ePals

WOW! I cannot even begin to fathom how useful this site could be in my future. ePals is a global website which focuses on language learning through sharing ideas and even classrooms. You can link up with another classroom and have students collaborate and correspond through email! This site is incredible. I wish I would have had an opportunity like this while learning Spanish. Even though I'm in the ESOL field, I'm still not sure what my future holds or which subject area I'll be teaching. If I do end up as a Spanish teacher, I would love to use this in my classroom. Being from a small town, I never got the opportunity to converse with native speakers of Spanish and i'm sure a lot of Spanish native speakers would say the same. Not only is this real life practice of conversing with natives, but also boosts cultural learning in the classroom. This corresponds with the LOTE Standards 1& 2 and would be really helpful to students to actively engage in learning. As per the ESOL benefits of this website, there are numerous. One of my favorites is the in2books feature, ESOL students are able to gain literacy skills by linking up with an eMentor in which they can share important ideas about what they have read. This is a great learning tool in which students can use their English skills to interpret their reading and be able to receive meaningful feedback in order to reflect and get better at their skills. This corresponds to the NYS ESOL Standards 1, 2, and 3. This website has great tools available for language teachers as well as students and I can't wait to use this in my future classroom.

Google+ Communities

As an up-and-coming ESOL teacher, I'm constantly looking for new resources and ways to connect with like-minded people in my field. Joining social networking groups gives us the opportunity to form a community of learners with others in our field as well as share ideas so that we can all benefit from a pool of knowledge. One social networking group that I found particularly useful to me is the Google+ Community English Language Learning. This community allows for both teachers and learners of English to share ideas and questions with each other. Once you are a member, you can also post and answer questions within this site. It's a useful tool because as human beings we can't know everything, pooling knowledge and connecting with others can boost the amount of knowledge we know or can find out. This community is a valuable asset to anyone in the ESOL field, or just curious people! I can't wait to find out more information from experienced people ahead of me in the field!

A learner is like...

A learner is like a sponge, constantly soaking up and growing bigger by what is around them. Learners have the ability, in the right environment, to keep on growing and soaking up information. If however their environment lacks the right conditions, they can dry up once again and lose that information. Providing students with a nurturing environment can give unlimited potential to what a student can soak up. In an age where traditional learning is almost obsolete, we must invent new ways for students to learn. We must stimulate their minds so that when they leave the classroom, the knowledge that they have doesn't dry up.

In the article Connectivism: A Learning Theory for the Digital Age, George Siemens makes an especially good point when he says the following, "Learning needs and theories that describe learning principles and processes, should be reflective of underlying social environments." A social environment now a days involves technology which should be directly influencing what students learn in school. They shouldn't be learning a method or way to do something and never be able to use it again. We need to supply our learners with the equipment needed to be successful so they can continue to use these strengths and soak up the world. By equipping students to do this, we are ensuring that they are prepared for higher-level learning as well as being successful in the future. We need to ensure that they will not lose this information and that the half-life of their knowledge will be significantly decreased.

Another quote of George Siemens as stated in his YouTube video entitled The Changing Nature of Knowledge, speaks again to the relevance of technology in the classroom, "Knowledge is really about the distribution that occurs across an entire network." He relates to the fact that knowledge these days isn't just about what an individual learns in class and retains inside his or her own head. It's also about the collectivism and connectivism theory that allows people to join together as a collection of ideas and knowledge and pool what they know with each other. Technology has made this a possibility and a reality. We are able to form a community of learners and share what we know among others. We can retain that information as a sponge does and on top of that, rely on what the professionals or peers in our life know as well and together, we are a bigger sponge.