Web Analytics

"Web Analytics is a measurement, collection, analysis and reporting of Internet data for the purposes of undersatandeing and optimizing Web usage" 

                                                                                      (Web Analytics Assosiation, 2006)

Nowadays analytics are everywhere...

A few decades ago when theWorld Wide Web was used as a tool for sharing information, only a few could think about the role that it plays today.  The increasing popularity  and use of Internet access raise the possibility of using the Web to observe,  monitor and undersatand  a human social behavior. 

Now many websites are using  Google Analytics to follow their visitors behaviors. The visually enhanced reports by Google Analytics provides information on where visitors come from, what pages they visit, how long they stay on each page, how deep they go in the site, where their visits end, and where they go from there. Even Sciences turn to analytics and visuals to have better understanding of different field related issues. Web analytics offer objective satistical data which helps better see the interaction between the website and the visitor. 

In educational setting it also can play a vital role. They can measure the course and activity value in schools and Universities. This will help educators to design a better website/course/activities for their students based on the information that web analytics will provide. With the help of web analytics we can have clear understanding about the preferences and interests of our students  ans built effecctive courses and educational websites for them to enjoy. :)

Here is a link which explains how one can interpret and act with the data. If you are inetersted in it have a look :)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hdsb_uH2yPU

Another interesting video about web analytics by Avinash Kaushik

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bpDxGrSqA-E&feature=results_video&playnext=1&list=PLBC519BB60F304EE0

Open Class

Open Class is a new kind of learning environment that goes beyond the Learning Management System (LMS). It stimulates social learning and the free exchange of content and ideas. It’s open to everyone, easy to use, and completely free. It provides dynamic cloud-based solutions. It's a free floor  around the globe which advances education by leveraging modern social technology to encourage collaboration and communication for students, faculty, institutions, and administrators.

Distance Learning

Will you be surprised if I say that the first attempt for distance education was in 1728 in Boston. Of course at that time it was via postal services. However, University of London states to be the first University to offer distance learning degree. But whatever it was let me leave this and consider distance education nowadays in this hightech century. 

Distance education means that one can study  from everywhere in this world without even waiting for the particular course or semester to start. In our growing and developing world getting higher education is vital but how can people get it if they live far away and don't have access to the high qualified teachers and resources. Here online learning that is virtual classroom due to inovative technolories comes to help. Now people from rural areas who generally don't have acces to on-campus education can gain qualified education via virtual classrooms. Its a new way of learning and interacting and a new way of connecting classrooms and the students. For students virtual classrooms give opportunity to take the courses that are not available at regular schools and they also can fit them into their schedule. So, the flexability to fit the schedule is one of the benefits of virtual classromms. 

 However, speaking about benefits let's not to forget that every good thing (it's consider to be a good one :-)) has its drawbacks. And of them is that virtual schools aren't for everyone. A virtual school student should be self-directed and self-motivated. S/he should take care of her/himself because there is no teacher to say what page to read and what to write. Moreover, there is belief that having only virtual classes without any real ones can't bring you desired results. So, maybe the mix of them will be great :).  Be honest I've never tried virtual classes (except 2-week skype classes) but I'd like to..........

Here are two interesting links. Have a look :)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uZk-WdYHkoc

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xhrzB6gmhEA

Two more links about virtual classroom.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PMixI8t1yVw&feature=related

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zdxeWRVCIXE&feature=related

Open Educational Resources

As a starting point I suggest you to follow this link and watch a video about open educational resources which will give you an overall understanding of this phenomenon. This what I did because I didn't know anything about OER     

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8kRBS9vtOAw

Now let me discuss a notion of Open Educational Resorces (OER) from my point of view. OER is an open resourse available for everyone who need it. It's a kind of free online learning. The idea of it is to create an online/virtual space full of various resources for people who do not have access to the information they need. As we live in the technology century we should consider using it for educational puposes as wisely as possible. From the economic point of view having educated and inteligent generation is very important in this fast developing world and of course in this case the access to higher education is obligatory. But now it is difficult to find a single University which can provide its students sufficient resources. We need a new education extending tool. Thus, creating such kind of online resources and giving students access to them freely from different parts of the world will be of great help. Of course OER is a great tool but its design and creation cost a lot of money and effort. Maybe that's why in Armenia we don't have so well developed OER and that should make us think about trying to develop and improve it for coming generation.


As you see OER is of great importance and the evidence of it is that the first world OER congress will be held 20-22 June 2012 at UNESCO headquarters in Paris, France. The Congress aims to  influence educational planning worldwide and to encourage governments to support the development and use of open educational resources. 

Learning via mobile devices

Nowadays almost everyone has at least one mobile device (mobile phone, iPod, iPhone ….) and probably knows about its capabilities. Actually using mobile devices for their purpose and also for having fun is not a big secret but using them as learning and teaching tools, is something that needs investigation and exploration. So having read a few articles and blog posts (which I recommend you to read as well) I’ll try to describe some ideas related to the topic and also discuss advantages and noticeable disadvantages of using mobile devices in educational settings.

So, one of the main advantages is that deciding to use mobiles for teaching/learning purposes teachers won’t face many challenges in terms of availability of the mentioned devices. Though those devices may lack of some capabilities they still are valuable to use.

 Mobile assisted language learning (MALL) may encourage collaboration and co-construction of knowledge, even though mobility and portability very often seem not to be completely put in the design of MALL activities. The lack of interaction may be seen as disadvantage which supports teacher-learner communication and use the mobile device to deliver content rather than encouraging learners to communicate with each other. So here arising a question about how to use mobile devices to support non-teacher-led pedagogical approach that may encourage students’ collaboration. MALL develops very fast and begins to support multimedia, collaborative listening and speaking tasks and to allow learners to construct knowledge to sort out problems and fill information gaps.

However, let us not to forget that cell phone is just a tool to motivate and to engage a student to take part in the learning process but it’s not a curriculum. It’s an additional tool which supports a curriculum to be improved. Activities linked to curriculum are done outside of the classroom so we need to use a tool where it is best to use. I think that classroom time should be spend, students can listen to the teacher and interact with each other in reality and outside of the classroom when we can’t control them we can just give them assignments which will keep them in a language learning environment everywhere on the move. They can learn the language even without knowing that.

We need time to learn how to use the new devices and software because students may use them n unpredictable for teachers’ ways. Recommending the students use the devices doesn’t mean that they will follow it. So we must be aware of that as well before trying to implement MALL to our curriculum.

From the positive side I’d like to add that teachers can bring EFL podcasts into the classroom and guide learners how to carry on with them outside the classroom in the longer term. They can use this method to introduce the students to authentic video podcasts such as news broadcasts. Using of flashcards for vocabulary learning is also a good point for our discussion.

It will take a long time to get used to a new technology that is to say to the use of mobile phones in classroom settings but the best thing about cell phones is that students never leave home without them and they can be easily used outside of school and home.

Learning in a Virtual World

Virtual  world? How can it be used for learning purposes? Perhaps this is the first question that almost everybody asks him/herself reading the heading of this blog post. But hang on so far in my blogs I have written about using different new technologies in educational settings. Now it is a turn to discover a new world, virtual world, full of incredible opportunities, a world where people can not only play and have fun but also learn and teach. So hold your breath we are discovering a new way of learning-learning in a virtual world. 

Donald J. Welch (president and CEO of Merit Network) divides the virtual worlds into four sectors and along one line he put "general purpose" vs. "specific function" and along the other one "public use" vs"private use". For instance Second Life is public use and general access.

In terms of using virtual world in higher education he says that now there are some gaps but he is optimistic saying that in near future there will be worlds that are specifically designed for higher education. 
No doubt that virtual world attracts students. They are excited seeing various interesting interfaces and content. They want to interact in different environment (though virtual worlds reflect the reality) and experience new things.

Interestingly, according to Cynthia M. Calongne (Professor of Computer Science at Colorado Technical University) virtual worlds can be very effective and interactive tools for learning and teaching. Of course virtual world class differs from a traditional one, due to the three dimensional (3D) graphical setting, the use of avatars and virtual things specific for its virtual space. She says that “successful virtual class experiences require a blend of technology, tools, content, student ownership, identity, engagement, course structure, risk management, mentoring, feedback, and a good orientation to using the tool".

     Yes, maybe it's great that students can do lessons, interact and do projects on different places (beach, island, cafe or in the air) due to the virtual worlds but can we provide our students with safe learning environment? Or it's not a secret that people and especially teens mostly became addicted and it's hard to get them out of that virtual space. So we should be cautious about using different virtual worlds for learning purposes otherwise we'll gain opposite/negative results. However, virtual space can serve as an additional tool to motivate, to attract and even to encourage our students to learn because as I've mentioned in my previous posts learning and fun are two in-separate things if we want our student to be more motivated and interested. 

  

Here are a few tutorials about using virtual worlds for learning purposes if you are interested :) 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X-oeCkBbwWo

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eNjV8Fvre4U

Digital Video Games as learning tools

“Games are effective not because what they are but because of what they embody and what learners are doing as they play a game”

 Richard Van Eck

Nowadays more and more people use digital games for different purposes. They are employing “cutting edge technology”. We don’t live in industrial economy anymore, we live in technology economy thus we have to think about using this technology in educational settings.

In general there are three factors which have resulted in broad public interest and attention in games as learning and teaching tools. They are as follows:

v  Ongoing research in Digital Video Games (DGBL) field

v  “Net Generation” or “Digital Natives” mismatched with the traditional instructions because it required multiple streams of information, immediate interactions with content: the features that engaged well with DGBL

v  Increased popularity in games

Besides claiming about the increasing popularity of games we should also mention that not all games are effective and have place in learning/teaching settings. Here the main issue is the attempts to integrate games into the learning process to broaden out their learning/teaching potential. According to Van Eck easy games can’t be engaging whereas well designed games require “input from the learner and provide feedback”. 

Let’s consider that we have designed an educative game but how we can attract kids play this game. So here comes the notion that they should be entertained and the connection between learning and fun will attract kids play the game. 
    In general, DGBL literature shows, educators have adopted three main approaches for integrating games into the learning process:

 1. have students build games from scratch

     2.have educators and/or developers build educational games from scratch to teach students

            3.integrate commercial off-the-shelf (COTS) games into the classroom (which maximizes the quality of games)

There are many COTS games which can be use in the classroom such as Civilization, The Age of Mythology and others. However, before using a particular game in the classroom setting various factors should be taken into consideration. A balance has to be achieved between the needs of the curriculum and the structure of the game to elude having “negative” outcomes from the teaching.

The new digital technologies made “cognitive changes” which led our younger generation to a variety of new needs and preferences in the area of learning. Due to these change the notion of generation gap comes to my mind because we play, learn and communicate in a way which is different from the way our parents did. Now kids develop hypertext minds. Their brains are physiologically different (Moore, n.d). According to Moore “computer skills are a tool for adults, but for teenagers using computers has become a second language”. Keeping this in mind I would like to present the main cognitive changes that Prensky (2000) observed in the Games Generation.

 v  Twitch speed vs. conventional speed

 v   Parallel processing vs. linear processing

 v  Graphics first  vs. text first

 v   Random access vs. step-by-step

 v   Connected vs. standalone

 v  Active vs. passive

 v   Play vs. work

 v   Payoff vs. patience

 v   Fantasy vs. reality

 v   Technology-as-friend vs. technology-as-foe

Each of them is very challenging in the fields of education, business and many others. Due to all these “cognitive differences” the learning styles and abilities have been changed which bring the need for new approaches to learning for the Games Generation.

    Though multiple studies have found that games promote learning and reduce instructional time across multiple disciplines we should be cautious while choosing a game for our students.  The benefit of DGBL  is undeniable  but let not to forget that not all games are good for educational purposes. Thus if we want to use DGBL in the language and other classrooms, the teachers and faculty members must be trained to analyze, to design, to develop, to implement and to evaluate DGBL.  

Video Production and movie making in EFL classroom

In the world where new techologies are "in power" it is possible and quite likely to use them for teaching purposes especially in EFL settings. Student-produced videos can be an excellent EFL/ESL learning activity. This activity differs from he other ones because the learner participate in video making process in variety of ways. Nowadays, when we have relatively advanced digital video technology ,EFLlearners have many opportunities to cerate their own videos on a specific topic given by the teacher or the topic which they are interested in. Maybe for the first time it would be better let the students choose their prefered topics to avoid feelting them uncomfortable with a the new stuff and letting them have fun with it. Moreover, due to decrease of the cost of video hardware and other neccessary tools it is relatively easy to have many students involved in creating videos and movies for learning purposes. It's not a secret that young generation or how we call it "digital generation" is fond of  new and advanced tools and it goes crazy about creating something new, intersting and attrective. So, having the EFL leraners develop and create their own videos will facilitate learning and teaching. Making videos is a powerful tool for teaching and learning from both the teachers and the students percpectives. Yooung students are inclined to tell about their family members, lovely pets, their schools and about every possible thing and event fron their life. So, with the help of video making tools the students can  make movies, use written and/or spoken language, hence improve their language skills. While designing and creating a video the student choose every single detail very carefully because there is a potential audience and they try to be the one who give creative and intersting solutions to the project of video production. 

I think learning and "having fun" simultaniously is one of the best ways for students to learn.