Thing 24 Online Gaming

I am teaching Japanese old and new games in my Japanese 2C class. I am teaching traditional Japanese games such as Otedama, Ayatori, Kendama, and Darumasan ga koronda.
Students are going to talk about Japanese video games and other games. One thing I have discovered when I was doing the assignment for this class was Japanese goo site.
This site has Japanese dictionaries, news, music and games. Some of the games are free and can be viewed at school. So we did "Puchin game" today. My score was "17" and the students' highest score was "90". There is no comparison, and students are much better than me. It is fun to play if you have nothing to do, I have to admit. There are some educational games that students can learn some Japanese, too.

http://game.goo.ne.jp/

ようこさんへ

イーメールありがとうございます。はい、とうほうしんきは、韓国のグループだと知っていますが、生徒がこのグループをとても好きで、日本語を使っているかぎり、それでも良いという事にしました。この学校の日本語のクラスの生徒皆、日本のjポップが、大好きなんです。

Blog of the week

I feel very tired because of many things are happening around me. But I should not forget" bogging". It became so important to have this computer. This computer is my best friend now. I don't think I can live without this computer. This is my lifesaver. This is my dictionary, my lesson plan, my how to book and the entertainment. I have just finished the week of J-pop. (Japanese pop music) Students did presentation on J-pop music using this computer and the projector. It was GREAT. Do you know anything about the music band called "TOHOSHINKI"（They are Korean but they sing in Japanese)? I learned so much about Japanese pop music from my students, such as” News"," Mika Nakashima" "Nobody knows" and other music. A lot of students want to learn Japanese because they like this pop culture. (Some of them will even tell you the differences between American pop music and the Japanese pop music.) Not only the students, I enjoy learning about Japanese popular music. And being able to watch these singers sing in Japanese and dance help us learn more about Japan. In the beginning of the year, I decided to learn more about technology and I did it. Students are also using more technology in the class.

Thing 22. Ebooks and NetLibrary

How to Use NetLibrary E-Books.
http://www.oclc.org/netlibrary/demo/
I have decided to go to the library to learn how to use NetLibrary. It seems to be very simple to use. I watched this demo video .
You can go to www.mplib.org and go to Netlibrary. Now I should try this. 1. You have to log in.( You type your name and Your library card number.) 2 You go to the main page. 3. Select the E book you want to read. I selected "African-American Art" and looked at the book and read some of the pages. It is pretty simple. Someday, all the students will use ebooks as their textbooks and they do not carry the heavy textbooks. This was my first try to use E-books and I have to learn more.

Thing 11. All about Google

We learned about google "Documents" today. It was quite interesting. I decided to go to "Google" and checked other Google features. I liked the "google map". I typed my address and I checked the map and saw the picture of our street. Then you can go up and down the street and see all the houses around. It is just like I am driving the street. Only when the streets are outlined by blue, street views are available. Then you can drag the street view to look around. I checked our old house in San Francisco. It did not have the street picture so I could not see the house that clearly but it was fun.

Thing 36. Social Networking

Here are the things I found out from my daughter about facebook and myspace. She tells me that facebook makes it really easy for her to keep in touch with her friends outside of the state and outside of the country. She can talk to her friends from when we lived in San Francisco, talk to her friends from Edina, and even talk to her friends who do not live in the United States. On her facebook she also has applications such as games where she can compete with her friends. She showed me that one of the applications, dogbook, made it able for our dog Lily to have a mini-facebook where she can have normal facebook friends and dogbook friends.(dogbook friends????) She also has photos of our dog in her albums so that our other daughters(who are in California) can see Lily. (See above picture) She also showed me that there are two ways of talking with friends one on one. There is a public way where you write on their wall and there is the private way where you send them a message. She tells me that on myspace it is harder to find the people you are looking for and that the layout is very different. She tells me that myspace is more like a blog because you choose the color of your font, your background, and the type of font or background you have. She tells me that you can also join different networks. She belongs to her schools network and when she decides which college she is going to she will then join that network as well. My daughter's name is Natalie and she is very resorceful about this topic. And she loves her facebook.

Thing 23. Technorati, Tagging, and Del.icio.us

I went to Delicious site and learned about "Social Network". I can share bookmarks with other people. I should be able to post entries to my blog too. I need to learn more about that. Then I went to "google.com "Documents". I watched You tube video about the google document and I tried to create some document. It makes sense to have "one document" which multiple people can view and edit. I thought when we have Japan Bowl, we (the Japanese teachers) can make Japan Bowl questions using google document. I felt that I have so much more to learn.