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

     WeQuests are an inquiry-oriented activates or assignments which engage students through technology and the World Wide Web, most or all information that students work with comes from the web. It allows students to communicate without geographical boundaries.It may include sites to visit, questions to answer, and tasks to complete.

Webquests tend to be student-oriented and collaborative, with students engaged in constructivist activities resulting in shared learning experiences and new knowledge based on enquiry-oriented language use and Web research skills, students can work in groups which will help them to exchange the information between them, understand bitter and get new information from their colleagues, it  also foster cooperative learning through guided discovery.

A WebQuest  is motivating ESL/EFL students when they do their works and it engages students in one or more tasks that promote learning and facilitate critical thinking when the tasks are carefully selected, it is also support a variety of instructional  practices such as critical thinking and problem solving through cooperative learning and technology integration. Critical thinking is a process of actively applying , analyzing and evaluation.

A project based learning method is a comprehensive approach to instruction. it is the use of rigorous classroom projects to facilitate learning and assess student competence. it  is also  an instructional method that provides students with complex tasks based on difficult  questions or, decision making . Teacher here works just  as a facilitator and the students are responsible for their learning.

At the end, WebQuests are important for students, it help them to work together and learn more and more by interacting with each other. 

(Wordle for EDU 401)

Report about What I have learned in the Last Three Weeks

    (Educational technology) is one of the most interesting and really useful courses which I have learned. It teaches us how to use technology in educational system, and how to benefit from it.

In the last three weeks, I learned many important things that I was not know anything about it; it is completely new for me. Unfortunately, I faced a lot of  difficulties when I tried to understand and apply what I learned, which made me lose my enthusiasm and feel that I am learning some boring and useless thing. I was believe in traditional education which does not use technology at all. But now after I learned some few things, I completely changed this idea, I believe that technology has become an integral part of advanced life and better education.

I was using internet and really wasted my time, I spend more than 10 hours daily, and thought that I know everything about it, but now I consider myself not know anything.

Wiki, blogger,  and delicious are some of what I am learning in (Educational Technology).these websites help me a lot to know some advantages of using technology in classrooms and how the teacher can help her students to learn by using computers and also how can I ,as a student, to use internet properly and useful.
Another point, i really happy that i learned how to add hyperlinks to my posts :)
This matter was puzzled me how to put hyperlinks within paragraphs, but now, i can use it *_*


Finally, I hope to learn more and more about using technology in  education and how we develop ourselves through the sites which are allocated for  education and self development.  

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

Using technology in the class is very important these days. Blog, wiki and delicious are from the most important sites using to help students to improve their skills in reading, writing, listening and speaking. I will use them with my students because I think they will help them a lot, to improve themselves.

 Blogger is a useful website which helps students to learn more and more about language. On a blog I can ask them to introduce themselves to let me and friends know more about them. Also they can add articles about any topic and give their opinion. Blogs have a method to allow visitors to comment, this highly interactive feature allows users to comment upon article posts and read your posts and comment on, the writers benefit from other’ opinion and can discuss with them. In this way, students can really improve their English skills.


Delicious is another useful web, it is a Social Bookmarking service, which means students can save all their favorite web pages and access them anytime, anywhere by using any computer. . We can share links with each other, I will give them some links to visit and also add them to their accounts if they find it important for them to develop their language. Also in delicious, students can see their friends’ bookmarks and add them to their account and share online links.

http://blog.delicious.com/blog/2007/09/how-to-explain.html

Wiki web is important for students. It helps them to create web bags and also edit the content of the sites. Students also can add images, files and media. I can ask them to work in pairs and add topics or give them assignments and projects to work with each other.

http://pmr-science.wikispaces.com/

Technology now is an essential thing that we cannot improve ourselves without using it. So, we have to learn more about it and also teach our students

Application of Bax Normilasation in Saudi Arabia: The how!"

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

in the article,CALL—past, present and future,,which written by Stephen Bax ,he argues 3 categories. His aim is to attain a state of normalization which the technology is invisible and truly integrated. This leads to use technology in learning and use it as new way for teaching in classrooms and dealing with it as anything practicing daily. He suggested changes to achieving normalization. CALL will be normalized if it becomes invisible and respond to the all requirements of the students. It needs changes in technology and attitude and also changes in the syllabus. Students have to learn more about technology and dealing with it daily as any essential and usual thing like pen or shoes and they also need to know how to use diverse technological tools every time, not just using computers in labs weekly.

In Saudi Arabia, I think we can achieve normalization in our Saudi context. Some schools start to use technology in their system, for example, they use computers instead of notebooks, in their home works they are using computer programs such as PowerPoint. They just use notebooks for some subjects. I think It is a great start for using technology in our schools. I hope they apply this in each school and becomes the educational system in the kingdom. But there is an important point here, I think  before applying technology in schools, we must teach our children the correct way to use technology and tell them that the technology is double-edged sword,so ,we can advantage and also can hurt ourselves because it is a new thing in our educational  system. Our schools which use technology in its system, they just use computers as technology tool. I think they have to develop new tools, such as; using some global sites like twitter and facebook to meet each other and meet their teacher every time even when they are in their homes. The can learn more and more by using these tools. I hope we can achieve what we need and want :)

Hiiiiii everyone *_*









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