A recap of what I said in my mini-presentation on 18-01-10

My school: Local aided primary school in New Territories East

My students: from working-class families, virtually zero exposure to English outside of school

My classes: 4 altogether (2 in P1, 1 in P2 and 1 in P6)

My experiences in using technology:

I use PC a lot during lessons, but mainly to present lesson content in a visually appealing manner - target language structures/vocabulary, task instructions, worksheets for consolidation, etc.

With the P1s and P2s, I quite often...
• display lyrics to popular children's songs such as 'I can sing a rainbow.', which I copy and paste from internet (http://bussongs.com/ is good because it includes video clips, sometimes animated)
• present high frequency words using powerpoint (which appear one by one as you click the mouse button)
• display images (searched using google), as a stimulus for discussion

With the P6s, I use powerpoint even more to deliver lesson content.

Some software/websites I have found useful in my teaching include:
• YouTube Downloader (http://youtubedownload.altervista.org/) - download any YouTube video and convert to a format that allows the video to be burned to a DVD (Useful for when I have to broadcast the video to the whole school during Lunchtime English Show.) Some YouTube videos clips I have used in my lessons include those of Mr. Bean e.g. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ljo6gtufSng (to develop listening and speaking skills through quizzing students on what they just saw) as well as Michael Jackson's 'Heal the World' http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jpz5eD9L4dA (to stimulate discussion and critical thinking)

• audacity (http://audacity.sourceforge.net/) - powerful software for recording and editing sound. Useful for when you want to blend children's voices with background music or simply edit any sound file you have (make it shorter, slower, louder, etc.). A few years back I recorded students singing songs from "The Sound of Music" (e.g. Do Re Mi, Edelweiss, So Long, Farewell...) and mixed their vocals with music from a karaoke CD of the same title. These were converted to mp3 and later used during their stage performance. (It fixes the problem of live singing where students can't sing loudly enough and dance at the same time.)

• Reading A-Z Kids (http://www.raz-kids.com/) - one of the best online reading resources you will find on the web, I think. There are tonnes of books to choose from and they are levelled from from beginner to fluent so they are suitable for ESL students. They can listen to and read the books at the same time, as well as record their own voices as they read before comparing them with the original recordings. A consolidation task is provided in the form of a comprehension quiz at the end of the each reading. When students have completed all the tasks for each one of the books offered at their level, they can move up to the next level and start reading all the books from that level.

One plus point of using the service is that teachers can set up and have full control over individual accounts for each student as well as keep track of his or her reading progress over time. However, one drawback is that the service comes at a cost (roughly US$80 annually)

I want to do MUCH more in terms of using technology in my classes, like for example, introduce podcasting or blogging to my students but somewhere in the back of my mind I have this feeling that my some of them might not be able to cope, especially those who can't even say or write the letters of the alphabet correctly let alone type up a blog. Nonetheless, I can consider myself fortunate that I have the time and space to freely experiment with technology in my lessons as I'm not restricted by curriculum constraints in the way my local teaching colleagues are. For them, there is simply no room for trial and error.