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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.
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