Happy ending :)

It’s so fast that my first semester in America is over. This 3 months study is so different from my prior experience in Beijing. I had my first blog in this course, and I learned many educational technologies that are very useful and some of them I had even never heard of before.

Trough my own experience during this semester, I found that study initiatively and actively is very significant. Different from Chinese education mode, no one else except yourself push you to learn more. This way of learning gives me more freedom and challenge as well to arrange my own study. I was used to follow the teachers’ direction and just do what they assigned me to do. And gradually I found myself losing interests in learning. However, my study here in IDE program gave me a new concept of learning that I should learn what I have interests in. And the instructor gave students many chances to choose any topic we like.

I’m Very happy to see myself growing up and making improvement during this short period of time. And I look forward the following courses very much.

Thank you Jing for your active participation in every part of our study. And thanks to my classmates that I am very happy studying with all of you.

Q & A on Xiaonei-Renren:

I see some interesting questions from you on Chinese Facebook: Xiaonei-Renren.

The first question is that why the users on Xiaonei network are more responsible than users on Facebook, whether it is because of the cultural difference. First of all, I don’t have much experience on Facebook, so I don’t quite understand why you have negative feeling about it. Then, form my perspective, there are some important reasons besides the cultural influences. The first reason I think is that the foundation of the Xiaonei users is college students who are somewhat in the same “unit”. We have many things in common and concerning about similar topics. And we feel happy to have a place to keep in touch with friends that we have little chance to meet face to face. Another important reason is the government internet control which avoids a lot of topics from the users.(This is also the reason why we can’t access to the Facebook.) Some sensitive topics, such as something about politics and religion, will be monitored and deleted in very short time. Also some bad dirty words will be avoided and deleted soon that we call this phenomenon “harmonizing”(there’s some ironic mood in it sometimes.) Here is a CNN video I’ve seen on Youtube talking about this topic: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qf_xMSrcYKY.

The second question about Xiaonei-Renren is that whether there is the trend of becoming popular for older generation. I do see the expansion of users at different positions and ages. And that is why Xiaonei(on campus) net work changed its name to Renren(everyone) network in 2009. Many people who have graduated from colleges long time ago join into Xiaonei, and some parents of those Xiaonei users are influenced by their kids to create accounts on Xiaonei. However, compared to Facebook, Xiaonei is still not that spread in different groups of people, and it’s still based on the student users. Honestly, I enjoy the condition of Xiaonei now that the majority of the users are students, because it’s like a huge virtual campus that is our students’ unique space.

I’m interested in Facebook very much, and curious about comparing these two similar but cultural different networks. Also, I hope to dig out more educational use of these two social networks in my future experience.

Different Faces on Xiaonei

On Xiaonei, not only individuals have accounts there, but some organizations, such as the Green and Peace Organization, have accounts and their facebook page. Also, some newspapers and magazines opened pages on Xiaonei one after another to express news on their pages. Besides, some famous and successful people in China including educationalist and entrepreneur have facebook page on Xiaonei too. Even Confucius has an account, and all the information in his portfolio is true information about Confucius. On his page there are many articles about Confucius thoughts, and some times he “writes” something in his status to encourage students to study harder in a humorous way. What merits our attention is that many Chinese traditional festivals have accounts in Xiaonei to introduce Chinese traditional culture for the young generations. And I see some of my friends add friends with these festivals. It is prevalent in resent years in China that more and more Chinese young generations are willing to celebrate western festivals like Christmas day, valentine’s day, Halloween and so on, but they know less or even little about many Chinese traditional days. However, Xiaonei provides a platform to spread Chinese culture to young generations in a very popular and funny way that youngsters are fond of.

Xiaonei network is growing and enriching fast recently that I often find something new there which impressed me a lot. I see it has great potential benefit for education.

Learning on Xiaonei—the Chinese “Face Book”

On Xiaonei, there are a lot of different groups which include classmates groups, fans groups and clubs that for the people have the same interests, etc. Taking my own experience as an example, I joined in an English study club on Xiaonei, and there are many English videos, songs and articles updated everyday. And I saw many English movies that recommended by other club members. Sometimes we post and share our interpretations of the lines in the movie, and we learned a lot from each other and also felt fun from this way of study.

Every time when I check my Xiaonei, the things I enjoy most is the sharing of my friends. The sharing includes diary, pictures, video, links, games, etc. Then I can not only have fun with these sharing, but know what my friends are concerning with as well. The idea of the topic “Power Point presentation in elementary teaching” for my IDE courses is got from Xiaonei, because I often see many of my friends who are now working in elementary school in Beijing sharing the videos of how to make good Power Point courseware. And some of them are looking for beautiful Power Point (PPT) background. Then I know that PPT skill is what they are interested in and how to enhance their skill of PPT is a common problem in their elementary instruction. After I decided my project topic, I then ask questions and chat with my friends work in elementary school in Beijing through Xiaonei, in order to get more information about the learners and learning environment, etc.

PS, if you are interested in Xiaonei or in learning Chinese, you can open an account on Xiaonei and see how it is similllar and different compared to your Facebook. The URL: http://www.xiaonei.com/

Introduction: Chinese Face Book -- A Huge Chinese Student Community on the Internet

There is a very popular website used by Chinese people that has very similar frame and format with Face Book. Then I call it Chinese Face Book. However, it is an individual web system which is a little different and separated from the Face Book. The name of this Chinese Face Book is “Xiao nei network” that means “On Campus network”, and it changed into “ren ren network” in August 2009 that means “Everyone network”. This website was first accessed by three universities in China 2005 that are Tsinghua University, Peking University and Renmin University. With the development of this website and fast growing popularity of the users, now, Xiaonei/renren website accesses to 32000 universities in China, 1500 universities in other countries, 56000 middle schools in China and 85000 companies all over the world. It means that you can find out any person who is/was in these schools and companies on this website if he/she is a user of it.

Because of the internet control from the Chinese government, we cannot access to many international websites including Face book, Youtube and so on in China. That’s why although I have had my Xiaonei over 3 years, I knew little about Face book until I came to America. Besides this accessibility problem, there is another reason why we have our own unique “Face book”: the language problem. Although students in my generation started to learn English from more than 10 years ago, English is still a problem for most of the Chinese, because we have little chance to use English in our daily life. Nearly all the channels on TV and radio are in Chinese; the books and newspapers are in Chinese; also, people search for information from Chinese websites.

When I first saw Ryan’s Face book, I felt it’s very interesting that the Face book and Xiaonei are like twins. I can’t help comparing these two networks, and I think my further search and understanding on the educational implication of Xiaonei the same goes for Face book.
The above picture is my Xiaonei. You can see that it’s nearly the same with your Face book. Through Xiaonei network I found many of my classmates in my elementary school and high schools that were out of touch for many years. And now we’ve joined in the same class and group again on Xiaonei. We friends on Xiaonei can see each others’ status, diaries, sharing, photos, etc. Even people who don’t know each other but have the same hobby or interests can join together as a group/club on Xiaonei to share and create what they are interested in.

Next time I will introduce more about what we Chinese students usually do on our Xiaonei, and how it is influence study and education.

Fresh Topic--- Chinese Face Book

Hey, when I was thinking of what to search and write about the new educational technology I chose last week, I suffered a really hard time and my thought stuck in my mind, because I’m really not familiar with that technology. Although it’s a good opportunity for me to get to know more new tools and resources, I believe searching and thinking deeper on the tools and technology that I am familiar with is a better choice. Thus, compared to knowing many instructional technologies superficially, taking full advantages of one specific technology and mastering it will help me better to facilitate my study and future instruction.

Then, I started to think about the tool that I’m very familiar with and have interests in it. Finally, I find the Chinese Face Book to be my new topic, and I really have to thank to Ryan that he showed much interests in my Chinese Face Book and gave me many precious suggestions.

So, in the following posts I will give details why there is a unique Chinese Face Book, what it look like, how it’s functioning in Chinese youngsters’ life, and it’s implications in education.

Open Educational Resources and Tools: ATutor

Hi, I’m sorry for a week’s procrastination on my blog. . This three month life in Syracuse is really special and totally changed my life. Three month ago I lived a very simple life, and I was as simple as a kid. Then so much strong feelings concentrate in this period of time that makes me rapidly grow up. Although I truly wish to be a kid as long as possible, life pushes me to move on. And I’m trying my best to be mature and keep balance of my emotion, study and life. So I need to focus on my study which is the priority in my life now.

I was searching the internet for a long time about the educational technology, and found out that there are so many new technologies very interesting and useful but I’ve never heard of before. I think it’s an excellent way to learn new technologies through searching the information and introducing it. Then at last I decided to introduce the “Open Educational Resources and Tools: ATutor” which attracts my attention.

This time I want to give a brief introduction of ATutor. ATutor is an Open Source Web-based Learning Content Management System (LCMS).ATutor is used in various contexts, including online course management, continuing professional development for teachers, career development, and academic research. (Wikipedia) ATutor is used internationally and has been translated into over fifteen languages with support for over forty additional language modules currently under development. ATutor is a kind of open educational tools that is open to the audience for free.
You can down load the latest ATutor software from here: http://www.atutor.ca/atutor/download.php
And here is a video that you can follow and learn how to use ATutor for setting up a course:

Vlogging: The end is a new beginning

It’s time to say goodbye to vlogging, a very interesting form to show one’s life, and has great potential implications to education. After these weeks searching information of vlogging, I found that vlogging is a really popular and effective way to teach. Some teachers have their own video blog to hold some on line activity and discussion, which attracts students’ attention better then texts and pictures. And I found that video blog is successful in teaching languages, because the learners receive audio, visual and sometimes text information at the same time which help them understand and remember the language in different ways. The importance is that the learners don’t feel boring when they watch the videos rather than texts. Here is a very good vlogging that can give an exact representation of teaching English via video blog. http://hugosite.com/

I promised to learn how to make videos and vlogging at the beginning of holding this topic, but I haven’t successfully created a good one that I feel satisfied to share. Although it’s the end of this topic, it’s a new beginning for me to make endeavor improving my skills of creating good videos. And it’s a pretty good idea to take advantage of videos as an instructional instrument in my study and future career.

In this week’s discussion, we are talking about the Assistive Technology. In fact, after searching the information of AT, I found that Vlogging can also be a kind of AT to help individuals who have disability of deaf. Here is a video blog I found on line for deaf conference. http://2009iadconf.blogspot.com/

University Video Showcase

With the development of the technology and the society, videos become increasingly popular on the internet as a media tool to broadcast news and events instead of texts and audios. People are more attracted and willingly to get information from lively videos.

A great number of universities all over the world provide video showcase on their websites which include university introduction videos, student videos, latest news and lectures, etc. It is a fantastic way allowing people from different places of the world to know about the universities and life there as well. Many top class universities in the world, such as Harvard, Stanford, Yale University, etc. provide videos of lectures and public courses that we can watch and download for free. Students from other universities have a good opportunity to share these information and knowledge without having to take courses in these schools. And click here you can see a website including collections of the video websites from different universities.

Also, here is the Syracuse University Video Showcase website http://video.syr.edu/default.aspx. You can conveniently find enormous interesting videos about Syracuse University. And it’s a very good way for new students and the students who would like to apply for SU to know the university and the culture here. If you are interested in the courses of other program, it’s also easy to search relative lectures there.

So let's enjoy these videos and those free recourses they provide.

Educational Videoblogging

The main areas that educators should focus on when incorporating Vlogging into curriculum is the length of the videos in the videoblog, students’ access to the videoblogs, the students’ differentiated learning styles, the privacy and protection of their students, and the incorporation of diverse perspectives into the content of the videos. (Rebecca Meeder Educational Technology University of Hawai’i at Manoa, 2008)

Firstly, the teachers ask their students to view a video online that they have created usually around five minutes or less. Then they need to make sure that it is available for students to access to in their home and school. Also, Vlogging is an additional way for textual and visual learners to learn. Textual learners can make comments in videoblogs to discuss and comment or critique the video presented on the videoblog. Visual learners have opportunity to get more information in another way besides in-class lecture or textbook.

This week I found a very interesting video blogging website that is for educational use:

Bre Pettis is a former elementary school teacher in Seattle who used videoblogs to create projects with his students as well as share with their parents the different activities they were participating in at school. His videoblog at http://room132.com/ often features videos of himself explaining to the students’ parents about the topics and themes of the current week’s activities. This videoblog provides another way for students to get together to share not only their thoughts but their videos as well. It’s a very interesting and attractive way to stimulus students’ curiosity and participation. I’m enjoy traveling around this vlog and watching these videos very much.

This video tells me …

Video blog is a very lively way to telling stories that can be utilized in education to influence others thoughts, even change one’s philosophy. The more knowledge and experience we have the more incisive we can understand life. How can we gain these knowledge and experience from education? Now videos can become an impressive and valid way to do it.

What is my life for? What is my year- after-year hard studying for? Every time when I feel depressed, frustrated or distressed, I always ask these questions to myself. I believe education should not only educate people to gain knowledge and skills, but guide us to find our purpose of life as well.

Everyone is purchasing a somewhat perfect condition when doing anything, requiring oneself to be perfect and others to be perfect. However, people often feel lost at last, and has a kind of inferiority for a long time because of one’s fair looking(tall or short, big eyes or small eyes), however any reasons, even a teacher’s words. Last week, I saw a video on the net that moved me and inspired me a lot. This man shows an extremely contrast between his strong soul and his appearance to us. I share this very short 4 minutes video here and expect your changing after watching it.

"From having nothing to having everyting, a life moves the whole world" (translation)

The implications of videoblogging for teaching and learning

What are the implications of videoblogging for teaching and learning? How can it be used in education? Also, can vlogging be used for our IDE classes?

During the first week we discussed on the topic of asynchronous communication, which is a commonly used method based on the advanced technologies. Videoblogging is also a kind of asynchronous communication just like text blog and podcasting. Then I think about that whether vlog can be took advantage of for our courses. Take the IDE611 course as an example. Since it is an on-line course, we don’t have opportunity to contact the professor face to face, and we have no chance to know more about our professor’s background and other information except on the orientation, the very beginning of the semester. The only ways we contact each other are via e-mail and blackboard.

What if we incorporate vlogging into our on-line study? For instance, if our teacher can create a vlog which has videos introducing the course and herself posted on it, it would be more attractive and clear for us to understand the course. We can reply to the teacher and other students with video or text too. Vidoeblogs can also be used for personal expression and reflection. As a result, videoblogs are being incorporated into e-portfolios and presentations. Using vlogging for digital story telling may be one way to encourage strong student participation in discussion and e-projects.

Here is an article 7 things you should know about vedioblogging. It gives a clear and brief synthesize of what is vlogging, what are the implications for teaching and learning, etc.

Vlogging: How to have your own vlogging?

When I was a little girl, I dreamed to be a movie star someday. However, the real world sometimes is not as wonderful as my dream, and sometimes it is crutial. I have walked further and further from my actress dream which is already a "mirage" now. But when I go to know video bogging, my mind changed.

When I surf the internet, I can see videos everywhere on different kinds of websites even on the official news websites. The editor of these videos have different kind of occupations. They can be journalists, students, teachers, movie stars and plioticians, etc. Everyone is a protential film director, an actor/actress,and we can tell lively stories via Vlogging.

How to create your own Vlogging? It's not hard to understant the vlogging, and we have seen so many videos created by other vloggers. But it is a question for a new learner. Then, this link will give a good help that illastrate the process step by step: http://www.oreillynet.com/pub/a/oreilly/digitalmedia/2005/07/27/vlog.html

Go here http://freevlog.org/, you can watch wideo tutarials on telling stories , making cideos and publishing videos on the web. This website contains a video which impressed me a lot. This video is about home-birth. The video not only recorded this very valuable moment, also give the mother chances to look back herself at that moment via this lively way.

PS, I am on the way learning how to make vlogging of my own~ Hope my dearm will come true someday in future.

Get to know the Vlogging!

Hi everyone! This is my first post in my first blog. So many amazing things and so many first time things happened during the last weeks. Although there is only one day every week that we have classes in our program, I still feel very busy, for I spent a lot of time adjusting this new city, getting to know people here, attending different seminars and parties. I enjoy the city, the university and the life here so much. How amazing and excited!

Now I need to control my emotion and talk about something about my blog topic “Vlogging”. What is vlogging? The definition from Wikipedia is that Vlogging is the short form of Video Blogging sometimes also called vidblogging. Vlogging is a form of blogging for which the medium is video.

As CNN once published that with the proliferation of devices like the video iPod, the vlog boom is on. (http://money.cnn.com/magazines/business2/business2_archive/2006/05/01/8375939/) Vlogging saw a strong increase in popularity beginning in 2005. More and more people prefer using vlogging to express their ideas and show their life. It totally different and more challenging and attractive than blog and podcasting, for audience can have direct visual impact instead of the simple long article or audio works.An increasing number of vloggers enjoy and share their video on the website such as Yahoo, Youtube and also their own vlogging. That is why these kind of webs are such extremely popular in resent years.

Now, let’s get to know vlogging and the content of vlogging in other people’s eyes . http://www.wired.com/entertainment/music/news/2005/07/68171

Also, enjoy the latest vlogging here. http://www.vlogblog.com/

Although I am still a fresh new blogger, I hope some day I can share my information and happy life with you by videos and become a vlogger. Next time, I will find out how to make a vlogging and share it with you.