Going Mobile

What do you do with students’ cell phones in the classroom? Do you take them and keep them in a box? Or do you allow students to use them?

This has been a controversial topic since new technologies started to capture our students' concentration in the classroom as well as in their everyday lives. Many educators see this attitude as something that hinders learning more than  supporting it.

On the contrary, there are others who think that technologies have become an essential part of our lives and that we have to adapt to new realities; also, this will help us (teachers and students) to be prepared for what will come in the future.

We would like to introduce you to someone who supports the idea of including new technologies in the classroom to improve students’ learning and to develop digital literacies, her name is Nicky Hockly. In case you’ve never heard of her, she  has worked in the field of face-to-face and distance language education since 1987. She is well-known for delivering famous international workshops and courses on the application of technology to language teaching. (For more information about her, click here).

Just a few years ago we had the chance to attend to one of her highly valuable workshops here in Santa Fe. She gave us examples of many activities in which we can use mobile devices in an attempt to avoid using old-fashioned teaching and to engage students.

We will now mention some activities she proposed for you to take into account. One very interesting task would be to have our students take a photo of themselves (a selfie) at a given time (for example, at 8pm) and send it to a Whatsapp group or upload it to a Facebook group. In this way, they will be able to practice past continuous or past simple the following meeting (I was going to the cinema. I went to the cinema). When it comes to innovating, we will see that many options come up in connection with this activity in particular. For example, we can have them taking a photo of their favourite dish, of what they ate the previous night, or even of a place they've been in order to give directions if we ask them how to arrive there from school.

She then suggested activities like selecting some pictures from the photo gallery of our phones and talking about them with a partner. Students will use a wide range of vocabulary, and also different tenses and aspects by just showing a photo they could choose according to what they wanted to say.

As you can see, the possibilities are unlimited, you can use you creativity and, with cell phones in the classroom, innovation comes up in many different ways. We are really interested in hearing (or reading) about your own experiences, so please leave your comments on this topic!

Teachers are still necessary!

Throughout this blog we have constantly mentioned the need for teachers to incorporate technology in their teaching experience. But which is the best way to do so?

You may know that studying online is one very chosen option nowadays. “Distance learning” appeared some years ago and, as the name suggests, new contents are explained through uploaded materials (books, activities and so on) and through videos attached by teachers delivering a lesson themselves.

As you can see, the only contact students and teachers have is by having students looking at the teacher on a screen; but on the teacher’s side, she/he is not able to see students. She only reads their posts and emails, among others, but she never sees their faces. So, is it good to make use of technology and virtual classrooms exclusively?

Sophie Partarrieu explains why there is still a need to incorporate face-to-face teaching in the digital age, and why it “has an essential place in today’s education”. The idea we would like to give more emphasis to is the fact that it is the best ‘path’ when having to “form emotional relationships, empathize and respond to the needs of individual students”.

On the other hand, there are some benefits of applying online/ digital teaching. According to Sebastián - a person we interviewed who is experiencing this kind of education -  one of the advantages is that you can organize your timetables, to the extent that you can read or study at your own pace, and watch teacher’s videos as many times as you want. Also, you can study at home in a comfortable environment and take breaks at any moment you want.  

So far, we have shown the strong points of both kinds of teaching/learning. The idea is to get some profit from them. But how do we do that? A concept that has been recently introduced is BLENDED LEARNING. What is blended learning? Basically, a way of tutoring “where a portion of the traditional face-to-face instruction is replaced by web-based online learning”.

We think that this type of education still places teachers in an important role as regards education and, at the same time, challenges many people’s idea that technology will eventually replace humans - teachers included. What can we recommend?  We suggest you have students watch your videos explaining the theoretical part of the topic being dealt with, and then clear up doubts and practice during face-to-face teaching in class so as to optimize time and foster interpersonal relationships. This model we've just mentioned is called "flipped classroom".

Why don’t you give it a try and then tell us about your experience?

Virtual community...

Digital immigrants have seen the evolution of the World Wide Web from, what is now known to be, “web 1.0” to “web 2.0”. What makes them different? According to Dooley, Jones and Iverson, in their “Web 2.0 adoption and user characteristics” (2012), “Web 1.0 had fairly static content, allowing for little to no participation from viewers, with only experienced Web developers having the capacity to modify and update Web pages” On the other hand, “Web 2.0 involves the use of Web pages as a two-way form of communication between users, allowing them to prepare and share content such as information, photos, videos, and links”. Our students are really familiarized with technology, since it forms an important part of their everyday life. As teachers, we have to get profit from this, bringing it to the educational environment. Web 2.0 not only provides a huge variety of entertaining devices, but also pedagogical applications are available.

We would like to share some of our creations.  We used www.jalbum.net to create a photo gallery. The idea is to present “ a day in someone’s life”. This page allowed us to include images with a brief description in

the form of a gallery (link to our gallery: http://jalbum.net/en/browse/user/album/1659731). In this way, students can develop their writing skills by connecting language with real life situations. Another website we found useful, and that can complement the previous activity, is http://tellegami.com/ this is a cellphone application that you have to download to your phone, and after recording you are allowed to share it with other people. Students can create an avatar and record themselves to make it speak. Our avatar retells the descriptions that appear in the photographs and thus, listening and speaking skills are revisited.

It is a MUST for teachers to get profit from the internet and all the elements that it provides. The infinite uses it has can lead to limitless practices inside - and outside -  the classroom. Students will take it as both a challenge and entertainment at the same time. TRY IT!

Do it yourself!

Do you want your students to learn the language but sometimes you don’t know how to do it? Many times,  we (teachers) find ourselves facing the desire to change the old perspectives of teaching, but we don’t have enough time for finding, selecting, evaluating, adapting and making materials  to engage today’s students.It is true that designing your own materials could be time-consuming, but we should rather concentrate in the advantagesof doing so, and the rewards that come after that.

As we have mentioned in older posts, teachers may want to design their own materials for many reasons. Despite the fact that there is a huge market of materials (textbooks, Cds, videos, etc) available for teachers, some would prefer not to rely so much on them, as they would prefer to make their teaching more interesting and adapted to a specific group of students with their specific needs.

In this post we will analyze some guidelines for designing effective materials for teaching English that were presented by Major and Howard in their “Guidelines for Designing Effective English Language Teaching Materials” .

http://www.commonsensecampaign.org

• English language teaching materials should offer opportunities for integrated language use

As the authors stated, in many language teaching materials there is mainly a focus on productive or receptive skills. But by designing their own materials, teachers could “give learners opportunities to integrate all the language skills in an authentic manner”. Of course, at this point, technology will be as important as face to face education is in the learning process. A task needs to be very well designed so as to combine the four skills in an effective way.

• English language teaching materials should be authentic

We have already dealt with ideas about authenticity in older posts, when we analyzed the criteria for selecting a website. We shouldn’t trust everything that is on-line. Nonetheless, materials designers should try to find authentic but trustworthy material so students can hear, see and read native speakers in real/natural communication.

The tasks we give the students also have to be authentic, so they can connect what they learn to their life and the world outside the classroom when using it for everyday communication.

• English language teaching materials should be flexible

Teachers should design tasks in which students are free to choose the procedure to develop it. For instance, when given a task in which students have to present a topic, they could be given freedom to select which devices to use.

Maley (2003) admits diversity of content, roles and procedures for teachers and students and puts forward that flexibility is also possible in approach, level, methodology, logistics, technology, teaching style, ways to evaluate and expected outcomes. 

So as to avoid the stereotyped responses that students have towards English, teachers should create a state of expectancy in each lesson when providing them with innovative resources. There is no way of doing so by using the “one-size-fits-all” approach of commercial materials, so, always bear in mind: YOUR STUDENTS ARE UNIQUE!

http://www.innovationmanagement.se/

In the evolution of teaching, technology rules!

As the new generation of teachers, we have to find out ways of engaging students. When planning how to introduce a topic, we have to bear in mind the different and innovative methods and tools that are available. A way of doing so may be by the use of diverse approaches to teaching, as the task-based learning approach; and models such as Substitution Augmentation Modification Redefinition Model (SAMR) or Technological Pedagogical Content Knowledge (TPACK). 

https://holmeshsitworkshops.wikispaces.com/TPACK

http://msedtechie.blogspot.com.ar/2014/04/integrating-technology-using-samr-model.html

The main principle of the task based approach is that the tasks learners carry out are interconnected and lead to a last project . By the time the project is fulfilled, the topic will be completely taught and learned without students having realized it. It is by complementing the teaching with the use of any of the models mentioned before and taking advantage of technology, techniques and other skills that the learning becomes more enjoyable.

We worked on a project in which students had to create a comic using present simple and daily routines in Pixton. Thus, throughout the comic, the characters tell and show what they do in their everyday life. This page offers many options and variables to create a wide diversity of forms and styles; for example they can chose to edit the shape and position of each comic panel, give text and speech bubbles personality in any language (in this case, English), exploit creativity with shortcuts and templates, among others. What is more, they can share it instantly with friends, family, classmates and colleagues.

Why creating it using Pixton, and avoid pencil and paper? Apart from being more attractive and engaging, Pixton has other benefits that, following our unit, can be applied to the pedagogical field so as to integrate technology, content and pedagogy. The main purpose of the use of Pixton in this unit is that the materials created can be recycled and used the next year to teach the same topic to subsequent students. In this way, the recovery of digital images would be much easier than keeping papers and posters safe; besides, the use of a beamer to project the comics is another advantage as it is easier to access and does not need expensive printing.

Comic used to introduce the project.

Become a website scanner!

As teachers, it is quite common to search for materials on the net, but... Do we consider the fact that some sources may not be trustworthy? Here are some criteria to be taken into account when selecting a website: 

• PURPOSE:  a page may have different objectives that are reflected in the domain name. Among them, you can find educational, commercial, institutional, personal purposes. This intention has to be easily identifed as the content has to match the purpose.

• AUTHORITY AND RESPONSIBILITY: who is in charge of the page is another important aspect as it shows credibility and enhances confidence from the readers. It is pretty valuable to have a way to contact authors in case you need it; they may provide you an e-mail account, a Facebook account, an address or a telephone number, among others. In many cases, the authors have to provide evidence that supports their knowledge (e.g. a degree or certificate) for you to rely on them.

• APPROPRIATENESS AND RELEVANCE: bear in mind that, as teachers, it is really important to adapt the content of the webpage to the singularity of each group; so pay attention to the level, the organization, and the materials in general that the page provides.

• CURRENCY:  a reliable page has to be regularly updated and does not have to show dead links. Also, a page that is constantly innovating maintains the readers’ interest on it.

• CLARITY: the content of the webpage has to be organized, neat, legible and easy reading. It may not be trustful if it is full of colours, advertisements, and graphics.

We have analysed BBC and TOOLS FOR EDUCATORS pages under these criteria, and we came to the conclusion that, despite having some drawbacks, both pages provide teachers with useful materials and tools to be used in the classroom. Also, the two of them offer free materials, and activities for different levels of proficiency.

As a conclusion, and in relation to our previous post - in which we said that teachers and schools have to keep pace with new generations -, we thought that a good way of taking technology to the classroom is by employing new and interesting materials, and also stuff with which students can work online. 

                               https://www.flickr.com/photos/7815007@N07/11948279755

Have I innovated today?

Nowadays, the way in which children learn has changed largely while the educational system has not kept pace with it, and that has been subject of many authors investigation. Today, we are going to focus on Marc Prensky’s work “Digital Natives, Digital immigrants”. According to him, a key concept to understand this problem is the role that digital technology has occupied in society in the late 20^th Century. As the name of his article implies, he divides the digital society into two main categories:  Natives and immigrants. The former makes reference to those who were born and grew up in the US surrounded by digital technology. The latter would include elder people who, in a way, adopted technology, but always keeping one foot in the past.

Prensky’s research motivated others to investigate and discuss this issue, resulting in significant controversies.  In this entry we would like to express our opinion regarding the points he left aside when defining digital natives and immigrants. Is he absolutely right when saying that you are a digital native only if you have a certain age and are born in the USA? What other aspects should be considered?  We think that seeing age as one variable for this division is not entirely wrong but he is not taking into account that a big percentage of people of the same age, who live in the same country, may not have access to technology due to their socio-economic background.  

What about those who neither their economic background, nor the country’s policies allow them to have access to technology? In some places, the political system limits people’s connections with the rest of the world, so as to control the information they receive and the knowledge that masses can get. A good example of this may be Cuba, where they cannot have Wi-Fi connection, and also if you are a tourist and you ask for a Wi-Fi password you have to pay expensive fees for it.

It is a fact technology gives us many tools to be used in the classroom, but teachers have the responsability of being informed on how to use those tools, striking a balance between the old way, and the new one. The role of the teacher in today’s education is crucial as he/she is the one in charge of motivating learners by exploiting all the potential that technology has, but also has to help learners develop imagination and creativity on their own, as “immigrants” did.