On technology in the classroom: "Blending offline and online learning"

The advance of technology has brought many changes for the educational field. The proliferation of internet and social networks has allowed education to break some barriers. As a consequence, nowadays teaching and learning do not only take place within the classroom but outside it as well.  “Blended learning”, i.e. the combination of offline and online learning, allows teachers and students to make exchanges outside the classroom extending the learning to many more spaces and times (Harvey Singh, 2003). Moreover, there are many more dimensions of learning that this type of instruction “blends” (i.e. joins together); these include fusing informal and formal learning, collaborative learning and self-placed learning (that which students make on their own at a place and time they arrange), structured and unstructured learning, among others (Singh, 2003).

In my personal experience as a student that has experimented “blended learning”, receiving this kind of education has helped me to improve many of my competences. For example, I could become more autonomous and could discover and get used to using many tools (such as moodle or edmodo) that I could use latter on in my own teaching practices. Working with moodle, in particular, was difficult at first. However, once I discovered how to use it properly it was very convenient to have material available there, or uploading writing assignments from my home, or reading different appreciations on diverse topics and writing my own. Besides this way of online learning was convenient for our context (in which we sometimes have to miss lessons).

All in all , combining “synchronous (face-to-face) and asynchronous (text-based Internet)” (D. Randy Garrison,2004) learning is another step towards the construction of a larger learning community that would make the learning experience much more motivating, interactive, and enriching.

On technology in the classroom: "Making web 2.0 resources part of the teaching"

Working with web 2.0 resources may not be easy for teachers of English as a foreign language. It is especially difficult for us given the characteristics of our context. However, web 2.0 resources provide us with infinite opportunities of improving our teaching, making it more interactive, more motivating, and much more appealing for “Generation Y” students.

An example of a web 2.0 resource which can be useful to work with in EFL lessons is “Stupeflix”. This web application allows you to make videos easily and with only a few clicks. So, it is very user-friendly and students would enjoy personalizing their creations.

Two of my classmates and I planned a lesson from a didactic sequence that has “Stupeflix” as part of the main task. This is due to the fact that we imagined learners making a video about their ideal city. As part of this lesson’s development we made our own “Stupeflix” video about our own ideal city, “Paracity”.

 The experience of making a video on “Stupeflix” was really entertaining and amusing; we even felt as professional video editors. The only disadvantage was that only two of the templates available could be used for free.
Clearly, this is not the only web 2.0 resource that can be used for EFL teaching. There are thousands of web 2.0 resources that can be part of English lessons. It is only, therefore, a matter of search, experimentation, and creativity.

On learning journals: "The value of a never-ending learning process"

Throughout the whole process of posting entries related with topics dealt with during the ECO II lessons, I have come to realize the value of learning journals. One of the learning journals’ main features, as described in the “Study Skills advice sheet” of the University of Worcester (England), is that they allow students to reflect about their own learning process. Moreover, it is also claimed that these are not only a descriptive account of what has been done during lessons. On the contrary, these constitute opportunities for the learners to communicate their thinking process, i.e. why and how they did what they did, what they think about it. I strongly agree with this description, and I would add that learning journals allow you to make connections between the different subjects, express your own hypotheses, share your thoughts with your classmates, and make an ongoing assessment of your own learning process. These factors have not only allowed me to improve my learning but also to value it even more. It also helped me to appreciate not only the product of the learning but the process of learning itself.

To conclude, I would like to close this last post by making use of the saying: “every ending is also a new beginning”. Therefore, this “learning about my own learning process” will continue, as an ongoing and never-ending process, which will allow me to keep on growing not only as a learner but also as a teacher. 

On technology in the classroom: "Working in the Millennials’ classroom"

It does not come as any big surprise that students and their way of learning have changed over the years. Since learners are not the same, the classroom has also changed. Today’s teachers have to cope with the Millennials' (also known as Generation Y, and related to Digital Natives, dealt with on an older post) way of learning. These learners, who are web savvy, multi-tasking, and highly connected to via social media, are difficult to address when it comes to teaching. Not only we need to come to an understanding of the way they learn but also we need to construct the best classroom for them. When thinking about this classroom, the first thing that comes to mind is the inclusion of technology. A classroom without technology would not be a classroom for the Millennials.

In the search for the best ways of including technology in the classroom we have come across many devices, tools, softwares that have improved the quality of our teaching.  For example, the other day we were learning to use Vokie to create animations that could be very useful when thinking about the classroom pet or for making older students create a vokie to record themselves speaking English and share it through any social network. We also worked with programs that can help us to present words in more entertaining ways as Tagul or Wordle.  Technology is also useful when thinking about teacher’s materials design, which is yet another improvement for the whole teaching and learning process (as I established before on my previous post). How much should be thank the web 2.0 technology, don’t you think?

Another thing to be taken into consideration when thinking about the building of a more "Generation Y" classroom is the inclusion of this generation’s culture into the lessons. For example, the other day we went to a talk about the use of “selfies” as a didactic resource.

Lastly, we can not forget that we also belong to this generation and that, therefore, we also have some special characteristics as Gen Y teachers. Because we are also part of this generation we have the advantage of sharing points of view, which definitely makes the teaching task much easier (though not less complex).

On Materials Design: "A necessary evil"

At times material design could be seen as really time-consuming and highly incompatible with the routine of a busy teacher, but according to what I have learnt, it is surely worthwhile.  The reasons behind such a statement lay on the words written by Jocelyn Howard and Jae Major in the work: “Guidelines for Designing Effective English Language Teaching Materials”.  As the authors claim, making your own material allows you to contextualize it and up-date it paying special attention to your students’ needs and socio-cultural setting. Moreover, it also offers you the opportunity to give a personal touch to your teaching, something the students will certainly appreciate.

There are, however, as I mentioned before, some disadvantages when designing materials. One of them is that teachers' materials may be hard to organize, and that could cause some incoherence in your lessons. Another is that they may not have a “high-quality”, in the sense that they may leave out some contents they were supposed to cover.

As nothing can be perfect, I believe designing material is a way to improve our teaching. Consequently, it is totally worthwhile, rewarding and a “necessary evil”. 

On technology in the classroom: "TPACK & SAMR, the acronyms of modern pedagogy"

Teaching has never been easy, but nowadays technology is a tool that can be used to make it less difficult. However, technology can be a two-faced sword because it can also be a burden in the teaching-learning process if not properly and smartly used. As a future teacher, I am always in the search for how to integrate technology in my lessons. In that search I came across two systems that can be useful for this purpose: TPACK and SAMR.

On the one hand, TPACK (acronym for technological pedagogical content knowledge) is a framework for teacher knowledge for technology integration that builds on Schulman’s descriptions of Pedagogical content knowledge (PCK, 1986/1987) which he used to describe how PCK interact with one another to produce effective teaching with technology. Later this concept was discussed and enlarge by other authors with the most complete descriptions of the framework found in Mishra and Koehler: “What is technological pedagogical content knowledge?". The TPACK framework emphasizes the new kinds of knowledge that lie at the intersections between technology, pedagogy, content and knowledge, representing four knowledge bases applicable to teaching with technology: Pedagogical Content Knowledge (PCK), Technological Content Knowledge (TCK), Technological Pedagogical Knowledge (TPK), and the intersection of all three circles, Technological Pedagogical Content Knowledge (TPACK). A practical example of the application of this system in the classroom would be to ask your students to carry out a task that involves the use of technology. For example, in my particular case, as my lesson’s content knowledge is language I and my team work thought of making students record themselves simulating they are radio presenters taking about their predictions for FIFA world cup 2014. After they have done this task in groups they could share their creations with the rest of the class through facebook or memory sticks.

On the other hand, we have SAMR which stands for: Substitution Augmentation Modification and Redefinition. This model developed by Dr. Ruben Puentedura represents the impact technology can have on teaching and learning, and the progression that adopters of educational technology often follow as they improve the teaching-learning process with technology. Using the same task described above as an example, it would be at the level of modification because students will need some technological tool to carry it out, to add music, effects (as for example audacity) and facebook or memory sticks to share them. Besides, they would be their own real audience as they will be sharing their recordings with the rest of the groups. Technology in this particular task is used to redesign part of the task and transform student learning.

How to present a topic using technology? Here are 2 recommendations!

I’m for the use of technology in the classroom. Even though sometimes it is difficult because not all classrooms have access to technological resources, when these resources are available we must use them.

Since this week’s topic for ECO II is “presentation software”, I’d like to recommend you two softwares you can use as tools to introduce some topics in your lessons.

The first one is “NASA’s Eyes” which is a software that shows you the Solar System, the Earth or Exoplanets as viewed from NASA’s satellites. I haven’t used it on a real lesson but it could be useful for a “topic based” lesson (or in a lesson that is part of an interdisciplinary project) where you deal with the Solar System and need something amusing for students or pupils to engage in your explanation or presentation of the topic. It is definitely more amusing than using flashcards, much cheaper for sure, and it doesn’t need any internet connection; just a beamer. What’s more, it has the official endorsement of NASA and it can be downloaded for free!

The second one can also be downloaded for free from the office Microsoft official page. It is a sort of extension for PowerPoint that allows you to present stories and tales in one slide in the form of a book. I’ve used it and it really worked in engaging children into the story I was telling them. My pupils loved the use of animated images and to see a digitalized book. It was quite easy to use when preparing the story; it just required a little of practice to coordinate my narration and the passing of slides. Besides, you only need a beamer to use it. All in all, it was fantastic and really useful.

So, these are my recommendations! Hope you find them as useful as I've had!  

On Internet Information Reliability: "Is any info trustworthy?"

After analysing websites and reading the official criteria to say whether these pages were “good” or “bad”, I’ve realized that sometimes we don’t take into consideration any criteria and believe in everything we see on the internet. Not only we trust in any website we come across, but we also usually are an echelon in the chain of displaying information that may not necessarily be correct or true. Think about how many times you used internet to do a practical work at school without verifying the information you used or not paying too much attention to the sources utilized. I must admit that just some years ago I acknowledged the existence of “scholar.google.com” where you can find official books and articles about any topic. Anyhow, sometimes I still search for other sources of information that may not be appropriately endorsed.

Let me give you a clear example: Wikipedia, the most famous world-wide source of information. Have you thought about it in terms of the criteria suggested to “judge” this website’s validity?
A quick analysis would be that the website is not completely a deception, but that you cannot yet fully rely on it. It is true that it contains the sources where the articles and descriptions are based on. It also contains the author of the information in many occasions. Is it enough to trust all information included there? After all, we readers can edit any information uploaded there whether we have a PhD or are children surfing in the internet. So… what to do?

That’s an interesting question for us teachers-to-be who sometimes take information to the classroom about different topics that we may not know about. What’s more, we may not find the information we need in official pages or articles, but we may do in Wikipedia. In this case, do we trust it? Do we take for certain something that could have been edited by a 6-year-old child?

Well, I’ve been through this situation because I had to do a research on monarchs from all around the world. Let me tell you that it was not easy and in some cases the most complete resource of information was Wikipedia. What I did was to compare the information to other sources and to have a look at the resources used to write the biographies. Of course, this took me ages! An amount of time I’m sure I won’t have when I graduate. Thus, I’m still wondering where to find quality information, reliable resources. Not saying this is a problem that has just come up, because at times when books where the only source, the information was sometimes not “good” either.

The only thing I know for sure is that we shouldn’t trust everything we find in the internet, and need to make thorough researches when using information for our English lessons. Or else we could present the “tree octopus” as part of the world’s wildlife!

On Digital Natives and Immigrants: "Human Brain Evolution"

After the reading of Prensky's article on Digital Natives and Immigrants, I continued to look for more explanations on this generational gap created by the constant progress of technology. In my research, I came across some entries that talked about the evolution of the human brain due to the introduction of technology in our daily life. In fact, there is a whole book dedicated to the neurological considerations of this evolution called "iBrain: Surviving the technological alteration of the modern mind" written by Dr. Gary Small and Gigi Vorgan. Though couldn’t find and read the whole book online (an irrefutable proof I am a digital immigrant), I was able to read some preview pages and it seems to give remarkable insights into the neurological considerations of the consequences that the use of technology has had in the human brain, and the differences between a Digital Immigrant’s brain and a Digital Native’s one. There is a generational gap then, which is not only a matter of who knows better how to deal with technology but a matter of human evolution; digital natives are the future, a step-forward in the evolutionary chain. This does not mean, however, that Digital Immigrants cannot adapt to the new waves of technological boom; this means they need to put a greater effort into understanding and keeping up with all the technological tools and developments since their brains are not biologically programmed to decode technology as Digital Native’s is. There is yet one more meaning in these words: both Digital Natives and Immigrants have advantages and disadvantages as there are different areas in their brains that are more or less developed according to each generation’s characteristics.

Of course, the generational gap causes misunderstandings between Digital Natives and Digital Immigrants. Moreover, there are times when their irreconcilable differences cause major problems, as when the two generations meet at the classroom. Many are the challenges an immigrant teacher faces when trying to teach a Digital Native; when trying to understand the way in which he or she learns, which is different from his/her own’s.   

When trying to understand better all these considerations and differences between the generations I found the blog of a very young teacher from Toronto Canada who made two interesting entries titled: "Future Minds Part I: Brain evolution 101 for parents and teachers", and "Future Minds Part II: The good and the bad of our evolving brains", in which she treated the topic of digital natives and immigrants, and the characteristics of digital natives’ brain and neurological functioning supporting her ideas on the notions discussed in the book I mentioned before.   

In spite of a few grammatical mistakes and not having official endorsement, the entries (specifically the second one) contain some considerations about the way in which the digital natives’ brains work; considerations that are important for us future teachers, especially for those of us that are digital immigrants and need to grasp at all tools and information available to plan the best way to get to and engage the digital native students.