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For me, it started with some initial ideas from David Orr's book Ecological Literacy, and along with it the argument in his other book Earth in Mind: that all education is environmental education, and the purpose thereof is to increase ecological literacy. What this article sets out to do is to provide a more general understanding of what ecological literacy is (a blend between ecological thinking and environmental literacy). Learning appears in a fusion between three big learning domains: behavioural, affective and cognitive learning, and such a learner is called an authentic learner. An authentic learner is one who "can not only identify relevant dilemmas but also appreciate how their understanding of a scientific concept can influence their decision. The difficult fulfilment of students who face today's education is the highly fragmented status of disciplinary studies (the so-called academia). Ecological literacy sets out not only to introduce students to ecological concepts, but to push them so far as to recognise their place within the current ecosystem. Ecological Misconception Ecology is a strictly inter-disciplinary field of study, which draws concepts from Biology, Physics, Chemistry, Geology. Misconception appears when there is a misconnection between the seemingly holistic view of the general concepts, or a failure to express the necessary link between related concepts. Where does writing come in? Writing, according to the authors, is a reflective process. Students are first introduced to the concepts relevant to an ecological discussion. They are then asked to write three iteration essays to demonstrate their understanding along with their ability to make connections within the given concepts. Since it is important that students go through an extensive study just to recognise their place within the current ecosystem, personal reflection through writing is an essential tool not only to "show", but to connect, and make connections (writing discou

This article is stresses the importance of the cultural component as a part of language learning rather than subordinate to it. It separates "cultural awareness" from "intercultural capability" in which the later is understood as "engaging learners in developing the capability to exchange meaning in communication with people across languages and cultures". Then the article goes on to give an ambiguous solution to revising L2 learning assessment. The article is short but it offers good insight to that fact that schools assess language as merely a descriptive code.

This article is specifically designated for instructing learners of secondary language acquisition. There are many helpful ideas, recommendations, phonetic charts, and pronunciation exercises. This article is also brief, concise, and coherent; and can be applied to secondary learning acquisitive environments. If the learner is experiencing difficulty in certain places of articulation such as: labial, labial dental, velar, glottal, palatal etc. there are a number of references at the bottom that can assist in strengthening the learners' place and manner of articulation (pronunciation). Since some foreigners have native tongues coming form polysynthetic, formative, and/or analytical languages, learning an agglutinative language (English) can be not difficult, but very different for them. Learning grammar if essential, but unified verbalization is just as crucial. This article is most certainly benefit anyone in the SLC or ESL workshop; and honestly will help the instructor with certain obstructive literary shortcomings and/or frustrations hat students may have. So check it out if you're in a secondary learning acquisition environment!

Yes, but it's not about writing--about pronunciation . . .

Luberda's essay is a preliminary overview of his experiment in applying cognitive science to writing. Luberda suggests that the most applicable elements of cognitive science for teaching writing and composition come from linguistics. He also suggests that in teaching writing and literature, students may be accustomed to learning terms, dates, facts, and test-taking, while others receive a vague understanding of literature. In light of the teaching structures he used, the writing and analytical skills the students acquired were independent of the literature in their course. In using the cognitive approach, Luberda structured writing and literature courses within the context of differentiating relations between language change and writing acquisition. In reading the positive results of Luberda's experiment, I noticed a few implications for teaching writing. One advantage of applying linguisitics and the cognitive approach is that students learn why they write the way they do and raises awareness to the writing structures they use. The other advantage is the ability for students to "say what I mean" and incorporate accuracy in their writing when communicating meaning. This would mean that even when students are intentionally manipulating writing structures within various genres, they are learning to communicate "what I mean" without being submissive to directness. There was one negative result of the experiment where a student stated "I don't believe this course has helped me improve my writing skills. In high school I was taught how to write analyze books and then write papers about them using solid grammar, intense vocab, thesis statement and a well thought out conclusion. I do not believe I learned how to improve my papers. I am still on the same level of writing as I was in high school." I find this to be interesting in relation to teaching writing because it suggests that cognitively, we strive to use writing structures differently or advance our writing by chan

Profess Groff, at MIT, took on the topic of classroom technology and the classroom environment. It is an older article, but she looked at the integration into the learning processes of student and the ways to judge a successful device in the learning process. One point, is that instructors need to assess the effects of a device early-on, so that an effective integration plan could be implemented before the likelihood of it hindering the learning process. I would agree that in the past this was a simple solution even though there seemed to be a lag in the educational system to integrate these devices. Now, however, the rate of development of new devices seems to be making the lag even more of an issue. The end of the article details the main obstacles to learning, the classroom and new technology in the classroom; and they mostly relate to the teacher. Students have no problem keeping up with the newest device available. This then brings me back to the idea that an effect plan in the school and teacher training needs to be employed.

This is an hour long lecture by the same guy (Dr. Wesch) who did the short video "A Vision of Students Today" that we watched in class at the beginning of the semester. This video goes more in depth about the issues presented in the short video. He discusses how the way most college classes are set up (i.e. lecture-based classes) do not encourage learning. He talks about how we can create a community of learning by incorporating different types of media like Google Docs, Twitter, Diigo, etc. to get students engaged with each other and what they're learning. This is a great video, but I warn you: Dr. Wesch likes to pace around in the same area when he lectures. This may not bother everyone, but it was distracting to me because he never holds still.

I posted an article earlier about WebQuest, but this article goes more in depth about what WebQuest is and how a web-based teaching method can promote learning. Not only do students work by themselves but sometimes they collaborate in groups, WebQuest also provides a fun way to get students involved and thinking. What I really liked about this article is that towards the end the authors also address the challenges in having a web-based method of teaching. This article is really well thought out and covers a lot of ground in good detail.

This video talks about the growing gap between technology use outside of the classroom and inside the classroom. The video brings up a number of interesting ideas in regards to implementing web 2.0 in the classroom, and what needs to be done to facilitate the pedagogical need for web 2.0. Web 2.0 can allow for the "personalization of learning," letting students adapt technology to their particular individual learning needs. Learning has been largely individualized and web 2.0 allows for a more communal approach to the learning process.

The title of the article, Understanding the College First-year Experience, basically explains the focus of the article. Kirk Kidwell summarizes the typical first year development of a freshman student as a time of purgatory. Successful students are able to go through four phases; dualism, multiplicity, relativism, and commitment to relativism. Through the phases, students lean to change from a passive style of learning to an active style of learning, as well as learn the "game: of college academia. In the game of college writing, Kidwell believes if students pass through the "academic hazing" or purgatory of the first year, they will learn the following two lessons. First, "College is not high school; one cannot just coast through" (Kidwell 253). Second, "The successful college student takes responsibility for his or her education" (Kidwell 254). These lessons are a good idea, but I feel they are too simple. Of course college is not high school. Stating such an obvious observation seems condescending towards freshmen students, regardless if they do or do not realize the fact. Also, the article summarizes the first year well, but it leaves out the more intricate parts of changing the issues freshmen students face. The missing issues include; how can teachers make the freshmen year less of a purgatory, is it possible to prepare high school students better through a change of curriculum, how do we help students to stay in college instead of dropping out, and how can we create awareness of college "is not high school"? These are crucial points that are completely missing from the article, thus the article is better for a basic understanding of what freshmen endure their first year of college.

For the past few weeks in this class I have generated all of my focus on the identity of the students in Enlish 30 workshops. After reading the article, "Exploring teacher-writer identities in the classroom: Conceptualising the struggle" I a new question has stemmed: how do teacher's identity as writers affect students' progress in academic progress? Authors, Teresa Cremin and Sally Baker from the Department of Education of The Open University suggest "that teachers' development as writers has the potential to enrich writing pedagogy and impact positively on young writers." The idea of teachers writing alongside their students is in my opinion highly valuable because students and teachers have the opportunity to experience the writing process together. In previous articles I have read that relatability between students and instructor are essential to the learning environment. If instructors are constantly writing alongside their students trying to establish/re-establish their identity in academic writing, students can learn easily learn how to do the same through "shared challenges" (9). While English 431 students cannot use this strategy because members of their English 30 workshops come from different sections of English 130 we can attempt to produce similar assignments alongside our students. For example, inquiry assignments are a common goal in most English 130 classes. Similarly, English 431 students must write an inquiry essay. English 431 students could incorporate their progress into the workshop by showing the English 30 students what they have done so far, why they are asking certain questions, how they did something, etc.

Best tools and reflections to introduce creative and collaborative learning in our lessons... especially in ESL. Super cool website I found just "surfing" the web and I think it could be of some use to students interested in fun, creative ways to learn as well as ESL!! This is like a board where interesting articles related to innovative education are posted! Enjoy!!!

This article is about using ellipsis in writing and in creativity in classrooms and books. They start out with how it can leave an audience hanging or getting them to think cognitively about what is being asked on a certain thought. This is in opposition to the traditional teaching methods of lecturing and providing answers to facts. This also helps promote creativity in student and teacher learning in classrooms. The teacher can then also help promote scaffolding the students to the main topic. Using this style helps students to think about why and how they learn and write. The best thing that I got out of this was how this gets students involved personally in learning and helps students participate in classrooms and writing.

Ellipsis defined how?

Cheryl Hogue Smith explores the assumption that basic writers do not have the necessary critical thinking skills needed for college courses. She argues that they do; they just don't know how to control and organize their thinking onto paper. She examines the two different goals that students have in regard to the approach they take for learning. Ultimately, Smith concludes that basic writing students have the thinking skills needed, they just need to be taught how to harness those skills and be metacognitive. I found this article to be very interesting because Smith was able to get to the actual root of the problem and explain why basic writers are basic writers. I really appreciated the explanation of the difference between the two goals--"learning goals" and "performance goals." I believe that if a teacher can grasp this concept and utilize it in the classroom to assist the "performance goal" oriented students to become "learning goal" oriented, I think that the students will benefit a great deal and become much better at taking their thoughts and putting them on paper. Additionally, I loved the "Revision and Metacognition" and "Steven and Charlotte: Evidence of Metacognitive Revision" sections! I think this way of revising is a great way to help develop a students critical thinking skills in regard to how they present their thoughts onto paper.

Apparently the link on this isn't working. Here it is again, I hope it works: http://ehis.ebscohost.com.mantis.csuchico.edu/eds/pdfviewer/pdfviewer?vid=2&hid=20&sid=fbc21340-0df1-41b8-934a-01f3805e708d%40sessionmgr15

This article provides information on the use of WebQuests (a web-based program to help students learn in a variety of subjects) in the classroom. The authors determined that literacy should also encompass digital literacy since the job of a teacher is to teach and prepare the students for a successful and productive life. I was interested in this article because my paper is about using web-based media in the classroom, and while this article certainly covers that, there is a strong focus on students who are learning English. The article states that WebQuests make it easier for students learning English because these programs provide visuals and require participation because they're interactive.

I have already posted a Extra Credits video but I have to be completely honest: I feel the show is a goldmine for the potential topic that I'm looking at. While my other video discussed the basic concept of Gamification, this video explores the application of gamification to education specifically. Honestly, it may be a better idea for me to just lump all of Extra Credits together and simply refer to each video as its topic comes up. This is especially important because Extra Credits also has the following topics: Tutorials (http://penny-arcade.com/patv/episode/tutorials-101): This would tie in well with the "Rigid Rules" article from our text. Education does not necessarily have a clear "tutorial phase" especially for certain topics. Tangential Learning (http://penny-arcade.com/patv/episode/tangential-learning): This is a very important topic because it essentially explains the wikipedia effect. Learning about one topic can lead to an interest in another and someone who started on prominent war battles could eventually end up on the page for horse breeding. Enriching lives (http://penny-arcade.com/patv/episode/enriching-lives): Which does not focus on either topic specifically but focuses on the way

Patrick Hartwell discusses the value of teaching formal grammar by reviewing its history as a fundamental building block to the development of good writing. By determining a set of definitions for grammar Hartwell shows that the process of absorbing correct grammar usage occurs within native speakers naturally by exposure to the language; even young children are able to use complex grammatical structures with skill. Yet when sorted through the scientific lens and broken down into categories and labels the study of grammar cannot explain how learning the component rules of language will prove valuable to overall writing ability. Instead Hartwell suggests and I agree that "one learns to control the language of print by manipulating language in meaningful contexts, not by learning about language in isolation, as by the study of formal grammar" (125). Language, Hartwell says is "verbal clay, to be molded and probed, shaped and reshaped, and, above all, enjoyed" (125). So language is play dough; it is supposed to be fun; it should not be something you do because you have to, but because you want to; you do it because you like to do it; it is about process not product. What can tutors/teachers do that can encourage students to view writing not as a means to an end, but as a valuable tool of expression, a concrete manifestation of focused energy that is representative of an individual's attempt to express? This need to express is at work on us all of the time; our survival depends on it. That is not an exaggeration; a closed mouth does not get fed. By funneling our thoughts into words, even if the result is an approximation of the truth of our energetic pursuits, there is still a result. Words do work on people because people feel. Maybe some of the frustration that freshman feel is a result of the heaviness of the rulebook; certain grammar rules affect student grades, certain constraints are imposed by the teachers rubric and the teacher as well a