Technology Project Handout

Technology Project Title: EFL Vocabulary Building

Your Name: Silvia Vaccino-Salvadore

Your Email Address: tsxt@iup.edu

Date: June 23, 2015

Technology Project Web Address: http://silviavaccino.wix.com/svs808#!vocabulary-for-you/c129a

Technology Project Overview: Generally, English language learners are aware of the important role vocabulary knowledge has in learning to understand and communicate effectively in an additional language (L2). However, many instructors do not explicitly engage in vocabulary instruction. This tends to be a problem especially in locations where English is taught as a foreign language. In these educational contexts, students have limited exposure to English outside the classroom setting. Therefore, the lack of explicit vocabulary teaching and learning can have direct academic implications. For this reason, I have tried to aggregate some strategies that instructors can use in and outside of the classroom to develop their students’ vocabulary.

Technology Project Audience: This project is intended for EFL instructors who do not intentionally teach vocabulary as part of their curriculum.

List Key Features of the Technology Project: Background information, vocabulary teaching tools, WikiWordQ8, and References

3 Primary References:

Min, Y.K. (2013). Vocabulary acquisition: Practical strategies for ESL students. Journal of International Students, 3(1), 64–69.

Nation, I. S. P. (2001). Learning vocabulary in another language. Cambridge, England: Cambridge University Press.

Yang, W., & Dai, W. (2011). Rote Memorization of Vocabulary and Vocabulary Development. English Language Teaching, 4(4), 61–64.

Literacy

Traditionally, and perhaps many people nowadays, view literacy as the ability to read and write. However, literacy also suggests how and why this skill is used by individuals in a society. Literacy, or literacies as Gee points out (1996), carries with it an ideological stance, a cultural and social component. Being literate then not only means one can read and write in their language, but understanding that literacy controls how one reads and writes because of the ideological implications involved. Literacy is empowering. It provides the means to an end, whatever goal the "literate" person may aim at. This is why it is important to understand local literacy practices before other literacy development programs can be developed and implemented, as Street (??) suggests in his introduction. Teachers need to learn to appreciate local literacy practices, and they need to truly listen and understand their students' needs before blindly imposing a literacy development program that does not benefit their students. 

Going Tech Free for a Day

On Wednesday I decided that Thursday would be my Tech Free Day. To prepare for this momentous day, I decided to place my cell phones, yes I have two cell phones, in the living room as opposed to keeping them on my bedside table. I went to bed and was determined not to use technology of any sort. That determination faltered the minute my 2 year-old woke me up at 5:30am, gently requesting his bottle of milk. How did I know it was 5:30? Well as soon as I stepped foot in the kitchen, the green flashing light on the microwave told me so. To warm up his bottle, I used the microwave, fabulous time-saver piece of technology. As I was walking up the stairs towards my son's bedroom, bottle in hand, I saw my phones on the table. They looked lonely, and so I decided to pick them up and check my messages, Facebook entries, and the weather. I am obsessed about the weather. So, although I had been determined to go Tech-free, I failed miserably. The pull of technology was to much and I succumbed to it. There was one time I managed to go tech-free for one full day. Mind you, it was by force, not by choice. A few years ago, I visited a remote village in Sicily. It was a quaint little town. Absolutely adorable. BUT there was no internet or satellite connection. I could not use my phone to read emails, to navigate the net, or make phone calls. The first day was brutal. I was going through, I am certain, some kind of withdrawal. I was anxious, jittery, and felt like a part of me was missing. I started cursing that small Sicilian town. How can anyplace nowadays not "be connected"? I felt utterly annoyed. The following day, things were better. Perhaps because I got distracted by our trip's itinerary: exceptional food, gorgeous places to visit, warm people to meet. Of course, I had my digital camera with me. So, yet again, I was not completely tech-free. Can we really go tech-free? Those of us who use technology on a daily basis, whether it is our phone, our TV, our iPad, may find it next to impossible to go without them. What would be the consequences? We would definitely have more time. What we do with that time is up to us. 

The Time Machine

• Primary Blog Question
  • When compared, the two film clips help illuminate a key question for this course: How has our relationship to technology changed over time?
    
    
    I feel that our relationship to technology nowadays is a very dependent one. Many of us use technology every day, and we would be hard pressed trying to stay a few hours let alone an entire day without using some form of technology. The first movie presented technology as the pursuit of scientific invention for the sake of science, to understand how the fourth dimension, time, can be manipulated and perhaps to study its effects. The inventor of the time machine in this movie did not spend anytime pondering on the business side of his invention, which made his friends wonder why would he have invented "such a contraption" in the first place. Similarly, the inventor of the time machine in the second movie did not contemplate using his invention as a product to sell; however, in contract to the first movie, this inventor had a very personal goal to reach with his time machine. So, not science for science's sake, but for personal gain. 
    
    
     
• Secondary Blog Questions
  • How has film technology changed?
  • How have we changed as film viewers?
  • How has our understanding of time evolved?
  • How does fiction/science fiction impact our relationship to technology?
    
    
    Clearly, the use of CGI has drastically changed our vision of what special effects are. When we watch movies released in the 50s or 60s, we tend to be somewhat disappointed or perhaps amused at how film makers were able to produce special effects on camera. Today, we expect special effects to seem as real as we would imagine those effects to be were they a reality. Indeed, this causes us to desire more and more from the tech "gadgets" we possess. 
    
    
    
    
     

First Post

Hi. This is my first entry in the blog world. Very excited!