ESL and Technology: Strategies and Resources for ESL in a Changing World R. L. Erion (South Dakota State University) Marcia Thompson (Sioux Falls School District) PowerPoint Available at

Introduction Technology as:  Content (reasonable to teach for its own sake)  Means (delivering content)  Context (providing an environment in which teaching and learning occurs) This is an overview. Many of the things mentioned could serve as the basis for a workshop or presentation. There is also no reason to believe that anyone should go out and try everything mentioned.

Technology as Needed Content Very much part of culture Limited availability to many ELLs We have not comfortably figured out the technology equivalents to teaching kids to cross the street. Support for 1-1 initiatives Not the emphasis for this presentation

Technology as a Means Using technology to aid in doing the things we normally do. Judie Haynes: “Schools are starting to worry about the No Child Left Behind testing. In my view, the money should go to technology, not more textbooks. I push a lot of buttons when I say things like that, even among my friends and colleagues who are more computer savvy than I am. But the truth is, you could run an ESL class today without textbooks if you had the right technology.” (p. 40) from Waters (

Teaching Activities and Resources/Materials ESLoop: Portal to many sites. Judie Haynes: everyThing ESL: The Internet TESL Journal: Canadian Association of Second Language Teachers: English Grammar Online: Online Library American Literature: See also Bartleby.com which includes lots of online versions of books including encyclopedias, dictionaries, etc:

Designated Software Packages See (somewhat dated) More recent list of commercial software at Includes things like Rosetta Stone See also ESL Readingsmart ( A few reviews: review.toptenreviews.com/ review.toptenreviews.com/

Video to Supplement Teaching See More at Great speeches, real and dramatic. See American Rhetoric: Also a multimedia resource for teaching about English. See figures of speech at insound.htm for example insound.htm

iPod and PodCasts From the Internet TESL Journal: Part of a much larger set of links to resources: NPR: See for details on a language acquisition effort centered on iPods. Many resources and ideas from Cindy Grabe at

Reading/Language Arts Lots of edutainment examples such as The Learning Company’s Reading Rabbit and ACHIEVEMENT! tm Writing and Language ArtsThe Learning Company’s Earobics: Includes an online game for listening/spelling called GameGoo at Tumblebooks ( Read alouds. Subscription service. Offered online at tmlhttp:// tml

Reading/Language Arts Vocabulary –Online Picture Dictionary: –Lingonets s/index.html s/index.html - web hosting with lots of good featureshttp:// ESL Independent Study Lab Opportunities for Leveled Practice Promising stuff to keep an eye on includes Project Listen

Technology as Context Online Activities –Virtual field trips Software to produce: Information and links: –WebQuests: See –Social Networking such as MySpace, FaceBook MySpace miniblogs,MySpace –Wikis: See for exampleshttp://educators.pbwiki.com/ –Games: Many require interaction within context of game

Examples Social Interaction in a Virtual Environment: Sims Kidllinks "Participants meet in KidSpace to publish and review student works, in KidCom to discuss, in KidArt for children’s art projects and competitions, Kidlinks web.”

The End Questions? Comments? Advice? Obviously this is incomplete and as always with technology there will be more.