What do blenders and teachers have in common?

...And no,  we are not talking about food!

Blended learning refers to the mixture of on-line and face to face learning. It is a new trend that is being implemented by teachers around the world.

Some of the advantages of this way of working is that students can choose where, how and when to learn encouraging the development of their autonomy and to assume responsibility for their own learning process.

Another positive aspects is that teachers can create a close learning environment where students have all the materials they need at their disposal. This factor is important, because they don't have to surf the web, avoiding the risk of encountering unreliable websites (for more information about criteria for evaluating websites, visit this post) and therefore working with wrong or inaccurate information.

Incorporating technology into the classroom has its advantages, but there are some things that technology cannot replace. As Sophie Partarrieu (2005) stated, face-to-face education is still needed for several reasons, among them "forming emotional relationships, emphathising and responding to the needs of individual students".

As future teachers, our aim is to strike a balance between these two types of learning, because extremes are dangerous.

Going mobile... not crazy!

 

Last September, Nicky Hockly delivered a talk at the UNL ATE Hotel in Santa Fe, Argentina. She called this talk "Going Mobile", because she addressed a current challenge for teachers to face: the use of technology in the classroom.

She showed different ways of integrating technological devices into everyday lessons, ranging from simpler tasks (such as taking photos) to really sophisticated ones (for example, using Aurasma, a Web 2.0 tool - see our post about this topic). These are really useful ideas to overcome this controversial issue: "to use or not to use technology in the lessons".

In the context we are going to teach, this pieces of advice are feasible up to a point, since in most public school classrooms, internet connection is not available, and this makes this integration of technology difficult. However, on the brighter side, we can use Nicky Hockly's ideas and adapt and re-invent them to suit our reality.

She also mentioned the SAMR model (see this post for more information) to demonstrate that technology not always means innovation.

As a conclusion, as future teachers of this digital generation, we should see technology as a partner and not as an enemy.

Meet my friend: Web 2.0

Information taken from: http://whatis.techtarget.com/

Web 2.0 is the current state of the old World Wide Web (WWW). The main difference is its social nature; Internet users are content providers and not just passive consumers. They can share information, interact and collaborate with others. In education, this tool can benefit teachers making lessons more creative and attractive for students (creating videos, posters, cartoons, and sharing them with others). Teachers need to be aware of their students, who are immersed in a digital world. 

Here are some practical ideas to use Web 2.0 tools in the classroom:

The easy-going and free Big Huge Labs page allows students to create many things (posters, calendars, puzzles). In pairs, they will create a movie poster including pictures and a list of vocabulary we dealt with. This list should be presented as credits (they will write full sentences using their previous knowledge, avoiding writing isolated words). The picture they choose will be the poster background image and the title will be created considering an outstanding concept they consider they learnt. The purpose of this is to assess and enhance self assessment of what they’ve learnt through this unit. They will share this poster on Edublog, a blog we’ve chosen since it is an appealing and easy-to-use web page. You can create an account and share your material in private learning groups. The pair will design and manage this blog, sharing responsibility and uploading different materials to be shared with others. After this, their peers will reply to this entry and state whether they will go and watch this movie or not (i.e. if they agree or not), and why.

In conclusion, considering the students of this digital generation and the call for creativity and motivation, we believe that teachers should overcome their fear of technology and try it out, enjoying the rewards.

New tricks for an old dog.

We believe that the role of presentations is a creative and engaging way to introduce a topic/task/project to our students. Although presentations can be used at any stage in the lesson and for many different purposes, we focus on the role they have when it comes to presenting something new. Usually, teachers do not use presentations because for them to create something like that is time consuming and may be useless. Based on our experiences, we can say that teachers need to look at these tools in a friendlier way.

Also, presentations can help students to visualize what they are asked to do. When teachers work with projects (like we do), sometimes students are not able to see or to imagine what their production will look like, so this is a way of motivating them, by showing them something  concrete and similar to what they will produce.

In our didactic sequence, we tried to incorporate new technologies. We asked students to use the Movie Maker software to make their videos, which consist of a fictitious holiday of a well-known celebrity.

Our aim is to use this new technology, by means of which students can be more creative in their productions. They can add images, short videos, music, and text which will be clues for their partners to guess who the celebrity is - things that would be impossible to put altogether without using this software. So, according to SAMR, this is what we gain when we ask them to replace the old technologies. With the type of task we designed, we think the ladder that this model proposes is covered.

Taking into account the TPACK model, the tool we chose did all what we needed it to. It is simple enough, but if students don’t know some of its features we can give them some tutorial so as to clear doubts.

Our sequence provides guidance to our students, it is clear and goes from simpler tasks to more difficult ones. We don’t want to frustrate them. 

We provide some of the information that they will need, but they also have to look for some more in order to fulfil the task – we want to teach them some learning strategies, one of them is selecting important or relevant information. At the same time we want our students to develop autonomy and to be responsible for their learning processes.

We believe that this software fits the type of task that we want them to do, and even though we are aware that there might be other software more appropriate for this, we prefer this one since it is really simple to use when making videos.

As we worked with Valeria and Belén, here you have their blog. You can visit it and there you will find the video we use to present our project and also a webpage where you can find information about the software we use: The Movie Maker.

This is an image that illustrates the TPACK model. It was made with a web 2.0 resource.

But we will talk about this in our next entry...

Do we all know HOW to learn?

Reflecting upon our experience as students, and everything being comprised in it, we believe that “English language teaching materials should encourage learners to develop learning skills and strategies” (Jocelyn Howard and Jae Major, 2005).  We are aware that sometimes we studied by heart because we were not taught strategies that would help us to improve our learning.

Now, as future teachers, and with all the theoretical framework that we manage and some experiences in front of classrooms with “real students”, we know that the assumption made before is true but sometimes reality overdoes theory.

Nevertheless, with persistence, effort and willingness we can make at least a little change in the classrooms we are going to work in.

A useful way to reach this aim is to follow a task-based approach that,  briefly put, consists of presenting related activities and tasks that would lead to a final goal. Within this way of working, it is important to teach students different strategies that would help them in this process and in the future. One of the greatest advantages of this approach is group work. By interacting with others,  students can share their experiences and the difficulties they may have and develop different strategies to sort them out.

Also, by following this approach, we must design materials that challenge students’ abilities and at the same time, that implicitly serve them to improve different learning strategies. The result of this, in the long-term, would help them develop autonomy while learning not only a language, as in our case, but also to apply this in other aspects of life.

For example, this was a grill we used with real students in a project in which they have to  make a leaflet to promote the adoption of a homeless dog. In the following activity, students, who have been working with an authentic leaflet of a shelter, have to realise which is the purpose, the audience and the content of the leaflet so as to put this into practise when deciding on theirs in the next lessons.

This is the leaflet:

This is the task:

Look at the Austin Pets Alive! leaflet and decide: Which is its purpose? What do they want to do with it? And what about the audience? Who is going to read it? And the content? What information does it include? List your answers below:                            THE PURPOSE          –           THE AUDIENCE           –            THE CONTENT.

We are aware that presenting authentic material, as these authors also suggest, is highly motivating and a good opportunity to expose the students to real, unscripted language specifically produced for language learning purposes.

This task of creating a leaflet for an awareness campaign not only needs the learners to reflect on the language, but also on the behaviours required from them in the world outside the classroom.

In conclusion, we can say that the real challenge for many teachers is not to give all the responses that students require; instead, they have to provide tools, strategies, resources and guidance so as to make students find their way.

Evaluating websites: All that glitters is NOT gold.

We decided that the next criteria are important to take into consideration when you are looking for a web page, since these will help you to decide whether or not these sites are reliable and if the material there presented will be useful for one’s purposes.

First, what you need to take into account is reliability (authority). It refers to the website's authors: Their personal information as regards who they are, what they do, their experiences and how to get in contact with them.

When we analysed the webpage Handout Online, for example, we didn’t really know who the author/s is/are nor the credentials or authority they have to talk about the subject, so we are not sure about the worksheets’ reliability. In addition to this, we have found some spelling mistakes, which reinforce what we have said before. The web page only provides an email address where you can share any doubt or experience that you might have.

Although it does not seem as a hoax, we need to be careful when using these materials.

In addition, another important criterion is currency. This aspect has to do with how up- to- date the blog and the information provided there is. It is important to know when was the last publication to see that the blog is in use. Also, if there is any dead link, that might mean that the author is not using the blog anymore. This is an important aspect to consider when looking for websites to work with.

In the BBC website, for example, it is clearly stated that they are not responsible for “external links”, since they select them when the page is created but then, they are no longer responsible for them as regards information published there (up-to-date, appropriate) or if these links continue to be current.

It is also important to consider the web page’s purpose. If you are looking for a webpage witheducational aims, make sure that it is clearly stated in it. Also, the final syllable of the URL address is a good hint of what this web page is about. 

When we first enter the Handout Online site, the first thing we could see is an image with this phrase: “Just download, print and photocopy. Fantastic low prices: check out our free ESL worksheet samples and join today!” So, we know that its aim is not only to provide educational tools, but also to sell you their products. And, as we said before, the final syllable of the URL site is .com, which tells us that it is a commercial site.

 

Finally, you need to take into account the web page’s clarity. The format of the website should be easy to go through. The information presented needs to be clear, in a neat, legible font. If there is any graphic, it should add to understanding of the content, complement it.  There should not be mistakes in spelling and word usage since that has to do with reliability on the authors, too.

In the BBC website, for instance, we can see that there are more graphics than text, which is why

we consider that the site’s organization may be a bit confusing the first time you access it. Although this website has a lot of valuable information, it is not presented in the clearest format. The content is not divided into categories, but the web page makes up for it offering a browser to find the topic of your interest.

Are we Digital Immigrants or Digital Natives?

Before answering the question, we need to know what does being an “Immigrant” or a “Native” mean.

According to Marc Prensky (2001), Digital Natives represent the first generation to grow up with new technology. They have spent their entire lives surrounded by and using computers, video games, digital music players, video cams, cell phones, and all other toys and tools of the Digital Age. Computer games, email, the Internet, cell phones and instant messaging are integral parts of their lives. On the other side, as Digital Immigrants learn to adapt to their environment, they always retain, to some degree, their “accent”, their foot in the past.

Taking into account that this article was written in 2001, we could assume that the gap between teachers and students was broader than now. We were born in the 90s, so as children we didn’t grow up surrounded by technology, but as teenagers, and young-adults, we did. And that is why we believe that we are not fully Immigrant, neither fully Native, we are somewhere in between those terms.

We are familiarized with technology, but we also need to constantly keep up with it, since it changes and evolves all the time. Also, we are not afraid of it, we learn by trial and error, and by using and experimenting with it.

That is why we think that since we are not one or another, we could use our knowledge and experience to reduce the gap that has been present between teachers and students.

To sum up, we’d like to share this video and invite you to reflect upon this topic and have some fun. As Prensky stated, Immigrants are not going to change everything; there will always be some remaining features. As teachers, we need to be open to learn from our students, and at the same time, provide them with opportunities to use some techniques or tools that have been discarded. Digital natives and Digital immigrants should not be opposites; instead, they have to co-exist, to complement one another.

Here you have the video, enjoy!