Today has been our first day on Blended Learning. The first activity was an ice-breaking one in order to know each other in the group. It's a big group, there are 14 of us. I really enjoyed it and I think it is going to be useful for my classes.
Then Russell, our teacher, showed us a tool called TodaysMeet and it was really good for discussions in class. If you click here you can watch some videos showing how it works.
We discussed the advantages of using technology and why we are introducing technology in the language class. These are some of the ideas:
- It's cheap for institutions to run.
- It gives instant feedback.
- It's a way to interact with other people in order to facilitate learning.
- It offers flexibility.
- You can learn anywhere at your own pace.
- It makes learning more memorable.
- It gives more autonomy to the learner.
- It's appealling to the students.
- It keeps up with digital natives.
- It`s engaging and motivating.
- It's a way to attract more students for the companies and distance is no longer a problem.
- It saves time.
- You can have quick access to any information.
- Young people are digital natives.
- Everty learner can find their individual way of learning.
- It offers freedom to choose any kind of resources to learn.
- You don't depend on a timetable.
- You have access to all kind of libraries, open university courses, MOOCs.
The second discussion using TodaysMeet was about what is the stumbling block that causes teachers to shy away from using technology and we reached to the following conclusions:
- They think they are not good at technology.
- Some of them are digital immigrants.
- It's a waste of time due to technological problems.
- It's time consuming.
- They are technophobes.
- There is no equipment in the schools.
- Technology is threatening for some teachers because students know a lot about technology, but they don't.
- Technology becomes the purpose rather than the tool.
- Students concentration may be disturbed.
- Some teachers struggle to find good stuff.
- Technology is distracting.
- Not all the students have access to technology.
- Bullying might happen.
- Lots of information to choose from and it may be confusing.
- Information is consumed so quickly.
Russell briefly talked about Sherry Turkle who speaks about the power of talk on the digital area. These are some interesting videos about her:
Sherry Turkle, 'Reclaiming Conversation' Google
Sherry Turkle, 'Connected, but alone?'
Sherry Turkle, 'Reclaiming Conversation' the agenda
We also talked about how the delivery of information is more precise when it is on video and Russell gave us two examples, one related to Richard Mayer and another one to Smith and Smith. This is a video of Richard Mayer exploring aspects of the role of the video and the design for effective teaching and learning in higher education.
The last part of the day was dedicated to how to create a blog on blogger because it can be used for different things:
- You can create posts.
- It's like a diary.
- It can be used as a website.
- It can be an e-portfolio (an electronic collection of our students productions: powerpoint presentations, podcasts, etc)
- It is a way of reflection.
As an example of an excellent blog about technology, this is the link you can visit. It is Nik Peachey's blog, a digital education expert.
And another example of a really good blog is a blog of one of Russell's students at university, Jo Gakonga. Click here to see it.
Finally, in order to review how to create a blog, we can visit Russell's website and click on blogs and wikis. Click here to watch the two videos.
And that was all for today!
Russell Stannard, our teacher
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