New Technologies! The Best Course Ever

          New Technologies! The Best Course Ever

“We are stuck with technology when what we really want is just stuff that works.” 
― Douglas Adams,

My today's post is the last post for this course.  For me this course is the most interesting one that I have taken so far. Due to this course I have learnt a lot of new things connected with technologies. The best thing in this course was that we practiced what we learnt. .

During this course I have learnt a lot of new technologies that helped me as a future teacher to use it in my teaching process. Technologies give us an opportunity to be modern and be informed about everything. Every week we were learning new things and enhancing our knowledge. I would like to use a lot of technologies hat I learned during the course with my students in future. I will definitely use some technologies that i liked them more, such as blogs, RSS, Google Products, video production,digital storytelling.

Frankly speaking this course was my favorite course that I have ever passed. It was really fun for me to discover new things and learn a lot of new and useful things. I want to thank to my instructor and appriciate his  approach to the course and to the students as well.

Google apps for Education and Cloud Computing

Google apps for Education and Cloud Computing

Google apps can be very useful for everybody. Now I want to speak about three apps which were unfamiliar for me and due to our course " New technologies" I have learned about them and I'm going to use them very often.

The fist app that I was unfamiliar is Google picasa, which is a free software download that enables people to find, edit and share all the pictures on one's personal computer. Picasa also offers the Web Albums feature, which enables you to easily upload photos from your computer to the web for sharing with others. For using this incredible app, one should download it to his/her computer so that to use it. Once downloaded, Picasa automatically locates all the pictures on the computer and sorts them into visual albums organized by date. As for me I have already downloaded picasa in my computer and I'm happy to use it as I have made my pictures of higher quality and have fixed the problems connected with pics. I have also made a movie with my pictures and uploaded music. This process makes me love Google apps and use them as often as possible.

The second app that I have learned about is Google maps. Frankly speaking I have known about this app, but I have never used it and even haven't known how to use it. Google apps can help people not only find driving directions but also study the area you are visiting through a variety of maps. As an EFL teacher I find this app very useful for the learners. I'll give my students task to find their district where they live or their favorite cafe or cinema house thus making them learn about this app at the same time completing entertaining task. I'm sure that young learners will be glad to use computers learning something as it makes learning a lot more interactive.

The third app that I want to talk about is Google book search. Google Book Search is a great way to find new books. One can browse through specific categories, type in keywords, or search for particular titles. Google Book search can be very helpful for any kinds of students to find the particular book they need and do not pay for it.Of course Google Book Search also lets you buy any book online. Though the full texts of some copyright books are not available, yet the books in the public domain are entirely available. If one has found the book he/she was looking for, he can create his own library and add any book to that library by clicking "Add to my library" button.
To my mind Google Book Search can be very useful for everybody, it can make your lessons more effective and more convenient.

Learning and Academic Analytics

Learning and Academic Analytics

There are two types of analytics which are used by educational institutions. Learning analytics and academic analytics. Learning analytics is more specific than academic analytics. Learning analytics is the measurement, collection, analysis and reporting of data about learners and their contexts, for purposes of understanding and optimizing learning and the environment in which it occurs. Thus, according to Long & Siemens (2011), data-driven decision making improves the organizational output and productivity.
Academic analytics is a provider of high-quality, custom business intelligence data solution for research universities in the United States and the United Kingdom . Academic analytics is the story of people, technology and decision making ( Katz, 2005) Today, much of the focus on academic analytics is on the actions that can be taken with real time data reporting and with predictive modeling which helps suggest likely outcomes from familiar patterns of behavior.
In the end I want to mention that although academic analytics is a relatively new concept, it refers to the analysis of data to help educational institutions monitor progress on key institutional goals such as student retention, faculty productivity and the impact of outreach and engagement.

Learning Management Systems & Personal Learning Environments

Learning Management Systems & Personal Learning Environments

Personal Learning Environment  (PLE) are systems that help learners take control of and manage their own learning. It provides learners to set their own learning goals,manage their learning; managing both content and process,communicate with others in the process of learning and thereby achieve learning goals. PLE is not piece of software. It is an environment where people, communities, tools and resources are in a flexible way. This is a new technological tool which can be used in learning. The PLE provides students their own space to develop and share their personal ideas through learning environments that connect resources and context together.

Learning Management System (LMS) is usually set by an institution, e.g. it can be a university. LMS gives the learners the chance to access and obtain the content, perform different kinds of activities, receive feedback, etc. It can be characterized as a centralized tool, where the center of learning and performing activities is the same tool for all the community members. Due to LMS the learners access to the collaborative environment, but with the condition of having their own accounts, otherwise communication is impossible.LMS products and software allow any organization to develop electronic coursework, deliver it with unprecedented reach and flexibility, and manage its continued use over time.

PLE manages data, while LMS is not managed by you but LMS. The main function is that the center is you and you have an access from different content.

DISTANCE LANGUAGE LEARNINGDistance learning is a field of education that focuses on teaching methods with the aim of delivering teaching to students who are not physically present in the classroom.
In educational partnership the students who are taking courses with the help of the particular institution are allowed to take online courses as part of their degree program and get a certificate from external organization which provides those courses. It is very good for those who live in remote areas and don't have opportunities to learn more languages. For this kind of learning both students and teachers must have good technology skills. Teachers should be good prepared and motivated. They should encourage and be confident what they teach. The learners have chance to send e-mails to feel free and ask teachers about the things they haven't understood.
  A distance language learning context requires more awareness on the part of learners, as frequently they must oversee the rate and direction of their learning and these functions ideally are informed by knowledge of themselves as learners and skills in self-management. 

Open Educational Resources

Open Educational Resources

Open educational resources (OERs) are free and openly licensed educational materials that can be used for teaching, learning, research, and other purposes. Open educational resources can be very helpful for students who want to learn, teach and research resources for free. According to Joel Smith OERs are designed to increase the number of educated people. The advantages of OER is that students can share information, discuss various topics, and use different methods of teaching. The second advantage about OER is the free availability of online courses. In open educational resources there is no technical barriers, no price barriers, and as few legal permissions as possible. The end-user should be able not only to use the resources and read it but also to adapt it and reuse. 

In Armenia students do not use OERs for several reasons. The first is that students are lazy and second Armenian students do not like to share information or work collaboratively. But as for me I think that OERs can be very helpful for the students who want to be more literate and skillful. As for me I'm going to use open educational resources and hope students in our country will be glad to use alternative methods of learning which is nothing but beneficial and helpful.

MALL ( Mobile Assisted Language Learning)

MALL ( Mobile Assisted Language Learning)

Nowadays mobile learning iswidely used phenomenon. People use mobiles not only for making and receiving calls but also for educational purposes. Using mobiles to learn something can be very motivating for students as it differs from traditional way of learning which is interesting for learners. 

 In my opinion mobiles can be very useful for learning different kinds of things as learning via mobiles can be fast, easy and comfortable. If you want to look up any word in the dictionary you shouldn't take the thick book to the university, instead you can download dictionaries in your mobile phone and use it wherever and whenever you want. 

In my mobile phone I have several dictionaries which help me a lot as I can look up any word I need and even to check some phrases and it doesn't matter where I'm. The most important advantage of mobile phone is that it is available anytime and anywhere. Sometimes I also take a picture of a text I need and then read it, I also use the memo of my mobile and make lots of notes there which help me a lot. Thanks to my mobile I use social networks (skype, facebook. twitter), which is of course helpful for language learning. There are also different kinds of apps suitable for my mobile and I downloaded many apps which are profitable for language learning. Sometimes I even record my voice while retelling some texts then I listen to it and correct my own mistakes.

Though mobile learning is wide spread everywhere yet not everybody can use it because of several reasons. The mobiles which have huge memory, are capable to download dictionaries, games and apps for learning purposes are expensive and not all the people can afford themselves to buy it. And even if you have such kind of mobile, you should also have internet connection so that not to waste a lot of money while using these apps as they take lots of money. 
As for me I find it very useful to use mobiles for learning, it is fast, useful and profitable. As a teacher I'll recommend my students to use mobiles for educational purposes in order not to waste tame in vein while always using books or dictionaries.