Reflection Week 4

The lesson in module 4 is essential for me to cultivate skills related to designing a lesson plan in my teaching journey.
One of the lessons that I have gained from my teacher is that when we create a technology-enhanced lesson plan, we should consider an array of factors. It doesn't mean that I add technology in my lesson as much as possible, I should consider other features such as the level of students, the facilities, the learning conditions, the types of classes, and the content of the lesson. Especially for young students, not every application of technology in lessons is effective. For this group of students, teachers need to consider using physical items to help students interact, touch, and observe more. Therefore, teachers need to consider which lesson content requires the application of technology. If teachers do not consider carefully, technology is like a double-edged sword in teaching, negatively affecting students and their thinking.

I personally found this lesson useful for my colleagues and me to consider the use of technology and alternative ways to consider if technology does not work. All members of my group are also integrating technology into their lessons. However, they also see both positive and negative sides of technology application in learning and teaching. Actually, tools like educational games, simulations, and interactive lessons can make learning more engaging. Besides, videos, animations, and other multimedia resources can cater to different learning styles and make complex topics more understandable. And, students can develop essential skills for the modern workplace, including using software, conducting online research, and understanding digital communication. Nevertheless, excessive use of technology can limit students' opportunities to develop interpersonal and social skills. In addition, overreliance on digital communication may affect the development of verbal and non-verbal communication skills.

The integration of technology in education presents both exciting opportunities and significant challenges. It’s essential to balance its use with traditional teaching methods and to address potential downsides proactively. 

Week 3_ Reflection

At this moment, I would like to say that I have been learning plenty of useful information from the course. Module 3 provides me with knowledge related to teaching aural/ oral skills, speaking lesson plans, websites to explore, and social bookmarking. In this journal, I would like to reflect on the lesson that I discussed with my teammates about the "Diigo" tool and share my opinion about this tool. 
When it comes to  "Diigo", this tool has both advantages and disadvantages for users to experience. In terms of advantages, Diigo encourages users to save their favorite links about their work or study. They can take advantage of comments to note down some key point information about the link they have. Besides, this tool is so easy to operate and use with the logical interface; hence people may be confronted with little challenges. On the other hand, there are numerous drawbacks users should take into account before experiencing this. The first negative aspect is the difficulty of signing in. Actually, it requires users a huge amount of time to create a new account with their emails but in the end, it doesn't work. Hence, in order to use ít, they must have an available Google account and sign up again. Another drawback of this is about tags. When the users click on the link, there is nothing appearing in the tag even though the users tag some keywords. Therefore, before using this tool, users should consider both its merits and demerits. From my perspective, I prefer using the bookmark of Google to that of Diigo for two reasons: no requirement for signing in or logging in; just one click to save the link I want. 
Moreover, thanks to my group's discussion, I can explore more valuable links of my classmates that support my learners and my lesson. They have shared with me an array of websites that include games, lesson plans, PowerPoint, and book materials such as Yourhomework tool, Beeclass, etc. I am grateful for their sharing because I think that in the future I can use these and lessen the amount of time to find some games or activities that require me to design on my own. 

I admit that technology plays a crucial role in our lives, especially in education. There are a great number of websites and tools that I have not known yet. It is essential for me to allocate more time to discover them and try to apply them in ELT. 

Don't hesitate to ask me any questions or give me comments. ^^