Hanyu pinyin and technology
From Lianhe Zaobao:
Highlighted text (translated):
In this era of technology, Hanyu pinyin becomes an important tool for Chinese inputting. My wife, son, daughter and I use Hanyu pinyin to input Chinese. My father who started learning how to use a computer, tried several inputting methods and chosed Hanyu pinyin although he is not familiar with it. Majority of my friends and colleagues also use Hanyu pinyin.
ETD Chinese Education Portal
Looking forward to experimenting the portal the pilot project by the ministry. Though I will not be teaching with this portal, I will assist in the facilitation and administration.
Voicethread Chinese character support goes live!
Hello!
We are pleased to announce that we’ve added support for more languages when text
commenting, one of our most requested features. Text commenting now supports the Latin,
Cyrillic, Arabic and Hebrew scripts. We’ll be also adding support for Asian languages soon.
Please keep the great feedback coming in and enjoy!Thanks,
Habib
Thanks for the great news, Habib! Now I can get my pupils to text comment in Chinese in Voicethread. Can’t wait! 
Insights of education technology and Chinese language teaching/learning by Cornelius C. Kubler
Excerpts From Lianhe Zaobao,
…“有关华语语法、发音的说明，课本都有英文翻译，学生可以自己了解，不需要老师在课堂多费唇舌，浪费时间。上课的时间应该用来进行沟通式教学：包括口语、阅读、写字的练习。华人传统说teach是‘教书’，意思是teach the book。过去是这样，现在不应如此。我们现在以学生为中心，上课是‘教学生’，不再是‘教书’。”
担心老师迷恋电脑教学科技
最近15年，教学科技越来越发达，这本是可喜现象，顾百里却忧心忡忡。他说：“在美国有部分老师爱上电脑，把原来用在备课的时间，用在电脑上，喜欢发展很多新的软件。这些软件部分有用，部分未必有用。我认为，教师应该以学生为重，备课为先。设计一个像样的软件要花上几百几千个小时，我经常建议老师先搞清楚在中国大陆、台湾、香港、新加坡，有没有同行在研发类似的软件，尽可能避免不必要的重复。
“近年来有很多年轻老师爱上新的科技，很多卡通人物、漫画等等可爱小东西，这些其实都不是太重要，应该紧记一切以教学为重。有好的教学软件，不妨采用，但是不可以盲目跟风。”
My translation:
Traditionally, the literal Chinese meaning of ‘teach’ is ‘teach the book’. Now, in a learner centered environment, teachers should ‘teach learners’ instead of ‘teach the book’.
Kubler is worried of educators getting obsessed with education technology. He said in recent years younger teachers love technology, cartoons, comics and other little cute stuff. In fact, these things are not important. We must remind ourselves teaching and learning come before everything. If there are good educational software, give them a try. However we must not blindly follow suit.
I agree with most of Kubler’s view. In fact Mr 高极登 expressed similar concerns in this article. Both articles are very insightful.
However, since we are talking about learner centeredness, educators must rethink about how learning takes place today. We must also rethink on how technology can add value to teaching Chinese language. Most importantly, we must always keep an open mind on ways to engage students in learning Chinese language, without compromising the quality of teaching and language proficiency of students.
Singapore to set up Centre for Chinese Language
From MOE’s Press Releases,
Leveraging on Singapore’s unique bilingual environment for the teaching and learning of the Chinese Language (CL), a centre will be established to focus on the training and development of CL teachers. The National Institute of Education (NIE) will work with the Ministry of Education (MOE) to set up the Singapore Centre for Chinese language (SCCL) [新加坡华文教研中心] by mid 2009.
I can look forward to more professional development opportunities in Chinese language teaching.
Using Mindmaps to teach Chinese characters
The is the rough idea for my Action Research this year.
To be a little more specific, it is ‘Using Mindmaps to reduce mistakes in writing Chinese characters of the same pronounciation but different strokes‘. Sound profound?
Before I get into the research proper, I would like to read up on Mindmaps. Perhaps a good book would be come in handy? There are so many Tony Buzan books out in stores, which should I pick? Any recommendation is most welcomed.
A Chinese Teacher’s Experience in Blogging (EDvantage Issue 8)
This article was published last year by my school’s LMS provider, Learning EDvantage. I hope this year I can share my teaching reflections in some form of publication as well
iFlashbook in the news
I am not sure how the trial is going take place. 1:1 laptop or traditional classroom environment? 1:1 would be fantastic.
I am also a little puzzled that the news reported the bilingual nature of iFlashbook. True, but many reference materials like the infamous 词语手册 (A complete series of reference books which contain vocabulary from textbooks) are already using English to explain meanings of Chinese words and phrases.
If interested, please read my review of this application.
Review of iFlashBook – A Chinese language E-Textbook
What is iFlashBook?
I was first introduced to iFlashBook last year during its launch at Creative Technology. My first impression was that iFlashBook is an electronic version of the Singapore Primary Chinese language textbooks. This year I decided to purchase it and try it out in my classroom.
So, has iFlashBook revolutionize the teaching and learning of Primary Chinese language? Let’s take a look at its product description from the iFlashBook homepage.
iFlashBook technical platform incorporates multimedia, speech recognition and a library rich in content. Different ways, channels and three-dimensional effects are used to present the traditional content of a book on the Internet, helping students to learn Chinese with fun in an easier and more effective way.
iFlashBook technical platform is rich in learning features, comprising of “Phonics”, “Dictionary”, “Hanyu Pinyin”, “Character Strokes” etc., simple yet effective learning functions.
Installation
To get iFlashBook working on the PC, you need to go through several steps.
Step 1: Register an account and login
Step 2: Subscribe to textbooks you desire
Step 3: Download and install the client
Step 4: Purchase an e-Prepaid card, either online or from Creative stores
Step 5: Enter the prepaid card information (Card Number & PIN) and security code in order to activate the online book subscription.
As you can see, this process could be a little tricky for users who are used to buying software CD-ROMs.
Using iFlashBook
One important thing to note is, you MUST be connected to the Internet in order to use iFlashBook. I have been using my school’s network and loading speed has been satisfactory, although there were a few times when my login was denied due to some unknown reasons.
In a typical lesson using iFlashBook, I would fire up the client and ‘flip’ to the page I wanted to teach. After my pupils practised slient reading, I would click on the small loudspeakers icons on each paragraph to play the pre-recorded audio. I would then click on the cartoon animations to enthuse my pupils. Afterwhich I would ask comprehension questions and explain meanings of phrases.
I must say there is nothing really revolutionary in my teaching, however iFlashBook has certainly increased the attention span of lower ability pupils based on my observation.
Revolutionary Chinese language teaching?
Basically, there are 4 main features in iFlashBook.
1. Cartoon Animation:
My pupils’ reaction to cartoon animation has been overwhelming. They would ask me to click on the animations without fail when I used iFlashBook. For visual learners, this feature certainly helps them to understand the passage better.
2. Phonics:
This is a feature I rarely utilized since I used iFlashBook mainly for classroom presentation. It is geared more towards self evaluation of reading.
First you record your reading, then the built-in speech recognition feature will help to evaluate your pronounciation. I have tried it with my web cam microphone and it worked pretty decently. It would be great if iFlashBook could be use in a computer lab environment, with noise-cancelling headsets provided for every pupil.
3. Dictionary:
This is one feature I used most frequently, yet with the least success. It is fine if you view the ‘floating’ E-Dictionary on a PC monitor, however the characters are way too small on a projector screen. My pupils sitting at the back of the classroom often complained they cannot see the characters clearly.
I feel It would be better to open a movable and resizable new window with larger characters instead of the gimmicky floating type.
4. Reading and writing of Chinese characters:
This feature is only used when I teach more complex characters. It worked well, perhaps the only complaint is, the strokes display are on the slow side even at the fastest setting.
Conclusion
The iFlashBook is great multimedia software to complement the existing Primary Chinese language textbooks. It has somehow brought textbooks to life (Second Life!) with the E-Textbook interface. The features are also pretty useful for pupils to engage in self-paced learning of Chinese language.
I would not say iFlashBook has revolutionized teaching of Chinese language, but it has the potential to inspire newer teaching pedagogies and practices in Chinese language.
Some of the challenges faced by Chinese language teachers who wish to use iFlashBook in classroom are the must-have Internet connection and small size of the Chinese characters. Developers can look into an educator version to improve usability of iFlashBook in classrooms.
Pros
Interesting multimedia E-Textbook interface
Excellent audio and visual features
Cons
Purchase process can be tedious
Internet connection is a must
Not ideal for projector screen presentation due to small sized characters
Dyslexia affects English, Chinese readers differently
WASHINGTON – Dyslexia affects different parts of children’s brains depending on whether they are raised reading English or Chinese. That finding, reported in Monday’s online edition of Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, means that therapists may need to seek different methods of assisting dyslexic children from different cultures…
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