Electronic Translator November 15, 2008
http://www.flickr.com/photos/tripu/2325013471/
I really like the newer Electronic Translators. They are pretty awesome despite the fact that they are very expensive. The ones I have been looking at come equipped with really elaborate dictionaries. The majority of the ones now also pronounce the words. Some of the more elaborate ones come with speech recognition and tools that can help someone learning Japanese look up translations for the complex writing system, called Kanji. Some also offer quiz tools that can be used to help memorize vocab and the writing symbols.
This would be a really good tool for education because of all of the tools it offers to help reinforce learning a new language. It also is extremely valuable to someone thinking about going to another country.
You can go to this site to learning more about the Japanese to English translators: http://store.aikotradingstore.com/jpndictionary.html
One of the more elaborate ones can be found at this site: http://store.aikotradingstore.com/necawov3.html
Podcast October 25, 2008
My goal for this was to try and find a good Japanese Education podcast. I found quite a few trying to teach only language but the one I found called Learn Japanese with Beb and Alex talked a little more about culture in Japan and the things that people must learn to do to begin to study Japanese. I really liked this one so I listened to a few of the other podcasts after I listened to the first one. They begin to get more elaborate in the later podcasts and start to get into some of the ways you need to practice to improve. I really liked this podcast because it is relatively easy to follow and gets someone who knows nothing about Japanese speaking a little Japanese instantly. A lot of the podcasts were kind of cute and had very cultural interactions that one must learn before traveling to Japan. It doesn’t really talk about any technologies but I would probably use something like this as a supplement to Japanese learned in a classroom because it is kind of “more fun” and applies more to things that one would say in normal conversation. You can check this podcast out at http://japanese.libsyn.com/rss
Graphics October 4, 2008
Here is the picture that we had to edit for EDUC 260. The program I used was Picasa.
For more information on Picasa, go to http://picasa.google.com/
New Technology for My Classroom September 29, 2008
I would really like to be able to use speech recognition technology in my classroom when I become a teacher, because I think that it would be a very good tool to use when learning Japanese. Japanese is a lot different than English, because when speaking Japanese there is a focus on pitch of ones voice where as English focuses on accent and volume. Learning to speak Japanese is difficult if one does not learn how to change the pitch of their voice, this is where the speech recognition tools would help in making someone learning the language sound more like a native. The speech recognition tools are able to help point out and correct any mistakes that are made and lets the person practicing with it know what they need to improve on.
To learn more about this technology go to: http://www.software.com/view/8902/80/tell-me-more-japanese-box-beginner-intermediate-advanced-/
RSS Reader September 21, 2008
RSS Readers are very useful for many things, especially in education. The RSS can hold many different websites and information all in one place so it makes finding the information easy because it is all on the same site. It also updates very frequently so the information stays current. I am using the Google Reader. I subscribed to the following blogs:
http://parsellv.wordpress.com/
http://bethrichards1.wordpress.com/
http://johnstonv.wordpress.com/
Prominent People in Educational Technology September 14, 2008
http://alvintrusty.wordpress.com/2008/09/09/who-is-important-here/
Here are three prominent people in the field of Educational Technology:
Tim Berners-Lee -Inventor of the Internet. The Internet has been an important tool that is used to find unlimited information in a flash. The Internet has made researching information so much easier because all of the information can be found quicker than if one went to the library to look for the same thing.
Blaise Pascal- The inventor of the mechanical calculator. It made adding numbers easier and more effiecient.
Ray Tomlinson- The inventor of email. I guess that email may not be considered to be a really important educational technology but it is certainly a convenience in keeping communication between teachers and students. It can be used not only as a communication but also to share resources and information.
