Being Material designers

In the field of English Language teaching, there are numerous resources offered by successful education publishing companies. However, are course books topics often relevant and engaging enough for students to learn a specific linguistic feature? Such question obliges us to reconsider the group of learners we are teaching in order to gather a thorough understanding of the sociocultural context where teaching takes place and the culture (s) interacting in the classroom. All that information will help teachers make well- informed decisions to design materials.

Designing Effective English Language Teaching Materials

As future educators, it is necessary to bear in mind a number of aspects to design them effectively.The authors Howard and Major (2005) offer some help by outlining a set of guidelines regarding factors to take into account when designing materials. Here, we will focus on three of them:

1. Not only should materials be contextualised to the objectives of school curriculum but to the students' backgrounds (previous knowledge, experiences and their mother tongue).In our opinion, teachers will be able to make a profitable and effective use of materials once they address and analyse such demands.
2. All material should be aimed at achieving real communicative purposes, which means giving learners the opportunity to engage in interactive tasks that replicate real life situations. In this sense, learning will be the result of working with others by using the language as a vehicle to fulfil a certain goal.
3. For material use to be effective, instructions should be clear for both teachers and learners. Even though the material we design may be visually attractive and appealing to students, it may fail to guide and support the teacher and learners if instructions are ambiguous or inappropriate in terms of target language.

So as to conclude, we truly consider material designer a vital role for educators to perform since it contributes to improve their teaching practices and the students' learning skills development.

References:

• Howard, J; Major, J. (2005).Guidelines for Designing Effective English Language Teaching Materials. Retrieved from http://www.paaljapan.org/resources/proceedings/PAAL9/pdf/Howard.pdf

Web 2.0 as an Educational Tool

To begin with, we would like to explain what we refer to when talking about web 2.0. The term was coined by DiNucci at the end of the nineties and it was made popular by O'Reilly at the beginning of the millennium.Web 2.0 as opposed to Web 1.0, refers to a more interactive type of web. It allows users to interact with each other through the internet by means of different tools/platforms such as wikis, blogs, socialnetworks, among many others. 

Web 2.0 and English Language Teaching

The advent of Web 2.0 tools should be seen as innovative resources that could potentially enhance the learning experience in terms of communication, connectivity and engagement .For this reason, we would like to share two Web 2.0 tools to exploit in the EFL classroom: Word Cloud and Voki.

On the first place,Word Clouds can be used to display a piece of written text in an interactive way making readers, or in our case students, figure out and construct the meaning/idea of the text inserted in the word cloud. As a teacher, you can make certain words stand out by bigging their size and also reduce or omit those you may consider less relevant. Below, you will find an example of a Word Cloud.

    
This tool can be used in teaching to help students reinforce their grammatical knowledge of word order in sentences as well as their reading comprehension. 

On the second place, there is also another practical tool called Voki which can be used to clarify the message provided in the word cloud or even as short listening practice. Such tool, allows users to create an avatar able to say what the user may wish to. An interesting feature is that you (the teacher) or your students can record their voices allowing then the opportunity to practise spoken language and any aspect of pronunciation you may consider appropriate.
By clicking on Voki you can listen to the one we created.

The teaching resources offered in this post are intended to provide EFL educators with suggestions as to the use of Web 2.0 in English Language Teaching. Needless to say there are thousands more to discover, explore and integrate to your lessons. Is there any you have tried and used with your students you would like to comment on or suggest?Please, share it with us!

Blended Learning: Teaching in a Digital Era

Image taken from: http://cdn2.hubspot.net/hub/452853/file-2343062990-jpg/blog-files/blended-learning1.jpg

As expressed in previous posts,digital tools have come to revolutionise people's lives and institutions in society. Among them, schools are said to be the most affected ones. But, should this be considered as something that have come to threaten education and therefore learners achievements?Personally, we believe that the devices at our disposal should be looked upon as an opportunity for creativity and improvement in terms of teaching and learning processes.

What Does Blended Learning Mean?

Apps, social networks,laptops and smart phones are all part of students' culture and identity; through such digital tools they communicate, interact and share content of their interest and concern. For this reason, teachers should start thinking about Blending Learning. In simple words, it involves teaching as most of us know it (face to face) and online. Together, virtual and real learning environments complement the learning experience. It is said that this tendency allows teachers to effectively use classtime and it may give students choice in deciding the place and time to learn better. Nevertheless, there are elements that do play a crucial role in any pedagogical relation teacher and student build. In the article Why we still need face to face teaching in the digital age, Sophie Partarrieu (2015) addresses body language, cultural insights and empathy as linguistic and emotional processes of great complexity which cannot be easily replaced.

Our B- Learning Experience

As part of our English Teacher Training Programme in Institute nº 8 in Santa Fe, Argentina, we have engaged in the creation of this blog for academic purposes with a focus on  the use of technology and digital content in the English language classroom. As Michael Godsey affirms,
                             

the relatively recent emergence of the Internet, and the ever-increasing ease of access to web, has unmistakably usurped the teacher from the former role as dictator of subject content.These days, teachers are expected to concentrate on the "facilitation"of factual knowledge that is suddenly widely accessible. (2015)

 The radical change of access to knowledge, demands from us,future educators, to reconsider our role (s) while helping and guiding students in their learning process. That is why, we should look for ways of making use of the multiple resources available on virtual environments whenever possible, without disregarding what the students need and interest them. Drawing on our personal experience, we would dare say that it has meant a process of reflective thinking higly valuable for the profession we have selected. It gave us the chance not only  to become more acquainted with the different teaching and learning resources available on the Internet, but also to analyse and test how reliable a website is- something we should definitely teach our students if we are to educate them with the competences and skills society demands.

References:

•  Godsey,M. (2015). The Deconstruction of the K-12 Teacher. Retrieved from http://www.theatlantic.com/education/archive/2015/03/the-deconstruction-of-the-k-12-teacher/388631/
• Partarrieu, S. (2015). Why we still need face- to- face teaching in the digital age. Retrieved from https://www.britishcouncil.org/voices-magazine/why-we-still-need-face-face-teaching-digital-age

SAMR Model

In this blog we have been discussing different ways and reasons for including technology into teaching, and the existence of many answers, methods, techniques and opinions on this topic. On this particular occasion, we want to share and discuss the Substitution, Augmentation, Modification and Redefinition (SAMR) Model. This model was created by Dr. Ruben Puentedura to help teachers reflect upon the impact and effectiveness of their use of digital technologies when teaching. Its aim is that teachers can decide on the kind of use they want to make of digital tools, depending on the teaching they are interested in performing, at a particular moment.

As teachers to be, we are thinking about the presentation of topics and contents, as well as the development of tasks in the EFL classroom applying technological resources. With this idea in our minds we have created an example of what we consider useful technology use in class. This example was created together with a group of classmates, to share with our readers.

We were given in the subject ECO, some contents to develop in a hypothetical class, in our case, it was the family and the use of comparative adjectives. We decided to use a Power Point presentation. First, we used it to introduce the members of the family using "The Simpsons" as a model. Then, it was used in order to teach some adjectives to describe and compare members of the family and their characteristics. Here, you can see what our presentation looks like. We also used this Power Point presentation to explain our students a task they would be working on during a couple of lessons in relation to this topic.Students were asked to create a Power Point presentation as the one we have done but comparing one member of their families with one from the Simpsons. This presentation would consist of only three slides.

Moving on to the analysis of our hypothetical class and considering the SAMR Model we are describing here, our Power Point presentation can be situated on two different levels. On one hand, it is possible to say that the presentation of content with such resource rather than flashcards, chalk and board is on the Augmentation level. We say this because it does not only include words and pictures, but also a video from which students could infer the meaning of two comparative adjectives. This turned our presentation of content into a multimedia experience for the students, more engaging and challenging than just two pictures being compared. On the other hand, the task proposed was nearer the Subtitution level. We believe this because, it may have been more practical for students to show a picture of a member of their families printed on a sheet of paper/poster and displayed around the classroom than on a Power Point. However, the main purpose was probably to call students´attention and interest by including the use of some digital tool.

As mentioned on the video, all the levels of technology used in class can be effective according to the SAMR Model. It depends on what is necessary at different points of the teaching- learning process and the teacher's objectives when using digital technologies. However, after consciously analysing the technique planned to be used to introduce technology, the teacher may decide to take it one level higher. For example, in our case, we could have proposed students a different task. Asking them to create a video with pictures of members from both families being compared, could possibly have added an extra degree of challenge as well as creativity.

To conclude,the SAMR Model is one of the many possible ways to think, plan and analyse not only what technology could be used in class but also how and with which clear purposes. It is meant to help teachers engage students and to do it wisely. 

Current Initiatives in the Educational Field

Last month, the University of Littoral offered a conference about education and digital culture. In such free event, the founder and director of Outliers School, Hugo Pardo Kuklinsky, shared ideas about projects he has been part of concerning the design and integration of digital- oriented products and services in educational institutions and companies. Since my blog partner and I didn't have the chance to attend the talk, we have decided to inform ourselves and become acquainted with the work of this specialist. In what follows, we will provide information about his initiative and we will finish drawing some conclusions about the relevance Kuklinsky's  ideas have in English Language teaching.

Personal Academic Background
Among Kuklinsky studies, we can  mention his PhD in Audiovisual Communication and Master in Research of Audiovisual Communication by Universidad Autónoma de Barcelona apart from a degree in Communication Sciences by Universidad de Buenos Aires, Argentina. (You can access his CV here)

His work
Kuklinsky and his staff have worked with a number of organisations, schools and universities in Latin American and European countries. By exploring his website digitalismo.com, we could access information concerning his methodology as well as conferences and projects carried out in Argentina and other countries. In one of the videos published in the website, Kuklinsky addresses and explains the radical changes institutions (companies, schools and universities) are going through due to advancements in digital content and media. He highlights the fact that knowledge/content distribution is no longer monopolised. By means of connectivity and low hardware and software costs, anyone can build a company or business and compete with the rest of the world.

Why are Kuklinsky's ideas relevant to educators?
Although business oriented, the methodology his initiative Outliers School is based on strongly considers the role digital content and media as part of students' culture(s). A group of specialists work to design and execute innovative learning processes in educational environments. For this, design thinking, gamification and learning by doing are key concepts. During a limited amount of time the staff works cooperatively and collaboratevely with an institution to solve a particular problem.

SERO: Laboratorio Vivo: An Outliers School project
Together with the direction of Fundación Dividendo from Colombia United Way, Outliers School worked on SERO: Laboratorio Vivo in Medellín,Colombia (2016). (You can listen to and watch some of the people involved here)
SERO  was an experiment aimed at helping those students at risk of dropping build up their confidence assuming an active role in the learning process. The project had a duration of ten months and the experiment 30 days.(For a deeper insight visit ser0.org)

To conclude, we believe Kuklinky's ideas are valuable in English Language Teaching and education in general. As future teachers,we know students may find difficulties and even may question the usefulness of the contents they are taught at school causing them to lose interest and motivation. As digital content and media have meant a paradigm shift in every aspect of our society, it is necessary to start to rethink what teaching and learning may mean to us.

References: 

• http://digitalismo.com/hugopardokuklinski/
• http://ser0.org/
• http://www.unl.edu.ar/agenda/index.php?act=showEvento&id=14031#.WBbJ7i3hDIU

Education in the Digital Era

Video games, smart phones and social networks play a fundamental role in youngsters´ lives. Through those digital resources and devices they can interact, share and exchange information in ways we, people born in the 90´s and those from older generations could have never imagined. So as to explain how this has come to change our lives, it is noteworthy that we introduce the terms Digital Natives and Digital Immigrants. Coined by Mark Prensky (2001) to address the differences present between people born in the digital era and those who were not, it can be said that such a situation has a number of implications for education and as a result it challenges traditional teaching and learning beliefs.

When reading the article we found  the distinction the author makes between Legacy and Future content particularly attractive. The first involves a major translation and change of methodology; the second involves all that PLUS new content and thinking. We agree with Prensky´s argument because technology, has come to revolutionise our lives in many different aspects and this is not a minor concern in the field of education.

Personally speaking and considering Prensky's arguments, we are supposed to fall into the Digital Immigrants category. Even though as future educators we have the responsibility to take into account digital content because technology embodies our students' sociocultural background,it should not be overlooked the existence of more urgent issues in the educational systems of many countries such as poor building conditions, lack of heating and cooling appliances, to mention a few.

To conclude, it cannot be denied that technology offers great opportunities to innovate and make teaching and learning more engaging in the 21st century.Nevertheless,this does not imply that we should dispose of old methodologies and disregard the importance of teaching basic skills such as reading and writing. Instead, we should integrate up to date tools to provide the students with what they need to become active citizens. Considering this, there is no reason why learning should be boring since the possibilities to discover and bring innovative ideas to the classroom in this highly technological era are endless.

References

• Prensky, M. (2001). Digital Natives, Digital Immigrants. On the Horizon, NCB University Press, Vol. 9 No. 5.

Digital Literacies in the classroom

Since our main purpose is to share information related to the use of technology in the classroom, it is convenient to talk about Digital Literacies, a  not so long standing concept present in the field of education. In the article Digital literacies: What are they and why should we care?, Nicky Hockly (2013) refers to them as "our ability to effectively make use of the technologies at our disposal". In saying this, she does not only mean to be competent in the use of the new media tools , but also teaching and helping students make a good and well informed use of all the media resources at hand.

So as to raise students' awareness in this subject matter, it is of paramount importance to aid them to evaluate and analyse how trustworthy the information available on the internet is. For this reason, we have chosen and analysed two educational websites, being one of them www.discoveryeducation.com. Considering Lesley's criteria (2007), we have arrived to some conclusions regarding the usefulness of this site in allowing teaching material design. Among the tools offered by the website, the puzzle maker is easy and quick to use since it  allows teachers to create their own puzzles online and free. In the field of English Language Teaching, we have used this resource to create material for the teaching of modal verbs to express probability on the topic "Crime".

The Pre-Task

You can start the lesson with a brief brainstorming asking students to share the words/ideas they think of concerning crime (what a crime is, who can solve one, what objects/materials are necessary to solve it, etc.).

The Task

You can show the students a video about a murder mystery/crime scene together with a worksheet to identify and circle the objects they see in the video (these could be the ones to solve the crime or clues).

After Task

Later on, you can select an extract for linguistic reflection/ analysis and for the students to complete with the linguistic items already dealt with, in this case, modal verbs.

Finally, you can create a puzzle for the students to discover a secret message associated to the topic you have worked on.

http://www.discoveryeducation.com//free-puzzlemaker/index.cfm?campaign=flyout_teachers_puzzle