ict assignment elih sutisna yanto

7/30/2019 Ict Assignment Elih Sutisna Yanto

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Teaching Language Through Social SoftwareBy: Elih Sutisna Yanto

NIM . 0908066094

The impact of communication and information technology (IT) development onlanguage education has been widely countenanced. Ballenden (1984) points outthat computer technology will increasingly penetrate all areas of life, includingeducation. Maddison (1983) maintains that the technology of education and thetechnology of communication are two sides of the same coin. The developmentof information technology that has followed the development of computertechnology has stimulated people especially those who work in the field ofeducation, such as teachers, curriculum planers and media designers, toendeavor to carry out experiments and studies on the possibilities of utilizingcomputers for educational purposes. In the last few years the number ofteachers using Computer-assisted Language Learning (CALL) has increased

markedly and numerous articles have been written about the role of technologyin education in the 21st century. Although the potential of the Internet foreducational use has not been fully explored yet and the average school stillmakes limited use of computers, it is obvious that we have entered a newinformation age in which the links between technology and TEFL have alreadybeen established. Computers have been used for language teaching ever sincethe 1960's. This 40-year period can be divided into three main stages:behaviorist CALL, communicative CALL, and integrative CALL. Each stagecorresponds to a certain level of technology and certain pedagogical theories.The reasons for using Computer-assisted Language Learning include: (a)experiential learning, (b) motivation, (c) enhance student achievement, (d)

authentic materials for study, (e) greater interaction, (f) individualization, (g)independence from a single source of information, and (h) global understanding.The barriers inhibiting the practice of Computer-assisted Language Learning canbe classified in the following common categories: (a) financial barriers, (b)availability of computer hardware and software, (c) technical and theoreticalknowledge, and (d) acceptance of the technology.

Although the use of ICT tools such as blogs, can be very motivating forlearners, teachers themselves sometimes fearful of the technology, or feel thatthey are not technically competent enough to use these tools. However, as wewill see, all of these tools are easy to set up and use, with no specialist technicalknowledge required. Teaching language through blogs makes the role of the

teacher will be so different with the traditional teacher . In this case, thetraditional teacher is called face to face (f2f) teacher. For example, in thetraditional classrooms, there are teachers who still use lectures as the mainteaching strategy. On the other hand, in using blogs, a teacher simply cannotstand in front of a class and lecture. Moreover, the students in using blogs mustlearn to be independent and active learners; there will be no one to spoon-feedthe information. It is really different with the face to face students in traditionalclassroom .It happened because the information content and readings are made


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available and it is the students responsibility to read the information. Blogs is anexamples of social software, computer tools which allow people to connect, tocommunicate and to collaborate on line. A blog is essentially a web page withregular diary or journal entries. The most common type of blog is kept by oneperson, who will regularly post comments, thoughts, analyses, experiences of

daily life, interesting links, jokes or any other form of content to a web page.Blogs may consist of written text only, or they may include pictures or photos photo blogs or even audio and video.

Most blogs will allow readers to comment on blog entries, therebycreating an online community around a common topic, interest or person. Wecan thus see why blogs are referred to as social software, as they set upinformal grassroots, or list of links to other writers/readers of blogs. Blog willsometimes include a blog roll, or list of links to other blogs which the blog writeradmires, thereby widening the online community of blog writers and readers.

Blogs used in education are known as edublogs. Edublogs cover a widerange of topic related to education, from musings on educational policy anddevelopments to learner compositions. An edublog can be set up and used by ateacher, by individual learners or by a class. A teacher may decide to use a blogto provide their learners with news and comments on issues, extra readingpractice or homework, online links, a summary of a class for learners who wereunable to attend, study tips, and so on. In this case, learners will access andread, and possibly add comments to, the blog outside the classroom. A blog setup and maintained by a teacher is known as a tutor blog. The teacher maydecide to allow their learners to write comments in the blog.

A teacher may encourage their learners to each set up and maintain theirown individual blogs. These are known as student blogs. Learners can be askedto post their blogs once or twice a week, or however often the teacher judgesconvenient, and content can range from comments or current affairs todescriptions of daily activities. Other learners, from the same class, from otherclasses or ever from classes in other countries, can be encouraged to postcomments and reactions to student blog postings.

The third type of blog is the class blog, one used by an entire class.Again, this blog can be used to post comments on certain topics, or on classwork or on any other issue the teacher thinks interesting and relevant tolearners. In a class blog learners all post to the same blog.

To conclude, there are some obvious advantages to using blogs in theclassroom. They provide a real-world tool for learners with which to practicetheir written English, as well as a way of contacting learners from other parts ofthe world if the blog is used as part of an international exchange. Even if astudent or class blog is not shared with learners in other parts of the world, ablog is publicly available on the Internet. A further area to consider is


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assessment. Given that a student or class blog is essentially a writtenassignment, blog postings can be used for evaluation. If the teacher intends toevaluate blog entries as part of a writing assessment, as with any written workthe criteria for evaluation need to be made clear to learners in advance. Criteriawill probably include those used to evaluate more traditional, paper-based forms

of writing, such as accuracy, fluency, coherence and relevance, but they mayalso include criteria related to the visual nature of this electronic medium, suchas the effective use of visual, or visual presentation overall, and other areas likethe length of posting and awareness of audience.

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ict assignment elih sutisna yanto

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