in a thoughtful discussion while they are doing their activities. Now as technology continues to evolve and students become savvier, the computer is an even more powerful and effective learning tool that enhances collaboration and communication in the classroom. Educators should take the advantage of this tool and start using it in classroom to enhance students' achievement during the lesson. Therefore, technology is changing the way students learn, get knowledge, interact with peers and acquire information. A classroom integrated with technology is an environment where students and educators collaborate, interact and communicate. However, teaching strategies that engage and involve students were effective in accomplishing technology integration, such as using technology as an instructional tool applicable to classroom setting, educators facilitation and management of learning environment in the classroom, for example, Internet technology as a tool for instruction , like discussion board and chat rooms allow students an equal environment in which to participate in class discussion, and also extend learning outside the classroom, this tool is a free resource of knowledge that many educators are using to communicate with students to discuss syllabus topics for their classes. According to what have been reviewed on line, most writers are putting great emphasis on technology integration in the classroom along with the standards laid down by The National Council for Accreditation of Teacher Education and The International Society for Technology in Education (NCATE and ISTE), I disagree with above statement that educators are not using technology to create classroom strategies. Educators are trying their best to integrate different technological tools to enhance students' achievement in the classroom, such technologies have already mentioned in the previous pages, knowing that old graduate educators need more development in using technologies than the new graduates. Since the Government (Educational Departments) are spending lot of money to supply schools with necessary technologies to improve students' skills to meet the ISTE standards and to overcome the challenges of 21st century.
Conclusion:
As stated previously, Technologies have become an integral part of today’s teaching and learning process. Regardless of the growing expectation of integrating technology in education, many barriers however, have been indentified by the literature hindering teachers from teaching with technology. These barriers can be limited availability of equipment, Lack of training, lack of funds and lack of time for teachers to familiarize themselves with the use of equipment and software and lack of technical support. There are few teachers used computer-based technologies for instructional purpose, especially in the low level task such as drills and word processing are the major contribution of technology in the classroom. There are many software packages and web-based applications that successfully bring interactive multimedia technology to learning environment, such as Microsoft PowerPoint, Photoshop, Hyper studio. Common web-based programs include HTML, Microsoft FrontPage. Choosing the right software to meet the educational needs is a key element in integrating any technologies into classroom. Picciano (2002) states six factors to be considered when selecting software. These six factors include: * Efficiency: How well are the programs written? * Ease of use: How easy is the software to use? * Documentation: What are the quality and the quantity of the documentation * Hardware requirements: What hardware is needed to run the software? * Vendor: What is the reputation of the developer in terms of support, maintenance and industry position? * Cost: How much does it cost? The most essential software to meet all the students’ learning styles when integrating technology into classroom is PowerPoint. As the need of third graders are different than the needs of eleventh graders. In third grade setting, PowerPoint could be used to help students indentify bugs for an insect collection, or create stories to enhance their literacy. The eleventh graders could use PowerPoint for cultural presentation. The ability to integrate sound and video into PowerPoint slides offers opportunity to teach language and culture to help students overcome the boundaries. Using PowerPoint could help students learn other languages by using pictures and their own language translated from native teacher or from translation sites on worldwide Web. In addition, PowerPoint can insert complex computer graphics, animations and video clips, can be printed in any format that the presenters wish to use and have hyperlinks for certain website. PowerPoint offers opportunity to meet the needs of students with different learning styles. Therefore, there are different classifications of learners. They include the print, aural, interactive, visual, haptic and kinesthetic learner (Dunn& Dunn 1999). According to Dunn & Dunn classification PowerPoint offers a way for teachers to individually address the needs of individual learner in the classification. For example, the print learner prefers to read books and reads for understanding, with PowerPoint direction can be written to help those learners to enhance reading skill. PowerPoint also offers a way to meet the needs of aural learner; the teacher can insert sound from the clip gallery, compact disc or record his own voice, giving students the guidance for the required activities. Interactive learner is well served by PowerPoint as teacher can prepare activities that required manipulation or games that interact with the learner to focus on students and on exact needs. The haptic learner enjoys doodling, is hands on, likes to create and manipulate, PowerPoint can help such a learner to create objects with drawing tools or create his own stories complete with pictures and animations. Kinesthetic learners are the most difficult for teacher to address and are most often those students indentified as having problem of attention. PowerPoint can combine sound, music, voice and picture to captivate learners’ attention and give a learner the sense of control over the learning process that makes it more interesting. PowerPoint also offers a way for students with disabilities to make the material presentable to their needs. A student with low vision could have graphics and text enlarged for more clear visibility. Therefore, the purpose of technologies is to help educators make their materials more interactive and more effective. Interactive multimedia software packages such as PowerPoint can allow teachers to gather the attention of their students and make them more engaged in the lesson activities.
Resources:
http://www.education-world.com/a_tech/tech/tech234.shtml
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Democracy and Education, 1966
Experience and Education, 1963
Experience and Nature, 1958
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Ø http://www.edublog.net/files/papers/weblogs%20in%20education.pdf
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Singhal, M (1997). The Internet and Foreign Language Education: Benefits and Challenges. The Internet TESL Journal, 111, Retrieved 04/26/09, from http://iteslj.org/Articles/Singhal-Internet.html
www.insidehighered.com/news
www.maninstruct.edu
J+ Kiernan+, Patrick +Kazumi + Aizawa (2004). Cell phones in task based learning - Are cell phones useful language learning tools? Cambridge University Press New York, NY, USA, 16, Retrieved 04/30/09, from http://portal.acm.org/citation.cfm?id=1008784
Huann +John+ Yuen, T+O+J (2005). Weblogs in Education. Blog Talk Doununder 2005 conference, Sydney, 0, Retrieved 07/2005, from http://www.edublog.net/files/papers/weblogs%20in%20education.pdf
Ø http://www.edublog.net/files/papers/weblogs%20in%20education.pdf
Ø http://chapman-online.org/ec/crs/default.learn?CourseID=3353566&CPURL=chapman-online.org&Survey=1&47=5689605&ClientNodeID=835325&coursenav=0&bhcp=1
Akbulut + Kiyicic, Y+M (2007). Instructional use of weblogs. Turkish journal of Distance Education, 8, Retrieved 2007, from http://tojde.anadolu.edu.tr/tojde27/pdf/notes_for_editor.pdf
v http://tojde.anadolu.edu.tr/tojde27/pdf/notes_for_editor.pdf
v http://chapman-online.org/ec/crs/default.learn?CourseID=3353566&CPURL=chapman-online.org&Survey=1&47=5689605&ClientNodeID=835325&coursenav=0&bhcp=1
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32, Retrieved 05/10/2009, from
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Http://www.funschool.com
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Http://www.usask.ca/education/coursework
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wire Http:// www.web54.sd54.k12
Yu+Smith, C+M (2008). PowerPoint: Is it an answer to interactive classrooms. International Journal of instructional media, 35, Retrieved 04/121/09, from http://vnweb.hwwilsonweb.com.libproxy.chapman.edu:2048/hww/results/getResults.jhtml?_DARGS=/hww/results/results_common.jhtml.21
http://www.education-world.com/a_tech/tech/tech234.shtml
Gorski, Paul (1999). Towards a multicultural approach for evaluating educational websites. Multicultural Perspectives, 19, Retrieved 04/12/09, from http://www.edchange.org/multicultural/net/comps/eval.html
http://vnweb.hwwilsonweb.com.libproxy.chapman.edu:2048/hww/results/external_link_maincontentframe.jhtml;hwwilsonid=FZ2XH42XCQUG3QA3DILCFGOADUNGIIVhttp://www.techlearning.com/article/13966

Friday, November 13, 2009

Sunday, October 18, 2009

Curriculum Design


allowfullscreen="true" width="425"

Where Are You From?

Iam from Fulani.
The origins
The history of the Fulani seems to begin with the Berber people of North Africa around the 8th or 11th century AD. As the Berbers migrated down from North Africa and mixed with the peoples in the Senegal region of West Africa the Fulani people came into existence. Over a thousand year period from AD 900 - 1900, they spread out over most of West Africa and even into some areas of Central Africa. Some groups of Fulani have been found as far as the western borders of Ethiopia. As they migrated eastward they came into contact with different African tribes. As they encountered these other peoples, they conquered the less powerful tribes. Along the way many Fulani completely or partially abandoned their traditional nomadic life in favor of a sedentary existence in towns or on farms among the conquered peoples. The nomadic Fulani continued eastward in search of the best grazing land for their cattle. Their lives revolved around and were dedicated to their herds. The more cattle a man owned, the more respect he was given. Today, some estimate as many as 18 million Fulani people stretch across the countries of West Africa. They remain to be the largest group of nomadic people in the world.

The Religion
Fulani were one of the first African tribes to convert to Islam and are today more than 99% Muslim. The devoutly Muslim Fulani have seen themselves as the propagators and preservers of the Islamic faith in West Africa from as early as the fourteenth century. Historically it was a Fulani chief named Usuman dan Fodio, along with nomadic Fulani herdsmen who were instrumental in facilitating the spread of Islam across West Africa through evangelism and conquest. At times they would wage "holy wars" or jihad in order to extend and purify Islam. As the Fulani migrated eastward they spread their Islamic beliefs. As they became more powerful and attained more wealth they began to be more aggressive with their religion. Their adoption of Islam increased their feeling of cultural and religious superiority to surrounding peoples, and that adoption became a major ethnic boundary marker. Some settled in towns and quickly became noted as outstanding Islamic clerics, joining the highest ranking Berbers and Arabs.
Today it is difficult to find any Fulani who admits to not being Muslim, no matter how lax his or her practice may be. To a Fulani person: to be Fulani is to be a Muslim. Although they adhere very strongly to the tenants of Islam, it has been surprising to find a high level of belief that certain people possess supernatural powers. Like other West Africans, Fulani will frequent local religious practitioners who have established reputations for their curative powers. Many such practitioners - witch doctors and medicine men - are also Muslim religious leaders.
It is common to hear a Fulani tell stories of those who have the power to move themselves from one place to another supernaturally or perhaps to do harm to another person through some sort of supernatural power or curse.
Appearance
The Fulani are usually very easy to recognize. They are taller, slimmer and lighter skinned that many of their African neighbors. Often times they are referred to as "white" by other Africans. Fulani men are often seen wearing a solid color of shirt and pants, a long cloth wrapped around their faces, carrying their walking sticks across their shoulders with their arms resting on top of it. Often the men have markings on either side of their faces and/or on their foreheads. They received these markings as children.
The Fulani women are very graceful. They are seen carrying their milk products stacked in tiers on their heads in calabash bowls. Their clothes often have a background color of yellow and/or red. Their hair is long and is braided into 5 long braids that either hang from their heads or sometimes are looped on the sides. It is common for the women and girls to have coins attached to their braids. Some of these coins are very old and have been passed down in the family. The women enjoy wearing many bracelets on their wrists. Like the men, the women have markings on their faces around their eyes and mouths that they were given as children.

Monday, October 12, 2009

Overview on Instructional Design: Eduu: 566

Unit One: Part One: Instructional Design and Technology
The Text Book uses different definitions for Instructional Design and technology over times, just like an overview of historical developments of instructional technology. The early definition during 1920s was focused on media used to present that Instruction as the result of advances in such media as sound recording, radio broadcasting, and motion pictures with sound, the focus of the field shifted from visual instruction to audiovisual instruction. This shift was clearly seen in 1960s -1970s and most likely the definition focused on the design and the use of message which control the learning process, including planning, production, utilization and management. It’s a systemic way of designing, carrying out and evaluating the whole process of learning and teaching. During the 1990s- 1994s the definition of instructional technology is defined as the theory and practice of design, development, utilization, management and evaluation of process and resources for learner. The latest definition provided by this book (Trends and Issues in Instructional Design and Technology) is the study and ethical practice of facilitating learning and improving performance by creating, using and managing appropriate technological process and resources. The use of such long definition is to cover all the aspects of technology in learning and teaching as follows: The field of instructional design and technology encompasses the analysis of learning and performance problems, and the design, development, implementation, evaluation, and management of instructional and no instructional process and resources intended to improve learning and performance in a variety of settings, particularly educational institution and the workplace. The professionals in the field of instructional design and technology often use systematic instructional design procedures and employ instructional media to accomplish their goals. The instructional Design .org definition is: the process by which instruction is improved through the analysis of learning needs and systematic development of learning materials. Instructional designers often use technology to enhance instruction. ADDIE model uses these steps;
• Analyze
• Design
• Development of materials
• Implementation( delivery)
• Evaluation( many tools used)
1. Backward design is a great shift in instructional process as it starts to design the assessment before teaching a unit. Thus will lead both teachers and students to a clear destination for the unit, consequently the teachers will be able to create the best road map to get there and what learning materials should be taught and how they must be taught and how the teacher knows students’ understanding. The two definitions used the same steps. However; the backward design changes the order of these steps by starting with the evaluation. Teachers can use any model to achieve the setting goals. Both models are applicable at defense language institute as the students have to take formative tests during the unit and at the end of each Unit as well as the end of the course of 63 weeks Defense Language Proficiency Test (DLPT) DLPT5. DLI Classrooms are well equipped with the multimedia to help teachers prepare their lessons to engage students in different activities, simultaneously meet the individual needs of students. I will be very flexible to conduct an interim evaluation through the course for any adjustment according to the student’s survey feedback, teaching/ learning situation requirements, and formative tests. The problems need to be tackled are some students came to study Arabic language according to the Defense Language Aptitude Battery results (DLAB), not by their choices. Teachers need to work very hard to change this attitude and encourage such students to like the language and help them towards achieving proficiency. Finally, I need my students to master the Arabic Language and get the highest scores in listening; Reading and speaking that qualify them to succeed in DLPT5 Tests. Watch ADDIE MODEL Video:

http://oahmed56-teaching-learning.blogspot.com/
Part: II: Instructional Design
it’s not an easy task to design an online material for instructional purposes. A designer needs to have specific knowledge and skills about the subject matter. However; I am starting to design an online course in History and I have no such a skill or knowledge. Learning thinkers, especially, Behaviorists, like Skinner and Thorndike were using rats and cats in teaching these animals to get food in boxes. In either cases learning happened by trial and error. I will be designing an online course in History of Fulani and Culture for grade 12 High schools. The course aims to realize the following goals &objectives:
Goals:
By the end students will be able to:
* Demonstrate awareness and adherence to Fulani history and culture
* Prepare themselves to address future issues & cultural diversity
Objectives
Students will be able to:
* Understand historical events
* Derive lessons from the study of history
* Demonstrate an understanding of various cultures in the world through knowledge gained about their countries and other countries.
* compare
Also answering the following Essential Questions:-
* what is the essence of the history?
* What are the purposes of studying history?
* To what extent does the history reflect the development of society?
I will be following the California standards for History as well as, the steps of ADDIE models and Backward Design stages. Backward design is a great shift in instructional process as it starts to design the assessment before teaching a unit. Thus will help me to go towards a clear destination for the unit, consequently, I will be able to create the best road map to get there, choose learning materials that I should teach how I should be teaching such materials, and how I know my students’ understanding. I will start to create assessing tools such as rubrics, quizzes, outdoor activities (field trips), formative and summative tests to measure observable outcomes. To this extent, I will be able to determine and prioritize what my students need to know and do and how. The course will be very flexible to allow integrating different technological tools to enhance students learning and engage them in challenging learning situation that instigates them to rethink, explore, explain, apply, share and evaluate knowledge. Students also will be able to evaluate themselves by doing projects, participating in PowerPoint presentation and involve in daily activities. They will collaboratively be assigned to work in small groups, individual and large group’s basis in an attempt to meet their individual needs, furthermore, students will be individually motivated for extra credits to extra assignments. Thus, might help me to follow up their academic progress during the course for feedback and adjustment of the plan and instructional process according to their needs. Details follow in the Unit plan.

Unit Tw: Part one: What do you want your students to learn?
Addressing this topic is not an easy task. However; simply, teachers want students to learn everything in the course. As my course is addressing history and culture of Fulani people, generally, I want my students to demonstrate some knowledge about how historical and cultural elements impacting education. Current educational research encourages teachers to get to know each of their students in order to enhance their classroom performance, motivation, and desire to learn. Most teachers create activities and implement strategies that they hope will engage students in the content and promote a lifelong love of learning. I understand the importance of knowing and caring about each student and his or her learning needs. Also, I understand that all students learn differently, and that my course will address the diverse learning styles in the classroom.Within my course of three units that I am designing and covering, what are the most accurate time and way to discover our students’ learning styles? I can use my own assessing tools (formative & summative) to assess my students and get to know their learning styles, such as tests, project assignments, personal interviews, surveys, questionnaires or even quizzes or I can use the pre-made assessing tools, like Kaleidoscope profile, if the course is for high school students as Kaleidoscope has two versions of assessment, One is covering grades 3-6 and the other one is covering grades 7-12. The Kaleidoscope Profile is an all-inclusive assessment of learning styles, revealing each student’s sensory preferences, perceptual styles, organizational styles, and temperament. It’s another opportunity for teacher to get to know his/her students better and for them to get to know one another on a deeper level.Discovering student learning styles benefits you as a teacher, as well as your students. Meanwhile, knowing my students learning styles helps me:-
• Create an environment that supports how they learn.
• Understand how learning can be fun.
• Discover how they learn best.
Every teacher has different ways to help motivate lower level- students to improve for example, teacher’s expectation is playing an important role to make students interact effectively with course and classroom activities, giving frequent, early, positive feedback that supports students' beliefs that they can do well, assigning tasks that are neither too easy nor too difficult, helping students find personal meaning and value in the material, creating an atmosphere that is open and positive, helping students feel that they are valued members of a learning community.
Since my course allows integrating technology while addressing different historical and cultural topics into teaching process, it makes the lessons more interesting, engaging and motivating to students simultaneously helps students to reach higher levels of thinking in synthesizing, analyzing and evaluating sensitive historical and cultural issues. Research has also shown that good everyday teaching practices can do more to counter student apathy and weakness than special efforts to attack motivation directly (Ericksen, 1978).Most students respond positively to a well-organized course taught by an enthusiastic teacher who has a genuine interest in students and what they learn. Thus activities you undertake to promote learning will also enhance students' motivation.Bloom taxonomy is like Ibrahim Maslow’s Hierarchy of needs. A learner can not go up the hierarchy, unless all the biological needs are being met. So Bloom’s Taxonomy is starting from knowledge and ending by evaluation to know the learning objectives have been realized. Also I can use the assessing tools that I have already set to know my students’ outcomes.
Part Two: Robert Gagne’s theory of instruction has provided a great number of valuable ideas to instructional design, trainers and teachers. I will be integrating some technological tools to gain my students’ attention, such as PowerPoint slides, video and still pictures. My online course is on History and culture consists of three units. The learning objectives will be listed under each unit and by the end the students will be able to:
• Demonstrate an understanding of various cultures & historical events in the world through knowledge gained about their countries.
• An understanding of current historical events and cultural issues impacting education.
• Describe at least two major social/cultural problems of 21st century Sudan.
Material will be chunked into sections in two text books required for reading and assignments in addition to other two recommended books for further reading on specific topics as guidance for assignment. Learning will be facilitated by giving students some cues related to their own history & cultures to help them compare or discuss historical and cultural issues. Students will be easily tapped into prior knowledge by talking about their own historical and cultural elements and features to lead them to explore new knowledge. Thus, also motivates students to participate in different activities to improve their achievement. Students will be working in groups in the classroom and at homes as well as individual assignments to be accomplished by the end of the course. Students will gain skills that help them to deal, analyze and evaluate historical and cultural issues to settle conflicts that might occur in their communities. Different assessing tools such as formative assessment for ongoing activities and summative assessment for final course exam with quick feedback will be used to check and evaluate students’ performance and competency, as well as rubric will be used on the final course project as an extra work for extra credits, based on five criteria:- content, organization, relevance, creativity and presentation.

Unit Three:Part One: Constructivism Vs Behaviorism
Constructivism's central idea is that human learning is constructed, that learners build new knowledge upon the foundation of previous learning. This view of learning sharply contrasts with Objectivism which learning is the passive transmission of information from one individual to another, a view in which reception, not construction, is key .The Constructivism based on two notions. The first is that learners construct new understandings using what they already know (past experience). The second notion is that learning is active rather than passive. Learners confront their understanding in light of what they encounter in the new learning situation. I like what Dr. Maria Montessori said “The teacher's task is not to talk, but to prepare and arrange a series of motives for cultural activity in a special environment made for the child. “ The strength of this theory is that Social constructivist scholars view learning as an active process where learners should learn to discover principles, concepts and facts for themselves and encourage guesswork and intuitive thinking in learners. It concentrated on students as proconsumers of knowledge, and teacher’s role is a facilitator. I believe that this theory can be effectively used with computer to assign students to create and design activities according to their preferences and make reflection on different topics as well as sharing information. On the other hand, Behaviorism defined learning as the relatively permanent change in behavior brought about as a result of experience or practice. The focus of the behavioral approach is on how the environment impacts overt behavior. The weakness is using reinforcements to change the behavior is not effective all the time. Understanding human behavior through observation is not sufficient to explain human’s intended action. Behaviorism can be used to teach to students to learn new computer skills and do assignment through game- activities as a tool to change overt behavior. I think that according to textbook page 58, the difference between the constructivist and constructional design is, for example, constructivists learning environment create a place where learners may work together and support each other. (Case studies) and constructional design involves four learning-by-design principles (Papert 1980): individuals are active learners and control their own learning process, creative and reflective learners and focus on solving practical problems.
Part Two: Collaborative learning
I do like Piaget’s Theory of Collaborative learning. The collaborative learning offers learners opportunities to cooperatively learn, share information, & work on assignments/ projects in groups, thus enhances the interactions among the group members to build a cooperative learning community. Every one as an inherent part of learning community is assigned to complete his/ her work. Piaget pointed out” collaborative learning has a major role in constructive cognitive development. His theory is consistent with the other popular learning theories Vygotsky 1978, Fox, & Karen; Thomas & Funaro 1990 all are emphasizing on the importance of collaboration. Piaget felt that interaction between peers is equally shared. This contrasts adult-child or a teacher-student interaction, where usually the former is in control and the latter characteristically follows what the former professes, thus not following his/her own natural learning process.” The theory will support me to enhance the notion of student- centered. Students will work collaboratively to explore knowledge, share information to complete their assignment. Collaborative learning will help me to build an online virtual community to organize flexible environment for my students to learn, consequently promotes accessibility to online distance learning. Accordingly, my course can cover a large number of students in remote areas. Since Collaborative learning is about groups of students, and groups of students and teachers, constructing knowledge together, working through problems solving together, what I want specifically, my students to learn is the skills of collaborative learning, cooperation, teamwork, communication, facilitation, joint problem solving. Therefore, Collaborative learning is supporting online distance learning and covering large number of students in remote areas, consequently helps also close the digital divide and inequities in educational opportunities.

Unit Four:Part One: R. Gagne versus David Merrill
Robert Gagne’s theory of instruction has provided a great number of valuable ideas to instructional design, trainers and teachers. Gagne believes that effective instruction should reach beyond traditional learning theories. He supports cumulative teaching that transitions from simple to complex skills. Gagne's nine steps of instruction are a series of steps to guide the instructor or instructional designer. According to the theory, using this series should help to insure that the learner understands the desired objective. Gagne suggests that learning tasks for intellectual skills can be organized in hierarchy according to complexity: stimulus recognition, response generation, procedure following rule application and problem- solving. The theory outlines nine instructional events and corresponding cognitive processes:
1. Gain Attention: Evokes the learners' interest in the subject. For example, show students a map of a country to talk about it.
2. Inform Learner of Objective: Let the learners know what they will be learning. For example, today we will learn some traditions of this country.
3. Recall Prior Knowledge: Get the learners to think about what they already know. For example, has anyone know something about this country?
4. Present Material: Teach the topic: such as teaching language through culture. For example, show student how the diverse culture affects this country.
5. Provide Guided Learning: Help the learners follow along as the topic is presented. For example, show pictures about traditional events.
6- Elicit Performance Ask learners to do what they have been taught. For example, give students some cultural elements to compare with theirs
7- Provide Feedback: Inform learners of their performance. For example, check students’ performance for help.
8- Assess Performance: Evaluate learners on their knowledge of the topic. For example, evaluate the students’ writing on the topic
9- Enhance Retention and Transfer: Aid learners in remembering and applying the new skill. For example, give students assignment/ home work to talk about their culture based on what they learned in the previous lessons. For more information watch this video:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i_8MB9F2cts
10- Merrill’s First Principles:-
Merrill defines the first principle of instruction as a prescriptive design principle on which various instructional design theories and models are in essential agreement.Merrill's first and central principle of instruction is a task-centered learning. Task centered learning is not problem –based learning but it share some features. Task- centered principle which learning is promoted when learners are engaged in a task- centered instructional strategy involving a progression of whole real- world tasks. Concisely the whole instructional process is based on four principles:-
• Activation Principle: learning in promoted and encouraged when learners activate relevant cognitive structures by being directed to demonstrate relevant previous experience.
• Demonstration Principle: learning also is promoted when learners observe a demonstration of the skills to be learned that is consistent with topic being taught, also demonstration will enhance when learners are guided relate general to specific instances or observe media that is relevant to the topic.
• Application Principle: learning is promoted when learners engage in application of the new knowledge they learned with the quick feedback from the teacher.
• Integration principle: learning is promoted when learners integrate their new knowledge into their everyday life and application also enhances when learners create, invent or explore personal ways to use their new knowledge and skills. Both theories has emphasize on student centered by starting to give students some tasks that related to their previous knowledge as a recall to prior experience. Students connect their prior knowledge with current learning situation to explore new knowledge. Instructor engages his students into a task to learn new skills. For example, aids learners in remembering and applying the new skills (talk about diversity in school). I think the theories are related to together as Merrill summarized the Gagne’s nine steps in to four principles both started to warm up the learners using his previous knowledge and experiences with clear learning objectives. I can use both theories to help my students learn about the diverse culture within their school and through this diversity unity can be made happen. Students can prepare topics on culture. And participate in groups to search online for more I formation. Students will organize their online findings for presentation. Thus, will enhance students’ cultural awareness and respect to each other culture. Meanwhile they can be able to apply these skills to organize cultural events in their communities.
References:-
http://cito.byuh.edu/merrill/text/papers/ReigeluthCarrFirstPrinciples.pdf
http://www.e-learningguru.com/articles/art3_3.htm
http://www.my-ecoach.com/idtimeline/theory/gagne.html
http://www.ibstpi.org/Products/pdf/appendix_A-C.pdf
Part II: what motivates learners?
As an instructional designer it’s vey important to understand motivation and get to know what motivates learners. I think that many characteristics has been mentioned by David Gershaw in his article that contribute in motivating learners, such as teacher’s enthusiasm, relevance of the topics being taught, teacher’s organization of the course, level of the material /topics, active engagement of learners, using different teaching methods and the use of suitable examples, simultaneously, opposite of these characteristics is considered de-motivators to learners. Click the link below. According to John Keller ARCS- Motivation Theory there are four major categories of Motivation strategies: Attention, Relevance, confidence and Satisfaction. Keller’s model seems like Gagne’s nine event and Merrill’s First Principles, all starts to pique the learner’s attention. This is an essential point of instructional process. The teacher should have to bring and put his learners in a learning situation stimulates all students to focus on the teaching topic. In an online course teacher can use different technological tools to motivate students such as displaying the topic in PowerPoint/ Camtasia slides or Windows Movie Maker. Meanwhile meets different learner’s styles. Thus, might help teacher engage all students in different activities and become effective members in their communities.
http://virgil.azwestern.edu/~dag/lol/LearnMotivate.html
Unit Five:Partne: Why assessment?
Assessment is an integral part of instruction, as it determines whether or not the goals of education are being met. Assessment affects decisions about grades, placement, advancement, instructional needs, curriculum, and, in some cases, funding. Assessment inspires us to ask these hard questions:
• Are we teaching what we think we are teaching?
• Are students learning what they are supposed to be learning?
• Is there a way to teach the subject better, thereby promoting better learning?
Assessment is used for different purposes. It should be tailored to a specific purpose and should be reliable, valid, and fair for that purpose. Assessments designed for one purpose are not necessarily valid if used for other purposes. Simply a teacher can use assessment to:
• Identify what students know
• Identify students’ special needs
• Determine appropriate placement
• Select appropriate curricula to meet students’ individual needs
• Plan for remedy and adjustment. (Flexibility)
The good assessment as indicated by Linda Suskie is more than anything else, it is an assessment that gives us truthful information; it tells us what our students have truly learned. Unfortunately, it’s not possible to determine with complete confidence exactly what our students have learned. The best we can do is to look at samples of their behavior, what they write, producing, say, and how they perform and from those samples we try to estimate or infer what they truly know. Educators use different kinds of assessments for different purposes such as diagnostic, formative, summative, interview, rubrics, and questionnaires. In my online course I have prepared different tools for different assessments, such as:
• Rubrics to assess my students’ performance in:
Discussion: Example: Discuss the life of Pastoral Fulani and their total out look centre on the maintenance of family and the herd ultimate goal is the fulfillment of familial virtues- duties to elder, wives and contemporaries that ensures the smooth of working family and lineage group as cooperating economy units. All these virtues summed up in the notion of Pulaaku (ethics). Discuss these ethics in relation to family ties and solidarity
 writing: I use Chapman writing standards guide for weekly reading assignments. For example, student reads a chapter and makes a one page reflection on a specific topic.Multimedia project: is a group assignment, students will choose topics related to culture or history to search online to write about and share their findings in group presentation.End of Unit test: Students will be given an objective test at the end of each unit.Final exam: Students will be sitting for the End of the course final comprehension exam at the end of unit 3. I think the best rubric for my online course to assess a group work (multimedia presentation) is generic rubric: If you click on the below link, you will find different tools are being used for collaborative group work.
http://glory.gc.maricopa.edu/~mdesoto/webquest/webquest_evaluation.htm
Part II: Designing a rubric for threaded discussion
A threaded discussion is an online collaboration tool that allows the creation of a forum or thread in which individuals are able to post messages and respond to other messages.We can get many benefits from threaded discussion, students can participate even if they are not logged on at the same time, some discussions threads notify the user of new messages, also the Posted messages remain available for everyone to read replies to messages are grouped under the original message, Students Individuals can take time to compose and post messages. I will design an effective rubric assessment for a threaded discussion by focusing on the following points:
*the assessment should be a continuing interaction between teacher/ student and student/student.
*It should be a real-world performance by a demonstration of the ability to apply knowledge and experience.
*The performance should be of relevance to the student and learning community.
*The goal or achievement target should be clearly articulated and communicated to the learner.
*Threaded discussion should be evaluated according to the interaction between the students or the students to the teacher in addition to the information.
*Answers shouldn’t be I agree or disagree. There should be reasons, solutions, and suggestions in addition to opinions.
Collaboration on the threaded discussion is the sharing of ideas; usually this is being done in class rooms, but online classes should collaborate to exchange ideas, and of course this is being done through the discussion board. Grading criteria should be determined on the learners’ opinion and the amount of interaction and collaboration with other students.
How do I organize and arrange the discussion thread of my Iraqi dialect course:
•First of all I will select a topic or question directly related to the contents of each unit and includes a description of the purpose, then encourages participation between students, and explains to them how to participate and post their messages.
•Second of all I have to Use a clear, descriptive title for each assignment, and Identify timelines for the discussion
Finally I have to refer to any specific readings, links, or other information to be referenced during the discussion.
Unit Six:Part One: What are learning object and distributed learning?
In order to discuss this topic I have to find an answer to a question above to know different definitions of the learning objects as well as distributed learning. The learning object is defined as follows:
• Learning object is a resource, usually digital and web-based, that can be used and re-used to support learning.
• Learning objects are small electronic units of educational information that are flexible, reusable, customizable, interoperable, and retrievable.
• Also is Course materials developed according to a standard (eg, IMS) which allows easy sharing of materials. Materials are modular and can be used for a variety of purposes and outputs.Simply learning object contains a single media element - a piece of video or text, for example - or it might contain a mix of text with graphics or animations with an audio commentary or you can regard learning objects at a micro level, as media assets - images, paragraphs of text, questions, audio clips and so on. Reusability is the main reason for using learning objects without much additional efforts. Since the learning objects are reusable, an instructor can continuously build upon existing learning objects and make them into better quality content packages.Looking at the above definitions of learning objects; learning objects can be summed up into the following components:-
- instructional objectives
- Content
- Learning strategies ( Activities)
- Assessment
See these links: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Learning Objects
http://www.fastrak-consulting.co.uk/tactix/features/objects/objects.htm
Distributed learning defines as students take courses from a variety of sources and delivery modes to customize a program of study. Often is used synonymously with online learning.What is SCORM? SCORM is defined as Sharable Content Object Reference Model integrates a set of related technical standards, specifications, and guidelines designed to meet Advance Distributed Learning’s functional requirements as:
- Accessibility
- Interoperability
- Durability
- Reusability
SCORM tries to ensure that learning objects are reusable (over time and by different organizations or teachers), interoperable (connect with different learning management systems including links to the grade book), durable (survive thousands of users), and accessible (for visual and auditory impaired users).
Learning object offers teacher an opportunity to create good environment for instructional process and it helps enhance students’ learning skills. In my online course which I concentrate on history and culture, it seems to me very important to display historical and cultural objects to gain students’ attention. I support my online course with many pictures and videos with animations to motivate students to be more engaged in the course activities. I reviewed much more literature about the learning objects, especially, a long study of how to use object learning to teach history and I found this study is helpful to follow its steps in teaching history and culture. The study uses the material in teaching history by displaying some material culture. I follow the same steps by using pictures in PowerPoint slides to show my students the important personalities in the history of Fulani people while teaching the topic on Kingdoms and conquests. For more information click this link: http://www.lib.niu.edu/1998/iht529802.html. Also another learning object that I feel will help me in preparing study units of online course, is the use of Issues on a video to teach the skills of 21st century in science. This is also is helpful for online courses as teachers can get students engaged virtually in a discussion synchronously to display their opinions about how the learning object enhances student skills of 21st century or synchronously through chatting: http://www.slideshare.net/njalfred/using-issues-to-teach-21st-century-skills-in-science-presentation . This is considered another way of using learning object to distribute learning opportunities to a large number of learners in distance learning. Learning object can help support teaching Language, this link show a teacher is training a ROBOT to pronounce some words: http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=1785879237181736807&ei=L6-5SrDEE5_0qAPc3cCDAg&q=using+object+learning+to+teach+history&hl=en# the links above show the use of object learning in different educational setting. Finally, Learning objects have many benefits for both learners and administrators, as courses can be constructed to meet individual requirements. I think learning objects have great potential for online course which I am preparing now.. I think this video is helpful to teach cultural awareness, especially in sensitive topic. Watch http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-2820295854225356618&ei=Mm26StKML572qAPr5smQBg&q=using+material+culture+to+teach+history&hl=en#.
Go through these references for more information
References:
http://www.edu.gov.mb.ca/k12/dl/wbc/wbcgloss.html
http://www.fastrak-consulting.co.uk/tactix/features/objects/objects.htm
http://www.adlnet.gov/Documents/SCORM%20FAQ.aspx#scormq1
http://www.ascilite.org.au/ajet/ijet/v3n1/hamel/
http://www.irrodl.org/index.php/irrodl/article/viewArticle/32/378
http://vudat.msu.edu/learning_objects/
http://www.lib.niu.edu/1998/iht529802.html
http://www.slideshare.net/njalfred/using-issues-to-teach-21st-century-skills-in-science-presentation
http://video.search.yahoo.com/search/video;_ylt=A0oGkwR6n7lKu9cAr9JXNyoA?ei=UTF-8&p=using%20video%20in%20teaching%20History%20and%20Culture&fr2=tab-web&fr=yfp-t-70
Part: II: The use of rich media.
The course textbook defines the rich media as learning products that incorporate high -end media such as video, animation, sound and simulation (p.312). Another definition is found from this link: http://www.devshed.com/c/a/Smartphone-Development/Getting-Started-with-Rich-Media/ rich media is the single most defining characteristic of rich media content is its dynamic motion, which can either occur over time or as a direct result of user interaction. Examples of this “dynamic motion” include streaming newscasts, which occur over time, and webcasts that include a synchronized slide show, which require user interaction. Watch this video: http://www.cisco.com/web/solutions/dms/digital_signage.html
I. Rich media has great potential to incorporate sound into lessons. Audio is most commonly used in one of three ways: to present words in the form of narration; to add environmental sounds such as mechanical noise in a lesson on equipment or to add background music to the instruction, Moreno and Mayer (2002). A number of studies have compared learning from an animation with learning from a series of still pictures. The studies have found there is no significant difference between the two. However; in reviewing many literatures favored the use of graphics in helping students to recall the prior knowledge and experience to present lesson. Thus can be found in an online course of 16 weeks titled: Gender and Society submitted by Rosemary Dixon from University of Nevada, Reno: Course Tour the developer developed a course of 16 weeks. The course concentrates on Race, Gender, Class and Sexuality. The well organized course conations 6 icons and students every time they log in will see the home page and the third icon take the students directly to the syllabus. The developer used different graphics and icons pictures to gain the students’ attention and make the course very attractive to students simultaneously make surfing on the course topics very easy. Students will be able to transport from section to another without going back to the beginning of the course. The course was appropriately linked together. The course graphics help students to relate the current course topic with their previous experience and knowledge that existed in the long term memory ( schemata) in a way that reduces the cognitive load because the well organized course with explanatory graphics facilitate the interaction between the prior knowledge and current new lesson content. The developer used Camtasia slides to display the course content to make the material more interesting and at the same time without depressing the learning. The developer presented subject matter in a well organized way that attracts students to easily engage in different activities. Also using Camtasia slides with sound, animation and video helps the developer meet the needs of diverse learners’ styles. Students are assigned to engage in a discussion platform, online reading and learning, paper research and final essay. Thus also offers students another opportunity to get good scores and credit points. Assessments are designed to encourage students to utilize and demonstrate critical thinking skills. Assessment based on three exams, multiple questions, writing questions and feedback will be given along with rubric when grading. Students also are given a chance to complete feedback survey in weeks 4 and 10 and all reasonable adjustment could be made were made in real time. At the end of the semester students completed an overall course evaluation.
Unit Seven: Part One: Web 2.0 builds Virtual teaching club.
Web 2.0 Refers to what was perceived as a second generation of web development and web design. It is characterized as facilitating communication. Therefore, Web 2.0 is a new generation and development of the old generation Web1.0 that helps the user publishes, participates, collaborates, shares and displays his ideas and knowledge with others in a collaborative virtual community. It facilitates asynchronously or synchronously the e-learning, distance learning and online courses. Many tools can be used to communicate with others to form a social networking Net, such as black board, online Journal, Twilker, podcasts, blogging, Wikis, emails, tagging, Ajax, and Flicker... Listen to the developer of Web 2.0, Tim O'Reilly giving a short definition to Web 2.0 and as well as the application of Web 2.0 is our daily interactions and communications. Watch three videos from my blogs:
http://oahmed56-teaching-learning.blogspot.com/ That show how web 2.0 does work and offer a soul and spirit to online community collaboration and interactions globally and makes us easily communicate and learn from each other. The historic changes in information are going to force educators to historic changes in teaching and learning to integrate such technologies in instructional process. Web 2.0 ads more opportunities to help students shift to become continual self learners and less dependent only upon classroom lessons. In preparing online units course, I use discussion platform and online Journal to promote students interaction through participating in discussion board and publishing their ideas/reflection on assigned topics in online journal, simultaneously encourages the collaborative working group in multimedia final projects on topics given to each group. Groups meet virtually to display their findings in a virtual asynchronous presentation. Each group presents its findings on blogs or Journals for further discussions, comments and response. Simply, this is the way my course ties the students to interact and share experiences.
Part two: Watch the video on my blog:
http://oahmed56-teaching-learning.blogspot.com/
Cognitive Sciences and Instructional Design
I think that both have their own object of study, but share a common interest in human cognition and performance as part of instructional systems. Also both sciences may exchange influence on each other. Cognitive science often conducts research on cognitive processes and setting written instructional strategies and guidelines that related to these strategies for improving instructional systems. Instructional design conducts research on applicable instructional strategies, and observations of students working according to those strategies to realize the instructional goals /outcomes. Instructional design is goal driven theory. Man y changes have been taken place on instructional design as it helps change the way instructors design and deliver lesson. Adding more practices of maximizing the effectiveness, efficiency and appeal of instruction and other learning experiences. Instructional theories also play an important role in the design of instructional materials. Theories such as behaviorism, constructivism, social learning and cognitivism help shape and define the outcome of instructional materials. Over the past century, college and university demographics have changed. Recently there has been an influx of non-traditional learners enrolling in colleges and universities. Due to this change in learner base, there comes the need to look at the methods of design for instruction within adult classrooms. In an article written by Deborah Ash in March, 2007 “a focus on theory of transformative learning and learner – centered learning thus begun. Can instructional designers utilize this theory in order to ensure a better learning environment for adult that are filling college campuses?” Is transformative learning supportive of the shift? Thus also show reciprocal influence of instructional design on cognitive sciences. Instructional designers can present new knowledge in a way that helps the learners to act upon, facilitate access to course projects that reflect on the new perspectives, allowing for general discussion on how to use their knowledge in real life and encouraging learner to engage in problem solving topics. The best model which I want to use in my online course is the Dick & Carey and Kemp ISD model which uses rapid prototyping. This is the idea of receiving continual or formative feedback while instructional materials are being created. This model is an attempt to save time by catching problems while they are still easy to fix. Learner centered strategies are: The Course will be conducted online through e-learning. Students will be engaging virtually in on-line communication, interaction and collaboration through:
• Threaded discussions
• Journal or blog response
• intensive weekly reading with one page reflection on required textbook chapter reading ( individual assignment)
• Online Lecture topics
• week one quizzes
• week two multimedia presentation project( Group assignment)
• Week three Final Exam
• 15 hours every week of on-line class time within the scheduled period in order to complete requirements for 3 semester units of credit.
• Full marks will be given to complete and correct assignments that turned in before or on due date.
• Assessments other than quizzes and Final Exam, are three rubrics for:
o Reading / Writing assignment
o Discussion
o Multimedia group projects
• Communication:
o Assignments will be turned in, every week in Sunday, before midnight PMT
o Through drop box
o Email
o Discussion platform
o Week starts Monday at 21: Am PMT
Reference: http://www.associatedcontent.com/article/165407teaching_through_transformation_learnercentered_pg3.html?cat=4
Unit Eight: Part One: What do instructional Designers Do in Higher Education? A Written Symposium

what do instructional Designers Do in Higher Education? A written Symposium.
Chapter 22 starts to present the similarities and differences between USA and Australia in Higher education system. The five writers focused on the role of the instructional designers in higher education as their lives are similar to other faculty and professional staff members in higher education. Some differences are their training and areas of professional concentration. Among the similarities is universities are divided into separate colleges where semesters are approximately 15 weeks long and teaching loads average about three courses per semester. Instructional designers working in support areas such as distance education or faculty development are practitioners. As the use of technologies increases in higher education, these individuals are becoming more critical to success of an organization. Instructional designer’s roles are to facilitate the development of learning and teaching strategies and introduce to faculty to distance learning production processes. This role needs sound knowledge of ID theory. Instructional designers need to have sufficient skills to perform all tasks assigned to them. The role of instructional designers has changed from working with individual course leaders to group approach to meet the needs of changing educational initiatives to help build an online interaction among the students, and between students and instructor. Instructional designers must keep up date with ID literature and educational theory and practice (e.g., constructivism, online pedagogy blended learning and so forth). The chapter also presents the basic components of instructional design such as what is needed for educational program, goals, objectives, learners, contents, teaching methods technology (media) and how learners will be assessed and the course evaluated. The chapter concludes the discussion of five professors to assure the role of instructional designer as a faculty developer, facilitator of the development of learning and teaching strategies, or developing of distance learning materials and community member. I have reviewed many literatures on marketing to find out what instructional designers do for marketing. I have come to a conclusion that the process by which instruction is improved through the analysis of learning needs and systematic development of learning materials. Instructional designers in marketing often use technology and multimedia as tools to enhance advertizing and marketing of goods and products in a way that attracts and persuade consumers to buy such a good or product. For more information watch these videos and listen to professors of marketing in different American universities.
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=8137264847507633140#docid=-8556247553140215499
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=txifd0LuUVM
Pattwo: Community of Practice

The role of an online instructor is to create and prepare a curriculum that fits teaching online and allows integration of different technologies. Instructor also prepares an online instructional environment setting that ties students to interact and collaborate in groups work. I use different communication tools to help students communicate with instructor and each other, such as blogging, group work and emails. Students have access to instructor email for any assistance and clarification related to course syllabus and assignment. I was able to build up an online virtual community to engage and tie my students in different activities through virtual asynchronous communication, using a discussion board or an email. Thus helps students individually to complete their assignments and display their inputs in discussion board, and every student at least receives one response from his peers. I, as an instructor of an online course insert my comments on student’s inputs and opinions related to the topic under discussion. Students will be assigned to read a chapter from the required textbook and make a reflection of one page. There are external links, recommended textbook, and an online book for extra reading on the topic. These resources help students to gather additional information about the required assignment. Students also will work on collaborative groups for multimedia presentation project; each group of three students is assigned to work on one topic and come together to share their findings in groups’ asynchronous presentation. Finally, students will asked to lodge their assessment & comments on each group work for rating, according to the rubric designed by the instructor on criteria: content, relevance, participation, organization, creativity and presentation. Finally, students need learning
environment that connects them to content, to expert instruction, to a wide range of instructional resources, to their peers, and to appropriate support services and that happened by using the above mentioned tools.
Unit Nine:Part One: Sharing Instructional design
Teachers want their students to learn everything in the course. As my course is addressing history and culture in general, I want my students to demonstrate some knowledge about how historical and cultural elements impacting education. Current educational research encourages teachers to get to know each of their students in order to enhance classroom engagement, performance, motivation, and desire to learn. Most teachers create activities and implement strategies that they hope will engage students in the content and promote a lifelong love of learning. I understand the importance of knowing and caring about each student and his or her learning needs. I understand that all students learn differently, and that my course will address the diverse learning styles in the classroom by integrating different technologies. The strength of my course is the way I prepared and organized the materials to fit online teaching and learning, for example, units are prepared and organized as follows:
Reading for Unit One required textbook
lecture note/video
DISCUSSION
JOURNAL RESPONSE
ASSIGNMENT
Quizzes
Unit Topics
Genesis and Origins
Ancient history
Education & Religion
Conquests
Kingdoms:-
• Fuuta Jalon 1727
• Massina 1818 – 1853
• Sokoto 1809
Assignments
-Reading / writing (required textbook chapters).
-Discussion
- Blog response
-Watch Online lecture
- Multimedia group project
Strategies:
The Course will be conducted online through e-learning. Students will be engaging virtually in online communication, interaction and collaboration through:
• Threaded discussions
• Blog response
• Intensive weekly reading on required & recommended textbook chapters
• Video Lecture
• Week one quizzes
• Week two multimedia presentation project (Group assignment)
• Week three Final Exam
Assessments
- Quizzes
- Final Exam
- Rubrics
I established social presence through online virtual community to engage and tie my students in different activities through virtual asynchronous communication, using discussion board and emails. I think the weak points that are, the display of materials on the black board, capability to embed different technologies while designing an online course, and management of instructional process through the appropriate use of technology and assessment skills. According to the Kirkpatrick’s four levels, the reaction of my students can be measured through asking a question; did they like the course or was the material relevant to the work? Learning happens when learners are able to apply what they have learned and able to apply their knowledge and skills in real life within their communities, this shows their capability to perform the learned skills. I think designing a course of three units to be conducted or taught online encourages me to think to further my knowledge in the field of instructional design in the future and motivates me to follow in the future my study on how to create syllabus for e-learning and distance learning. I fee, I need to learn such competences to better perform on the job.
Part: two: Watch these videos
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RGAqKDnOtb8
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yb25zg8kPF0
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TxejYwVavEw
Competence needed for Instructional Designers
Most instructional designers focus on variety of areas such as educational technology, human performance improvement, information technology and computer scholarly inquiry and training. They are aimed at a range of audiences from academics and graduate students in higher education to practitioners in business and industry. The decision to join a professional organization is based on its mission, benefits provided to me and goals that match my career and interest. I do like to join an organization that works in business. I will focus on performance improvement and training. My reading is based on quality of the materials and to what extent it matches my interest. Each organization has different publications; some has specific purpose aimed at particular audiences, research or theory. However; publications of interest to the IDT community are focusing on variety of topics, including cognitive and instruction, distance learning, multimedia, performance and improvement and instructional development. For myself; I am looking for the quality of the publications and critically analyze the content, especially e- journals. I really, want to join American society for Training and Development (ASTD) to get better training and learn more skills that could help me develop e-learning curriculum for college level. http://astd.org. I like also association for the advancement of computing in Education (AACE) http://aace.org. Training manager manages the development and delivery of training and all that associated with those activities (Foxon, et, al. 2003). Foxon suggested that training manger must possess skills unique to the human resource development function, including new skills to market globalization, information technology, e-learning, and e-business and knowledge management. Instructor competences were updated in 2000 which include planning, preparation, instructional methods, strategies, assessment and management and more competences are needed for online instructor than those to classroom, due to technology demands. The most comfortable role is planning and preparation of instructional methods and material because of the importance of having the material in hands before taking a step towards teaching online. With the availability of the materials, teachers can tailor such materials to meet the learners’ needs and allow integration of technology. The most important ethics in the organization are responsibilities to provide efficient, effective, workable and cost- effective solutions that advance organizational performance goals. Adhering to these ethics will reflect positively on other ethics and promote collaboration, education, privacy and communication across departments. I would like to pursue my doctoral program in designing e-learning business and I will perceive myself within the next ten years (by the will of God) to be a good instructional designer in the Royal Kingdom of Saudi Arabia.
Role of Instructional Designers.


References:
Trends and Issues in Instructional Design & Technology 2nd edition Robert Reiser & John Dempsey
http://manishmo.blogspot.com/2008/01/instructional-designer-competencies.html
http://www.elearninglearning.com/instructional-design

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I am working with Defense Language Institute at Monterey Bay. I have received my education in Sudan, Yemen and America. I have got MA in educational technology, 2010 at Chapman university, Monterey City California and Post master at the University of North Carolina at Greensboro. (UNCG). in 2004and MBA in Sudan in 1998. I got American citizenship in August 2008. I am married; I have five children , two in college and one in high school.Suheil still early grade one and Suheib is a baby of three years old, playing at home. My email address is assiraiwoo@yahoo.com. Phone number is 8312246829.