The game of Third World Farmer

    I played the game Third World Farmer for about six or seven times. This game is to help players to experience the plight of poor farmers in impoverished countries and how to make life. In the beginning, I failed several times because I made all the family leave the farm to make money and they all died. All the other reasons I failed came to my inappropriate use of the money to plant crops. It is not an easy game because it requires players to have a sense of economy and figure out the best way to make money and run the family’s life.

  

    As a potential ESL teacher, I would use this game for the intermediate level students to learn both language and the culture when they play the game. The vocabulary would be my first learning objective because all the words in the game are in categories and students can learn different words and there is explanation under each word. For example, “a plow greatly increases crop yield” is the explanation for “plow”. This can also function as the hint for the game. The second objective would be the cultivation of cross-culture knowledge and understanding. Many students from the city don’t even know the tools for farm and they cannot imagine how hard life is in the third world. According to theNY standardESL5, students will demonstrate cross-cultural knowledge and sensitivity in communicating with others of varied social, cultural and linguistic backgrounds.

   

    For the assessment, I would have my students to list all the new words they have learned from the game. Since in buying, planting and selling activities during the game, students are familiar with the vocabulary, this listing task according to Kyle Mawer's task types can assess how much my students remember the meaning and use of the vocabulary. That game can also be a culture course because students are immersed in the different culture and simulate authentic life in that culture. For the cultural knowledge objective, I would ask my students to write a journal about their personal feelings or thought about the game and especially about the third world culture. I can assess their cultural awareness by their journals. 

  

ePals

    I was surprised to see that there are so many interesting projects available on ePals, especially for those kids who are in their primary or high school. The Junior Folklorist Challenge, a project in which students can join to display the culture in their community. Participants can choose any form of displaying the traditions they know. This is a super significant way to protect the traditional culture. More importantly, it provides a stage for students to share their videos online. I am also glad to see that there are a lot of Chinese students participating in these activities and they are connected with the world through the four-week folklorist process. Another project in2books, which matches the students with adult eMentors, is also an interesting project in US. Students read books and share ideas about important issues with eMentors via online letters. This project combines adult mentors, motivating curriculum and technology to help students develop reading, writing and communication skills. This reminds me of the interesting notion by John Seely Brown in Siemens’s article Connectivism: A Learning Theory for the Digital Age, “the internet leverages the small efforts of many with the large efforts of few,” which gives an example of elementary school students do better in a mentor program than they do their own parents or teachers.

  

    However, these online resources are not only beneficial for students. Teachers can have multimedia resources and get inspired from these activities to improve their classroom teaching. According to NYLearns standard, these activities meet the standard-ESL2 language for literary response and expression, and standard- ESL4 language for social interaction. In my future class, I would use the feature of connecting the students with the outside world, inspired by the site ePals. My class would be interesting and relaxing. Textbook and teacher are not the only resources for them to learn. I will encourage my students to go outside of the class to learn. Online resources provide such a good opportunity, which can be one of my objectives in the future. 

Flipped Learning Network

    Flipped learning is a totally new notion to me. I have never heard about it before this module. I am very curious about the new item, so I signed up for the site of flipped learning network to explore it. It is a learning community for educators using flipped learning. They can share their videos, discuss topics related to teaching in the forums, and have different members in different groups. Flipped learning is like learning online by watching videos, discussing and solving problems in a more personalized and interactive way, rather than by traditional lecture. In one word, flipped learning network is communication platform for educators using flipped learning.

   

    I might have flipped teaching opportunity this October. This social network site could be very useful for me. I am excited that I have signed up for a site that I will use it in the future!