MERLOT

As part of CEP 811, I learned how to use MERLOT, a teacher's resource repository. The assignment was to find and evaluate a teaching material. The material I chose to evaluate was eslnotes.com a website which provides English learning movie guides. I evaluated the material using the exact same criteria MERLOT itself uses.

Quality of Content:

1. Does the software present valid (correct) concepts, models, and skills?

The website presents accurate character synopsis, word definitions, and plot summaries. The material is scaffolded well with the generalized explanations first, followed by word definitions and discussion questions.

2. Does the software present educationally significant concepts, models, and skills for the discipline?

The website and guides are mainly resources. They don’t do much in the way of teaching concepts, modeling behavior or demonstrating skills. The instructor is given some ideas for how to use the guides, but how to use them is ultimately left to the instructor’s discretion.

Potential Effectiveness as a Teaching-Learning Tool:

1. What stage(s) in the learning process/cycle could the materials be used at?

The guides could be used at any stage in the learning process. They could be used to introduce vocabulary or for a pre-writing/speaking/listening/reading activity. They could also be used to practice listening or for discussion questions after having listened. The use of the materials would depend on the teacher’s objectives.

2. What is(are) the learning objective(s)? What should students be able to do after successfully learning with the materials?

The stated learning objectives are for students to become familiar with American culture, practice their listening skills, and improve their vocabulary.

3. What are the characteristics of the target learner(s)

The target learner enjoys watching movies, is interested in improving their English listening skills, and wants to improve their vocabulary. The target learner’s level of English will depend on the movie, but, with subtitles, these lessons would be best suited to an Intermediate or above level student.

4. Does the interactive/media-rich presentation of material improve faculty and students' abilities to teach and learn the materials?

I’m not sure which aspect this addresses. The website itself is not particularly helpful or engaging. The guides, however, are highly interactive and the use of movies is media-rich. It helps learning and teaching because watching and discussing movies are generally enjoyable for both students and teachers. In addition, the use of context is incredibly helpful in learning new vocabulary.

5. Can the use of the software be readily integrated into current curriculum and pedagogy within the discipline?

To be honest, this would be difficult to work into the curriculum at our school unless it is used as a warmer for a specific topic. We already have specific listenings for our listening classes. I would most likely recommend this to students who wanted to do self-study.  This could easily be worked into a less strict curriculum however as it easily meets learning needs.

6. Can the software be used in a variety of ways to achieve teaching and learning goals?

The movie guides can easily be used in variety of ways.  I’ve already touched upon this above.

7. Are the teaching-learning goals easy to identify?

The main goals of the website seem to be to improve student listening and vocabulary although it is very clear that the materials can be easily adapted to meet other learning goals such as discussion or introduction to American culture.

8. Can good learning assignments for using the software application be written easily?

I think good learning assignments could be written very easily. If it were to use this, I would post the relevant section of the guide along with a clip of the movie and comprehension or discussion questions on Moodle and leave it as homework. Conversely, this could be watched in the class with the same general arrangement.

Ease of Use:

1. Are the labels, buttons, menus, text, and general layout of the computer interface consistent and visually distinct?

The general layout of the computer interface is consistent. It’s not particularly engaging, but it’s simple to use.

2. Does the user get trapped in the material?

The user would be hard pressed to get trapped in the website. There are only about eight pages, and there are buttons to access each of the pages at the top of the website and links at the bottom.

3. Can the user get lost easily in the material?

Some of the text is very dense although most of it is anecdotes which makes it more accessible. My main complaint would be that the text is very small and therefore hard to read.

4. Does the module provide feedback about the system status and the user's responses?

No. The module is not designed to give feedback. It only gives information and prompts discussion.

5. Does the module provide appropriate flexibility in its use?

The guides provide as much flexibility as possible in that the teacher can choose how to use them. Alone, the guides are little more than dense resources. The teacher ought to tailor them to fit the needs of a lesson or class.

6. Does the learning material require a lot of documentation, technical support, and/or instruction for most students to successfully use the software?

The learning materials could easily be used by a student with little or no instruction.  However, the student would have to be quite self-motivated and capable of deciding what material from the guides is most useful to them. I would suggest instead having the teacher choose the most appropriate part of the guides to give to students.

7. Does the material present information in ways that are familiar for students?

The way of presenting information (a plot synopsis, description of characters, vocabulary list with definitions and example sentences, and discussion questions) ought to be familiar to most students.

8. Does the material present information in ways that would be attractive to students?

The use of movies is almost always attractive to students.  In addition, they enjoy learning informal English vocabulary. Lastly, discussion             questions are engaging because they encourage higher thinking and can be related to the

Reflection on CEP 810

To say that one class changed your life is a bit hyperbolic. That said, my teaching has changed dramatically since I started CEP 810. I feel like I’ve learned so much, and I’d love to integrate all of it into my classroom. However, what I’ve learned is that effective technology integration requires a lot of time. The steps I’ve learned to use are:
(1) Identify a need
(2) Find potential technologies
(3) Evaluate them based on cost, effectiveness, and suitability for setting
(4) Make a plan of implementation
(5) Test it, test it, test it, then test it again
(6) Implement
The most important thing I’ve learned, however, is not to implement technology if it doesn’t fit a need. Using technology for the sake of using it is often ineffective and frustrating for both the teacher and student.

The Internet is a great help in finding and evaluating potential technologies. Through resources such as MACUL, MERLOT, and my classmates, I was able to discover new technologies and get recommendations on which ones to use and how to use them. In addition, the Internet was incredibly useful for trouble-shooting. Whenever I had a problem, I just googled “technology x not doing y” and was able to find the answer almost immediately. Perhaps the only difficult part was then having to sift through the wealth of information to find the best answer. One thing that will definitely be necessary to teach students is how to evaluate the validity of websites.

Of all the assignments I completed in CEP 810, I liked the personal technology plan the best because it forced us to reflect back on what we’d accomplished in the class. It was a great way of bringing together all the lessons that we’d been working on over the courses of the session including having us use technology to develop the plan. In addition, the plan made us set concrete goals for the future. At first, I felt nervous about setting goals because then I’d feel responsible for accomplishing them, which I realized was the point. Thus, I thought this assignment really exemplifies good teaching with technology because it helped the students to draw together all of the things they’d learned and to look towards the future.

In my Personal Growth Plan, I had three goals:
(1) to usefully integrate technology
(2) that I was specifically interested in educational video games
(3) that I wanted to help my coworkers learn more about technology.

Since then, I have found several ways of integrating technology including Jing tutorials, Voicethread and Voxopop for speaking classes, Prezis, and Delicious bookmarking for keeping track of research.

My most interesting goal, at least to me, was to learn more about educational video games. Coincidently, one of my boss’s friends came to visit our school and mentioned that he had just such a game. We’ve kept in touch, and he’s offered to give me a copy of his video game to adapt and develop on. This was the one goal I didn’t expect to fill but am very excited about.

My final goal has been hit-and-miss. Some people at my job are very excited about technology and we’re working together to integrate it into our classes. Others are less interested, but more and more they’re willing to listen to new ideas. In addition, I’ve been making Jing tutorials for anyone who asks how I do something on Moodle.

I now have some new goals including using QR codes more frequently and going paperless. I’m currently working towards going paperless by uploading all my worksheets to Moodle. I’m also doing more research on how other teachers are using QR codes to get ideas on how to use them most effectively. My long term goal is to graduate with an MAET which I’ll working towards by taking CEP 811 next month.

In short, this class has helped me to develop my technology skills, reach goals I had set for myself, and show me how to continue developing and attaining my goals. Thanks again to my teacher, Sue!!