google.cn is gone and replaced by google.com.hk. Ironically I googled for some reports on this issue. The reasons are quite complicated and the consequences are not predicable, as nobody can say that Google is never coming back to mainland China.
Among all the research engine users, 30% were using Google and 70% were fans of Baidu, as I once mentioned in class there was always a debate and a competition in China between them. Some people say this makes Google lose its confidence in winning Baidu and decides to leave, however, when it first entered China, the percentage belonged to it was only 13% and there was still a steady growth. To me, different engines serve different searching purposes. If you want to search information in Chinese, definitely Google cannot help you much; while, if you key in English in Baidu, it's easy to get some nonsenses. Thus in China, where English still only belongs to the elites, Google may not be the choice of the majority.
Another reason might be the different laws and rules in America and China. The first values much on freedom and human rights while the latter may care more about morality and regulations. There is nothing right and wrong on the attitude and choice, because it is determined by history, culture and the country's situations. When there is some information against the China government on the issues of Taiwan and Tibet provided by Google, it is obviously challenging the rules of China as this government has very intensive examination on online information. China has the biggest population and the largest number of web users in the world and still there are a huge number of websites, which all need to be monitored, otherwise, it is going to be out of order. But some may say, why aren't there such rules in America? I would like to say, people's quality may speak. In China, most of the things are still developing including people themselves.
The third reason I can think of is the localization of Google in China. People of a certain country or group have the unique searching habit and Google does not serve the habit of most Chinese well. The inadequate Chinese information is one thing and another one is the page arrangement, as for Google, if you want to browse the next page on the list, you always need to go back to the main searching list but Baidu can project a new page and the one you finished looking at cannot be lost. I think most of us have had the experiences not being able to retrive the useful information we just read. And people in China usually open several pages to compare the contents. It is because of the using habit that Twitter, Facbook, Myspace and Skype can never gain such popularity as QQ (a chatting tool) in China.
The consequences for the withdrawal of Google from mainland China may not be that obvious just as its reasons, which include politics, economy, etc. There will be great influence on some users in China who have been used and addicted to Google, especially English learners. It takes some time for them to adjust and find the alternative. On the other hand, it might be good news for some others, like Baidu, Sougou and 163, who just lost a strong competitor.
Just like what we once said in the class that technology is not equally distributed, so is information. What do you think of this issue?
Monday, March 29, 2010
Friday, March 26, 2010
Self-assessment in Language Learning
Language learning is a complex process involving many different learning strategies and after finishing reading chapter 7 of Task Design, Implementation and Assessment written by Dr. Towndrow, I suddenly realized that self-assessment is a marvellous way of learning.
Simply finishing the task and waiting to be evaluated is a passive way of learning and sometimes the students do not care about the feedback from the teachers, whether it is good or bad, which part needs to be improved, which modality is not appropriate, etc. However, if the students are made to evaluate their own work, they have much more work to do. First, they need to fully understand the rubric, both the experiential and implied meanings. And then the rules of judgement should be applied to their work, which requires students to make correct judgement on their own work. It is a higher level of knowledge application, as "there needs to be a balance between description (what the student has done) and the critique and reflection." (Towndrow, 2007) It is not easy for students to realize the mistakes and problems in their own work and admit with no bias. Finally, they need to report the result of their self-assessment, either in written or oral forms, which can help practice writing or oral expression.
In my past teaching experience, I haven't adopted any self-evaluation strategy but peer-assess, assuming that students are not capable or willing to find their own mistakes. Well, if the rubrics and instructions are well designed, it's a great opportunity for students to benefit in a different way.
Simply finishing the task and waiting to be evaluated is a passive way of learning and sometimes the students do not care about the feedback from the teachers, whether it is good or bad, which part needs to be improved, which modality is not appropriate, etc. However, if the students are made to evaluate their own work, they have much more work to do. First, they need to fully understand the rubric, both the experiential and implied meanings. And then the rules of judgement should be applied to their work, which requires students to make correct judgement on their own work. It is a higher level of knowledge application, as "there needs to be a balance between description (what the student has done) and the critique and reflection." (Towndrow, 2007) It is not easy for students to realize the mistakes and problems in their own work and admit with no bias. Finally, they need to report the result of their self-assessment, either in written or oral forms, which can help practice writing or oral expression.
In my past teaching experience, I haven't adopted any self-evaluation strategy but peer-assess, assuming that students are not capable or willing to find their own mistakes. Well, if the rubrics and instructions are well designed, it's a great opportunity for students to benefit in a different way.
Tuesday, March 16, 2010
Dear all,
The draft ideas of my DST project are as follows and I am looking forward to your great opinions on it.
1. Genre and purposes
It is going to be a narrative, achieving two purposes: a) the struggling identity as a half-blooded child of two nationalities in one country; b) a tribute to my mom, a common but great Mongolian woman.
The nationality on my IC in China is Mongolian, however, my father is a Chinese Han and my mother was a Mongolian. The right to be educated in Mongolian was deprived by my father since I was born, as a result I could not speak a single Mongolian word, even though my mom and dad were both able to do so. But sometimes my brother and I were not very welcomed when we were young by cousins from my dad's side, because we were Mongolian, which I was kind of shamed of. However, gradually I realized it's so great to be a Mongolian and my father began to emphasis the good features of Mongolian people that I should learn, especially after my mom passed away from cancer. After reading books about the history, culture and people of the Mongolian ethnic group, I became very proud of being a Mongolian, however, I was shamed again, of not being a real one, who cannot speak the language at all. I have been struggled on my identity a lot.
2. Selection of multimodal artifact
There will be a Mongolian song as the background from the very beginning to the end of the story, which will "cast a mood" of the whole story as Hull and Nelson pointed out in their paper. And Mongolian songs are very typical to bring the views of the grassland and people's lives on it.
The images I will employ will be all still images that I took before and some pictures illustrating cultures, food, scenery downloaded from the Internet.
Narration will apply to relate the images to my own experiences.
However, I am still in the midst to figure out how I am going to pair the images and narration, as the images I have on hand cannot fully express all the meanings of the narration.
3. Arrangement of the DST
a) Title
The title is PROUD of Being a Mongolian, which indicates my attitude of being a minority. Color and font will be blue and white as the sky of my hometown, but I will see if it is going to work well with the rest images.
b) Narration
As introduced by Hull and Nelson that the essential parts of a narration include orientation, abstract and a coda, raised by Labov (1997). In my DST, the orientation will be short with 2 sentences, telling the viewers that who I am. The abstract will bring the issue of my struggling identity. The body part will be focused on my experiences and changes from being afraid of admitting of being a Mongolian to being proud of it. The DST will end to emphasis why I am now proud of my nationality, partially due to my mom.
4. Limitations
a). As the story will mention a lot of my past experiences and my mom, it's hard for me to source enough pictures. We did not manage to keep pictures as we moved a lot and my mom died at a young age. Thus the images I have may not go well with the narration.
b). The song I chose is more than 4 minutes long, however, I plan the story should go around 3 minutes. I will try to cut the song shorter, but worrying the effects after that.
5. The deeper meaning of the DST
Even racial problem is never that serious in China, still minorities face challenges of being assimilated by the dominant Han people. I am a typical example. But how many people in China can realize the seriousness of losing the unique features of the minorities. And the Han people can never understand why some ethnic groups are so against the nationalization, in the name of helping us to be civilized. Deep in our heart, we just want to live a life belonging to us. However, that fact is minority groups are so weak in China nearly in every aspect and that's why Tibetan people are struggling. I am not going to address the issue explicitly, but hopefully it may arouse a little bit sensation on that.
The draft ideas of my DST project are as follows and I am looking forward to your great opinions on it.
1. Genre and purposes
It is going to be a narrative, achieving two purposes: a) the struggling identity as a half-blooded child of two nationalities in one country; b) a tribute to my mom, a common but great Mongolian woman.
The nationality on my IC in China is Mongolian, however, my father is a Chinese Han and my mother was a Mongolian. The right to be educated in Mongolian was deprived by my father since I was born, as a result I could not speak a single Mongolian word, even though my mom and dad were both able to do so. But sometimes my brother and I were not very welcomed when we were young by cousins from my dad's side, because we were Mongolian, which I was kind of shamed of. However, gradually I realized it's so great to be a Mongolian and my father began to emphasis the good features of Mongolian people that I should learn, especially after my mom passed away from cancer. After reading books about the history, culture and people of the Mongolian ethnic group, I became very proud of being a Mongolian, however, I was shamed again, of not being a real one, who cannot speak the language at all. I have been struggled on my identity a lot.
2. Selection of multimodal artifact
There will be a Mongolian song as the background from the very beginning to the end of the story, which will "cast a mood" of the whole story as Hull and Nelson pointed out in their paper. And Mongolian songs are very typical to bring the views of the grassland and people's lives on it.
The images I will employ will be all still images that I took before and some pictures illustrating cultures, food, scenery downloaded from the Internet.
Narration will apply to relate the images to my own experiences.
However, I am still in the midst to figure out how I am going to pair the images and narration, as the images I have on hand cannot fully express all the meanings of the narration.
3. Arrangement of the DST
a) Title
The title is PROUD of Being a Mongolian, which indicates my attitude of being a minority. Color and font will be blue and white as the sky of my hometown, but I will see if it is going to work well with the rest images.
b) Narration
As introduced by Hull and Nelson that the essential parts of a narration include orientation, abstract and a coda, raised by Labov (1997). In my DST, the orientation will be short with 2 sentences, telling the viewers that who I am. The abstract will bring the issue of my struggling identity. The body part will be focused on my experiences and changes from being afraid of admitting of being a Mongolian to being proud of it. The DST will end to emphasis why I am now proud of my nationality, partially due to my mom.
4. Limitations
a). As the story will mention a lot of my past experiences and my mom, it's hard for me to source enough pictures. We did not manage to keep pictures as we moved a lot and my mom died at a young age. Thus the images I have may not go well with the narration.
b). The song I chose is more than 4 minutes long, however, I plan the story should go around 3 minutes. I will try to cut the song shorter, but worrying the effects after that.
5. The deeper meaning of the DST
Even racial problem is never that serious in China, still minorities face challenges of being assimilated by the dominant Han people. I am a typical example. But how many people in China can realize the seriousness of losing the unique features of the minorities. And the Han people can never understand why some ethnic groups are so against the nationalization, in the name of helping us to be civilized. Deep in our heart, we just want to live a life belonging to us. However, that fact is minority groups are so weak in China nearly in every aspect and that's why Tibetan people are struggling. I am not going to address the issue explicitly, but hopefully it may arouse a little bit sensation on that.
Thursday, March 11, 2010
What Have We learned from Creating the Storytelling?
We are in the midst preparing for our own digital storytelling, in the hope of popularizing it to our students. Thus in order to answer the questions like what do students need to learn; how do students learn with it and how to lead students motivation for academically rigorous work, we need to ask these questions to ourselves first. What have we learned from the process?
Even thought it's the first time for some of us to touch on the Movie Maker, I don't think it's the biggest problem because as far as it is about technology, there should be ways to solve the problems. On the other hand, I believe, most of us did spend some time on thinking what we were going to tell, what types of modality we would employ and how we would arrange them, when starting to think about it without worrying anything about how to use the Movie Maker. Technology is easy to be taught but thinking depends on our own experience and the understanding of other matters.
After the theme has been fixed, it's time to get the sources, which is easy as when we want to talk about a specific story, we should have been familiar with it. However, how to put them together is another story. The still images, the videos, the music, the narration and etc. should match in a coherent way. And among them, narration needs more efforts.
Thus from the process, we actually focus much on thinking and writing, but not the technology, and so do our students. What/ how to tell the story; modalities and transitions and writing of the narration and the explanation essay are what we as well as our students need to learn.
In the new digital classroom, we need to lead the students look beyond the technology to the essence of task, like what Dr. Towndrow mentioned in class, "where should we start?" For the DN students, technology is not a problem and once they master it, they will gradually lose the interest. So from the very beginning, we cannot seduce students with the technology, showing them the sound effects and the magic of the multiliteracies, which are too artificial. To let them understand the real meaning and importance is more attractive and abiding. Focus on meaning is the motivity and the form is just chosen as a tool to express the meaning.
Motivation varies from individual and individual and from time to time. However, motivation is a key factor in nearly any learning process. Some kids get motivated to avoid punishment; some are motivated because of a hope. While an inspiring teacher can still make students motivated. Students don't use computer for academic work sometimes due to the habit. They haven't got enough chances in doing so and they may not know that computers can be used in that way. So some in-class activities could be planned to get computers involved and some tests could be based on computers too. If the computer use is embedded in study itself, the major function of computers to students will not be having fun but learning. They will get used to studying with it and be highly motivated to use computers for academic purposes as computers have been a part of study. Just as nowadays computers have been an essential part at workplaces and a huge number of people claim that they cannot work without computers.
The digital storytelling project is just a start for us to think about the usage of multiliteracy in education, both in class and after class. And if learning can happen in different ways, why not?
Even thought it's the first time for some of us to touch on the Movie Maker, I don't think it's the biggest problem because as far as it is about technology, there should be ways to solve the problems. On the other hand, I believe, most of us did spend some time on thinking what we were going to tell, what types of modality we would employ and how we would arrange them, when starting to think about it without worrying anything about how to use the Movie Maker. Technology is easy to be taught but thinking depends on our own experience and the understanding of other matters.
After the theme has been fixed, it's time to get the sources, which is easy as when we want to talk about a specific story, we should have been familiar with it. However, how to put them together is another story. The still images, the videos, the music, the narration and etc. should match in a coherent way. And among them, narration needs more efforts.
Thus from the process, we actually focus much on thinking and writing, but not the technology, and so do our students. What/ how to tell the story; modalities and transitions and writing of the narration and the explanation essay are what we as well as our students need to learn.
In the new digital classroom, we need to lead the students look beyond the technology to the essence of task, like what Dr. Towndrow mentioned in class, "where should we start?" For the DN students, technology is not a problem and once they master it, they will gradually lose the interest. So from the very beginning, we cannot seduce students with the technology, showing them the sound effects and the magic of the multiliteracies, which are too artificial. To let them understand the real meaning and importance is more attractive and abiding. Focus on meaning is the motivity and the form is just chosen as a tool to express the meaning.
Motivation varies from individual and individual and from time to time. However, motivation is a key factor in nearly any learning process. Some kids get motivated to avoid punishment; some are motivated because of a hope. While an inspiring teacher can still make students motivated. Students don't use computer for academic work sometimes due to the habit. They haven't got enough chances in doing so and they may not know that computers can be used in that way. So some in-class activities could be planned to get computers involved and some tests could be based on computers too. If the computer use is embedded in study itself, the major function of computers to students will not be having fun but learning. They will get used to studying with it and be highly motivated to use computers for academic purposes as computers have been a part of study. Just as nowadays computers have been an essential part at workplaces and a huge number of people claim that they cannot work without computers.
The digital storytelling project is just a start for us to think about the usage of multiliteracy in education, both in class and after class. And if learning can happen in different ways, why not?
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