IN-CLASS TASK 6: HYPERTEXT AND HYPERMEDIA

CAT BREEDS

Over the last thousands of years, cats have pretty much handled their breeding themselves. In the beginning, they were used for one purpose – hunting and killing rodents. As the years progressed, we began to breed cats more to our liking. Nowadays, there are several different breeds of cats – which you can tell if you look closely.

There are some cat breeds that have roots going back quite a bit in history. Some Japanese breeds, such as the Japanese Bobtail, can be traced back more than 1,000 years in history. These cats were very common and well known throughout Medieval Japan. Now days though, they are all but a myth throughout Japan and the entire world.

The more common cat breeds that are found in North America include the alley cat, long haired cat, and Persian cat. Siamese cats are also common, although they are well known to be destructive and to have a foul temper. Persian cats are very popular, proving to be loving companions. Persian cats can be very expense, depending on where you get it and what type of Persian cat it is.

Alley cats are the most common in North America. There are actually several different breeds, although most of us just refer to them as alley cats. They make good pets, although there are literally thousands of them in existence. Cats are known to breed more than any other pet, and they will continue to breed until they are stopped. Alley cats are among the most bred, as there are hundreds of thousands of cats that are homeless – and have nothing to do but breed.

The look of the cat is the easiest way to tell what breed he or she may be. Some people choose to go by color, although color isn’t as easy to identify. Different breeds of cats have different looks, such as the Siamese and Persian cats. Siamese cats are almost always black, and easy to identify by their color and their eyes. Persian cats on the other hand, are easily identified by their body type and their hair.

Over the years, there has been quite a few breeds come along. Cats were one of the first pets, and easily one of the most popular. Millions of people around the world own cats, with many people preferring a cat over any other pet – including dogs. No matter breed of cat you get – you’re sure to get a pet that make for a great companion for years and years to come.

CALL Article Review

A. The Article

a. Title: Teaching EFL to the iGeneration: A Survey of Using YouTube as Supplementary Material with College EFL Students in Taiwan

b. Journal: Computer Assisted Language Learning - Electronic Journal/ CALL-EJ Online, Vol. 10, No. 2, February 2009.

c. Author’s Information: Brent Kelsen, bkelsen@hotmail.com, a former Lecturer at the International Language and Cultural Center at Yuan Ze University, Taiwan - interested in student motivation, the use of technology in education, collaborative learning and second language writing.

Link:http://callej.org/journal/10-2/kelsen.html
The article or research paper is basically about an exploration of the benefits of using YouTube as part of supporting materials for EFL students in Taiwan. It mainly discusses on how learners can utilize the technology to improve their language learning inside and outside the ESL classroom.

B. Summary of the Article

i) The aim of the research:

The aim of this research was actually to explore the advantages of YouTube as online authentic materials, in supplementing the regular staffs and resources available for students in EFL classroom. The benefits would merely be focused on the students; where the researcher was interested to discover what have motivated the EFL students to study English by using YouTube and at the same time studied how the technology helped them improved their English. The scope of measurement would “gauge the students’ perceptions of using YouTube as a supplement to the regular class materials with regard to five aspects: i) making classes more interesting, ii) being relevant to course materials, iii) being beneficial to language learning, iv) motivating students to learn in class, and iv) motivating students to use the material to learn English outside of class.” (Kelsen, B., 2009)

ii) The methodology:

In order to gather valid data(s) for the research, Brent Kelsen had conducted surveys on EFL students from two conversation classes in a private university in northern Taiwan, on the first and last day of the conversation class of the Fall semester in year 2007. The procedures of the surveys considered the use of 2 sets of questionnaire; one was distributed on the first day of the class while another was distributed on the last day of the class, the use of same textbook and materials in both classes, and lastly the use of a number of video clips from YouTube website that related to certain topic selected from their textbook.

iii) The subject/ sample:

The students who participated in the study were ranged from 19 to 21 years of age and came from two sophomore conversation classes that consisted of 31 and 38 students, respectively and all together would be 69 students. From the biggest number of the sample, 52 of them were male while another 13 were female. All of the students “were chemistry majors from the Department of Chemical Engineering and Materials Science and their mother tongue was Mandarin”.

iv) The findings of the research:

First Day of Semester Survey

In general, almost all students from the two conversation classes found that they had accessed to computers outside the classroom and used to YouTube website before. Besides that, the students were also likely to respond that they were accessing to YouTube website for entertainment rather than for the purpose of education or learning English.

Last Day of Semester Survey

The result on the final day of the study showed that the number of students who accessed to computers outside the classroom and used to YouTube website before had increased for both male and female students. Similarly, majority of the respondents also agreed that accessing to YouTube website was actually an interesting, relevant and beneficial activity to their English learning process. However, least respondents agreed that using YouTube materials would be motivating for the learning process within and outside of the classroom. In a nutshell, the students mostly gave positive comments regarding the use of YouTube website in their EFL classroom and agreed that the technology has helped them learn English in a more natural and fun way where they would have much opportunity to experience self-directed learning rather than depending more on teacher-centered type of learning.

v) Conclusion:

As conclusion, from the overall results of the surveys, it could be hypothesized that YouTube website is totally helpful to be used as authentic material input and as a motivational tool for EFL students in learning the language. However, the learning process will be more meaningful and effective if teachers and students can collaborate or involve together in utilizing the online materials in more creative ways that would enhance the learning outcomes as well as provide a positive classroom environment.

C. Personal Reflection

The research has totally captured my interest since I am quite used to the YouTube website, especially for entertainment, educational, and informative purposes. Honestly, these online materials are very interesting and beneficial not only to ESL/EFL students but also to the teachers. The visitors of the website just need to type any topics or key words that related to their interest on the spaces provided and the website will provide the video clips in second. For instances, students can search about accurate English pronunciation or English grammar there and tens of result will appear. Same goes to the teachers where as language instructor, they can utilize the materials in many ways such as an alternative for students’ learning staffs, or as other choices of effective teaching methods to students. To illustrate, when I did my practicum before, I found that YouTube website was really helpful in providing the essential video clips that related to the learning syllabus, especially when it came to the literature lesson and the students loved them so MUCH!

Personally, I would like to voice out my opinion that the research was well conducted after I have gone through its report thoroughly. The researcher has came out with clear objectives or purposes for the research that helped audience to comprehend it clearly. Furthermore, conducting a research is not an easy task but the researcher managed to build a systematic research method that not merely depended on questionnaires but also considered the integration of the YouTube website itself as supplementary materials during the English lessons throughout the semester, of which would lead to valid findings as the study consumed a range of time; from the first day of the conversation class until the last day. However, perhaps this research can be improved in future such as through conducting test for the respondents in order to discover how much the online materials has helped them improve their English language.

This research somehow can lead to a vast changing to the use of online materials in assisting the teaching and learning process of ESL in this country in future. It is undeniable that many teachers already integrated the technology in their ESL classroom but still many would leave behind and they really need extra exposure to the effective use of this technology so that they can utilize it to the maximum. But still, teachers play important role here because a good classroom environment exists when there are feedbacks and guidance from teachers during the learning process.

As suggestion, YouTube website does not only serve as supplementary materials for students and teachers but it also leads students and teachers to get involve in cyberspace where communication over networks occur; of which can encourage the learners to participate in conversation with people all over the world, express and exchanging their ideas, share their thoughts and concerns, as well as getting valuable feedbacks and opinions from others that will benefit them from numerous aspects.

In-Class Assignment

Hot Potatoes...all that I can say about this application is that it actually so so so 'HOT' as its name. Well, I am quite surprised and impressed at the first stage when I realized that there is such application for language activities. Sometimes I also wonder how people create such tool..and I believed that there would be more interesting and wonderful applications for creating language learning materials and activities, but to make thing simple, just let it be to those who are computer geeks because they are always great at designing IT applications.

Each application (or anything that is created by human) actually has its own pros and cons. After few weeks exploring into this quite famous application where I have learned on how to use J-Cloze, J-Match, and J-Mix; I finally found that it is very useful, helpful, multi-functional, creative, interesting, fun, and flexible. For examples, I just need to type the text(s) at the spaces provided and the application will do the rest such as jumble up the texts or rearrange the texts in non-sequencing order. Furthermore, this application also can be designed with various colours, animation, wonderful backgrounds and so forth. However, despite of its undeniable strengths, Hot Potatoes application also got its own weaknesses. First, for illiterate computer user like me..I would like to say that this application is quite complicated to be used and if I were to be good at it I need to call a personal mentor or instructor who can teach me slowly step by step on how to make use of it or otherwise I would rather suggest to use simple worksheet rather than got headache with it. Second, it is less user-friendly. What I mean by less user-friendly here is that this application actually easy for designing learning materials but the processes required are a little bit tricky, especially when it comes to publish the materials on the web. For instances, those who want to use this application should be among the people who are so patient (unless if the person is computer geek) because they have to always use trial-and-error method until the materials are successful published on the web; because if there is certain mistake occurs at the setting then the materials might not work properly or it may cannot be used at all.

Above all, still this application brings many advantageous than its disadvantageous. I think I may use this application as part of alternatives to design learning materials for my future students later on, Insya'Allah...

In-Class Task 5

1) USING THE RIGHT WORD IN THE RIGHT PLACE

http://www.mediafire.com/file/fnb38v1afm9468h/J-Match%20New%202.htm