Is it a new resource of teaching and learning for the “Digital Generation”?

    Nowadays teaching and learning has become easier due to new technologies used in educational settings. So far in my blog I’ve discussed a notion of “Digital Generation” and the importance of some new technologies such as blogs. But now I’m trying to provide an overview about what podcasting is and what’s its impact on teaching especially teaching English. Podcasts seem to be ideal resources for language teachers, especially English language teachers, because almost all possible topics imaginable can be found in podcasts and most of podcasts are recorded in English.

     Podcasting consists of two words “iPod” and “broadcasting”. Podcasts are basically audio files available mainly for free and which can be listened to on a computer or any portable playback device that reads MP3 files. Podcasting is becoming more and more popular, mainly because of the fact that anyone who has a computer and an access to the Internet can download and also create their own podcasts very easily. In other words podcasts offer alternative way of delivering the content. The most exiting thing is that all this one can do for free which gives an opportunity for larger community to access it.  

     Podcasting is being used in a variety of ways in educational settings. Traditionally, it can be used to distribute lecture material. However, there is concern that if the material is downloadable the students will stop showing up to classes.

According to the article (Windham C, 2007) students used podcasting in their classroom setting and outside of it responded positively and identified some advantages to podcasting technology. They are as follows:

•       The opportunity to access course materials at hand twenty four hours
•           The chance to create the podcasts’ content in a way that the students like
•      The mobility of using the materials wherever they want (in the bus, at the gym, etc.) 

•        Its possibilities are infinite if one has an idea there is always, at least, one way to carry it out.

Teaching Tools - Podcasting with Michael Johnson

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uHhFDUy7iR4

Recently I found an interesting article telling about the uselessness of reading books. Maybe it's time to change the way of reading the books into the listening them? Who knows :)

http://www.theonion.com/articles/new-study-books-dont-take-you-anywhere,20595/

Developing writing fluency and lexical complexity with blogs By Terry Fellner and Matthew Apple

In the article the authors present their research which was conducted in September 2004. The aim of the research was to compare The researchers used student blogs in an integrated CALL program for low proficiency low motivation Japanese university language learners in a seven-day intensive English course. The goal of this research was to identify the impact of blogging on the learners’ writing fluency and lexical complexity. The researchers compared the number of words and word frequency levels in student blogs at the beginning and at the end of the program.

I would like to speak a bit about the criteria which the researchers choose while designing the program. The criteria were:

1. Language Learning Potential-improve both as writing and reading

2. Learner Fit-the use of blogs fit with students’ interest

3. Meaning Focus-students were responsible to write clearly for their classmates to understand

4. Authenticity-bogs are forum for people to express their thoughts and share information

5. Positive Impact-students acquire not only new vocabulary but also useful computer skills

6. Practicality- blogs imposed no extra financial burden on either the university or the student

7. Enhancement-blogs are much more practical to use tan paper diaries and journals

The interesting fact is that the researchers didn’t know the definition of writing fluency and how to assess it. So, according to the authors the importance when assessing fluency is whether the learners bring their vocabulary knowledge into communicative use. However to avoid some problem the authors decided to define fluency in writing as the number of words produced in a specified time frame, together with lexical frequency.

The results of those seven day program showed an overall increase in words produced and improvement in their lexical frequency by students from the beginning of the program through the end of it. The main focus was writing so the task provided students with more opportunities for meaningful negotiation via “comment” feature in the class blog. The interactive aspect was the most interesting and maybe useful part for learners.

The researchers believe that only communicative writing encourages students to write expressively resulted in overall improved writing fluency for the 21 students in this study.
Here are some more  articles about the blogs as tools for learning. I think they worth reading :)

http://researchrepository.napier.ac.uk/2187/1/hall_davison_blogs_draft.pdf,


http://eprints.qut.edu.au/13066/1/13066.pdf?BXCTX=AD:BLACK_AND_WHITE;DDO:DC-PREVIEW;RSV:E0

http://studentcenteredlearning.pbworks.com/f/Instructional+Blogging.pdf

Reflection on Thomas Friedman talk about his book "The World is Flat"

As far as I understood, Thomas Friedman claims that the world is flat. It is the notion which he describes in his book “The World is Flat”. According to Thomas Friedman, there are no boundaries any longer among countries because of the Internet which made it ‘flat’. It means that people can be in touch, work together on the same project being far away in the different corners of the planet just sitting in their rooms or just from everywhere, only having an access to the internet.

In his book he names ten flatteners which lead us to the world we have today.

The first three, as he said, "created the platform". The first flattener mentioned by Thomas Friedman is ‘The New Age of Creativity:’ When the Walls Came Down and the Windows Went Up. The second one is ‘The New Age of Connectivity:’ When the Web Went Around and Netscape Went Public. This flattener is a combination of technologies that gave us access to World Wide Web (www) and then the fiber optic cable came to light making different countries, cities and people like "next door neighbors". The next six flatteners he called the new forms of collaboration the examples of which are outsourcing,which is the process of taking work that used to be done in-house and paying another company to do it, and offshoring , which is when a company moves its production from its home country to another country where it can be done with cheaper labor and low taxes. He also mentioned about opensourcing, which he named as a "new model of production", insourcing and informing. Finally the tenth fllatener is, as he called, the steroids due the which all above mentioned fllateners started to work together and created the global flatform where there is no any borders for anything and anyone.In this moment the world became flat.

The implication this idea has, is that online teaching and learning have become possible via

the Internet. There are a huge number of online courses using which people can get a diploma just sitting in their apartments without leaving it. Also teachers can use online sources, a huge amount of data, and implement the existing information in their classrooms. This will help them to make their lessons more successful and real-life.

Digital Generation

The most striking thing for me is that very young children already know almost everything about the new technologies. They know how to use them and for what particular thing. Even their teachers learn from them sometimes. Frankly speaking previously I thought that new technologies damage children’s life more, than they help but after watching these videos about “Digital Youth” I completely changed my mind. Now I see that new technologies allow children to create and explore new things because usually children aren’t satisfied with what they search they want to use their findings and be creative. Children use technologies as a digital media which helps them to be informed all the time.

As an EFL teacher I can see the big challenges which exist in Armenia related to new and digital technologies, the use of them for educational purposes. There is a huge work to do to have students to use new technologies in their learning. Of course before doing that the experienced teachers should be in charge. The teachers should be aware that games also can be educative and can help students to create and use their minds. Students can face many problems which they would like to figure out, so they use their brains. As the games are very competitive children use different strategies to solve the problems raised. Also there are many students who don’t enjoy reading so now it’s very easy to listen to a book instead of spending many hours reading it. People can live miles away from each other but they can create a project and work together. Due to this people work collaboratively and build teamwork skills. Technology is more than a tool it’s a vital part of a digital generation. This generation thinks ‘outside the box’.

As a logical continuation as what I discuss above I would like to mention a few ideas from the Sugata Mitra's talk "How kids teach themselves". At first he talks about the remotness and the quality of Education and that the remote areas don't have good teachers and infrustructures. But the main point of his talk is that children can be self-instructed and "education can happen on its own". He conducted a few experiments in different Indian cities and found out that the children can learn themselves having only a computer and an access to the internet. Even without knowing the English language the kids can overcome the language bariers and learn English words (of course those which appear while using the computer) while browsing.