EPALS: where learners connect

   Epals is a place where teachers and students of same interests can find each other and work together. I  first feel amazed at this website is that I found that it provides students opportunities to teach. It is right in the "find classroom" section. The one who wants to teach post their target students' age, their localization, the fields they want to teach and other classroom details. I think through this, both teachers and students can benefit: teachers may improve their teaching ability or collect valuable data for their projects while students can learn so much interesting knowledge. The resources in this website are diversity as well. Relative essays can be found in the "teaching resource" section, and in "learning centers", people can have assess to many other educational videos or games as long as they log in.

    This website really connects learners together: easy-assess and it covers many nations. It is good to learn that China has new joined in the community. I think if I become a teacher in the future, I will ask my students to choose one classroom (if it does not charge) during their long vacation, and then write a report about what they have learned or experienced. It will be a great opportunity for them to know more about the outside world.

Darfur is Dying

  Darfur is Dying is more like an RPG game for gamers to experience what you can experience in a third world refugee, in my opinion. It is more like cultural game than L2 learning game. I played it for just twice because everytime my characters died, I feel really sad especially when they are only kids. The two dimension cartoon of the game is coarse, but it does not effect its shock on my heart.
  If I would use this game in my teaching I would like to let my students write a reflection of the game, that is to say my teaching objectives is more on writing aspect and thoughts sharing. The assessment is obvious that I will first let them discuss with their peers and then collect their writings and give them feedback.

Gamification Education

  In my opinion, the gamification education refers to teachers fostering students to learn the knowledge and to meet their teaching objectives by let students play the game so that students can naturally learn what they are supposed to learn in an unconscious and relaxed way.
  To exam whether it is good for students to learn through gaming, I played a escape room game myself---Escape the Room 3. I have to say I am absolutely not an adventure game fan, and what I play most is online fighting or war game. I have tried about three times to get out of the room. All failed. So I just referred to the walkthrough. I do not really like this game but since I am required to write something about the reasons of using games in teaching I will force myself to think of some.
   In this kind of game there are many text instructions to help you to find the solution, which is helpful for learners to fill in their information gap. If I would use such game in my teaching, my objectives might be learn to think in a logical way (because English itself is a language of logics) and to expand their vocabulary (because every word in this game can be an important clue to solve the problem). In order to check whether students have met such objectives, I would first let them write down the procedure of their solving the problem to see whether what they have written is in a logic way and whether they are using the vocabulary necessary to solve the problem in the game.
  During their playing game, I as a teacher will definitely use a walk through when they are about to reach the dead-end, because, generally speaking, people will get frustrated and lose interested in a game if they are unable to solve them over and over again, which is what I have encountered when playing this game, while students' being inactive is the last thing a teacher want to face.  But I see no need to use the images of picture. Aren't the students playing the game themselves? Don't they already know the game?
   In addition, teachers in the gamification education should play a role of guide and they must pick an appropriate game that can overall turn the students on.
  Once again, I have to say I really do not like the escape the room  game, which is supposed to be one of the fittest games for students to learn something.