Technologies in Education

Before starting my blog post I want to share a few links  with you about the technologies in Education. These links will give you kind of an overview about the history of using technologies in Education and about its trends now.


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nJ0nlh5FU5A


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mzi2RIt8_nk


http://www.youtube.com/watch?=9cxyH1qgKZQ&feature=related 


Nowadays education happens anywhere and anytime due to the new technologies.There are modules to support learning outside of the classroom because there is such a wide range of activities provided by the technologies for learning to occur. Its a very different space for learning. Students especially kids are motivated and become very fluent in using new technologies. Adults should recognize that there is all kinds of learning when using new technologies. Students develop their collaborative relationship and teamwork skills. Students create, edit and comment. This leads to all kinds of mediation in the learners' behavior that can promote learning.
  Today there is a shift from:

• consumption to participation
• institution to network
• users to producers

So now there are 21st century learners with completely different behavior, needs and interests.
Here is a link with interesting opinions. Have a look! :)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c0xa98cy-Rw&feature=related 

So far I have discussed a few new technologies that can be used in education and in the  language classroom in particular. It seems that there are no other things to think in terms of using these new tools in the classroom but it’s not so. There are still a lot of questions that can not be answered yet. So, there is a need for further research.

 While listening to a talk by Connie Yowell which was held in the Breakthrough Learning Conference a question arise for me in terms Armenia. For example it is still unclear to what extend  Armenian students are digitally literal. This is the question that should be investigated in order to know the feasibility of this or that technology for the target audience in Armenia. The main reason is that learning with the digtal media is fundamentally different and the lack of awareness of may bring some unnecessary difficulties in the learning/teaching process.

So before using new technologies in the classroom educators need to think about how to reconstruct the learning system in order to fit it with the new changes. Another important question is to find out how young people are learning and where and finally how they are using and participating with the new technologies. And as final note in my post I advise you to watch this video by Bill Gates " How do you make a teacher great?" It's part 1 of his talk at TED's conference. Enjoy !!!

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