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.

Second Life

Second life is a video game somehow different from other games. It has more benefits than others. It is also very simulating and engaging game where students meet online for class activities. A virtual world differs from a traditional course management system due to the three dimensional (3D) graphical setting (Calogne 2008). In this virtual world people play with avatars which represents themselves. For me it's very interesting as it contains a lot of interaction and language usage with other players. Besides players can feel free as the interaction is implemented via reading the instructions and following them by writing. So there is no face to face interaction which makes you feel comfortable. Besides playing this game, students can explore, discover, express their understanding of the subject, and create ideas about the course (Calongne, 2008). This game is very interesting and appealing as it is designed well. Once I played it, I continue to play it again and again. At first it was a little bit complicated as I did not know how to use it. But after the first game I was engaged in it. I received the instruction and tried to follow it. Besides I noticed that the language usage is much here. Players should mention their names in "Second Life" as they must get feedback and information from the instructor. They do activities with their teams, and after using this game for a while many students claim that "Second life" enhances their learning (Calongne, 2008). As for me, as a future teacher I would never give my students to play such kind of games. 

Though it is ingaging and motivating game, but it has its disadvantages: there are a lot of different people who play the same game online with them, it would not give them anything to learn. The students would be ingaged in it and chat with different people forgetting about the game. That's why I would never choose such kind of games for my studnets.

Computer and Video Games

Computer and Video Games

Nowadays computers play very important role in our lives. We can't imagine our life without it. Children have already forgotten about the games they were playing in the yard with their friends. Now that games has moved in computers. They are playing with computers all day long.

There are different types of video and computer games: educational games, COTS games. COTS games are designed for enjoyment, challenge and fun. Educational games are designed for students to learn new things, overcome difficulties and solve problems which are risen in front of them. Such games of course enhance students' brain work and willingness to study. Even when educational games are designed to play with your peers, it is much more fun and motivating.

I also like playing video or computer games. It's really fun and also teaches you a lot of new words. I play such kind of games which inrich my vocabulary and also are educational. Mostly not all the games are educational and can teach you important things. They can show violence and impact on students psychology.According to the research studies there are thousands of games that teach violence and make young children aggressive. The psychologists Dr. Patrick Markey of Villanova University and Dr. Charlotte Markey of Rutgers University have presented evidence that some children may become more aggressive as a result of watching and playing violent games but that most are not affected. After reviewing the research they came to the conclusion that three personality traits can be risen after playing violent games. The three traits they identified were neuroticism, disagreeableness, and low levels of conscientiousness.The researchers concluded that video games and other online activities have become wide spread among young people that they have altered how young people socialize and learn.

In any case I also agree with the statement  that video games have much more violence in it, that's why i think students shouldn't play such kind of games and be aggressive

                                 Video production

 Video production is one of the modern technologies nowadays. It has become very popular and helpful in language teaching. It is one of my favorite homework assignment that i have ever had. I liked it very much, as it was really very amazing and wonderful job to work with my friends and become one big team with them       

Frankly speaking it was really engaging and interesting process for each of us. We were 5 girls in a group and decided to choose an interesting topic which would be unique and original. And we started our shooting.... the most funny part, which were 5 different situations about some part of the life. I had never taken part in any shooting and couldn't imagine its difficulty.  We worked 3 days for that shooting, but we didn't have any proplems with each others because all of us liked the proccess and wanted to be the best shot ever. 

The process of shooting was really so amazing ,we were loughing and loughing. I can say that this was the best group work that i have had during my study. This process made me think to become an actress. As we were acting so nicely as real actors/ actresses.In my opinion it is really very useful for our future students. They can emprove their listening, reading and writing skills with it. It can help them to learn easier and understand the elementar things about video productions.

A wiki is a website where users can add, remove and edit every page using a web browser. Access is flexible – all that is needed is a computer with a browser and Internet connection.  Wikis interrelate people together. If one wants to tell his/her friends something, he/she can sign up in wikispaces.com write his idea and everybody can see it editing answers to the written idea. Wikis also motivate students to learn. It has some advantages and disadvantages .
Advantages
1. They provide collaborative learning environment and promote communication skills in some aspects. Wikis  help learners develop social skills. Students are encouraged to being authors and develop communication skills, especially in writing and reading, while class activities take place in virtual setting rather than traditional classroom.   
  2.They offer an easy publishing tool for posting information as well as getting feedback to and from public. Both of them are easy to learn and use with pre-designed templates and step by step user guidelines. 
3. Enable educators and learners to expand the learning circle with parents, communities, or even the people around the world who has access to the Internet. They allow users by sharing their articles, views and comments to build a network with similar interests.
Disadvantages
1.  Users can be distracted easily. Once the students get connected with wikis, they also have access to the entire virtual world and can get diverted away from their tasks easily. 
2.Plagiarism and copyright issues. The publishers need extra caution not only to make sure all the postings are original or the quotations from others are clearly remarked, but also for prevention from outsiders stealing their intellectual properties. 
3.   Hard to grade and assess. It can be overwhelming for educators to grade either too many or too few entries are posted by students.
As for me wikis can really be of great help for students, for their learning process and sharing ideas. Wikis can develop students writing and reading skills. It is useful for them to read each students comments and find something new about the same topic. 

                                           Podcasting

A podcast is a type of digital media consisting of an episodic series of video, PDF and audio files subscribed to and downloaded through web syndication or streamed online to a computer or mobile devices. Podcasting has several advantages.

 It improves pronunciation, listening skills and also it improves writing skills, if one writes reflection after each episode he/she has listened to or watched. While reading two articles  I learned about podacasts more than knew about it before. Some students liked podcasting and said that it was useful, some of them said that it was waste of time and it took a lot of time from them.  Another advantage that podcasts have, is that students can listen to themselves after recording their podcasts. While listening to their recordings they can work on their pronunciations, their mistakes and drawbacks. Then they can also get feedback from their teachers, working on particular weaknesses that they may not notice themselves.

    As for me using podcasts is very helpful profitable and useful process for improving one's language skills. Besides it's very motivating that one can find materials from different domains,  not only connected with education. Students can listen to podcasts wherever they are, if they have mobile devices or iPods with them.  And if you have a lot of experience and can handle podcasts skillfully you can even record your own podcasts, share it with your friends, listen to your friends' podcats and discuss it together, so it means podcasts also enhance collaboration which improves your speaking skills as well. Besides if you do not understand any detail very well, you can listen to it again and again till you catch the meaning to the full.

 

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                                            Blogging or Microblogging.

 Whether or not we are ready to implement blogging and/or microblogging in our own teaching?

                             

Nowadays the technology plays very important role in our  lives. We can't imagine our life without it. Blogs and Microblogs also have started to become popular among people. People have started to share the ideas, images and interesting and fresh information about everything. It's a pleasure to go through the blogs and find new things for you

Microblogging has become very popular among people. Twitter is one of the microblogging services that enable users to post brief messages and communicate with other users.  It has a huge advantage over usual discussion boards: Tweets consist of

short turns including no more than one or two utterances. Discussion boards usually

require the participants to create and follow up on a thread or to follow a thread and comment.

Twitter is a social network in which the members of a community share their current

activity . Microblogging tools enable users to post short messages

that are distributed within their community. Users can post messages from their

mobile devices, a Web page, from Instant Messengers and desktop clients. The same

channels are used for receiving messages.

Examples for using Twitter with EFL students

 1.Share useful information and resources with students. Reminding students about homework  2.Carry out quick surveys and polls to collect feedback on tasks, projects, etc.

 3.Ongoing storytelling in 140 characters

4. Providing feedback about presentations and classes

5.Receive text messages instead of e-mail messages 

Students be better users of English language. The immediacy of the messages helps the students feel like more of a community Connections, resources, ideas.

As for me as a future English specialist I would not give my Students any assignment with twitter. It would be waste of time. My students would not learn anything from it. Blogging is better than twitter for me. I would give them a homework assignment and ask them to write their ideas and thoughts in their blogs. Getting students involved in blogging can have a real impact on learning and teaching in the classroom. The best way to experiment with student blogging is to just jump in head first. Blogging can help both parents and teacher to see the students knowledge such as: writing comments. They can see how they can use correct spelling, punctuation, how the student understands the lesson and writes comments. Then the teacher can take part to the discussions with the students. Though it is hard to evaluate the students  with their comments and discussions in their blogs. I would look through all their posts, discussions and comments, then I would do my comment under their discussions and then it'd be clear whether they have done my assignments or not, whether they have aswered to all my given questions that i have assigned for their homework.

Whil Richardson '' Blogs, Wikis, Podcasts, and Other Powerful Web Tools for Classrooms''

In this book Richardson provides a pragmatic and accessible description of the read/write Web.      Richardson explores both the tools and the potential impact these tools have for our classrooms, our teaching, and society.The book is really interesting and gives us good information about new technologies. It has become abvious that blogs can promote students critical and analytical thinking. Nowadays blogs are being used as class portals, online fillng cabinets for studnet work, e-portfolios, knowledge management and even school Websides. In this case the studnets have much more opportunities to think critically and analiticaly.

 Wikis interrelate people together. If one wants to tell his/her friends something, he/she can sign up in wikispaces.com write his idea and everybody can see it editing answers to the written idea. They also motivate students to learn. I also want to mention that wikis help students to study out of classroom. They can join the wikispaces wherever they are if they have access to the internet, then if they join it, they can solve problems with the help of each other, discuss some questions, and give answer to difficult problems.  A podcast is a type of digital media consisting of an episodic series of video, PDF and audio files subscribed to and downloaded through web syndication or streamed online to a computer or mobile devices. Podcasting has several advantages. It improves pronunciation, listening skills and also it improves writing skills, if one writes reflection after each episode he/she has listened to or watched. 

"Am I ready to introduce blogging to my own EFL class? 

 I exactly would like to do with it in my class  in terms of assignments, technology access, assessment, parental involvement.
Frankly speaking I liked blogging. It's really a huge and wide technological tool that can help teachers to make their lessons more innovative and intresting. It could help the students to share their ideas, to find new informations  together, to discuss new things. For EFL class it could be new thing, and the students would really like the idea and work with tehchnolgical tools. They would do their homework assignments with pleasure I guess, As the schools don't give the needed things and knowledge that new generation wants. They want to work with new technologies, new digital tools and describe the secrets that they couldn't find or search.

Reflection on question 1:

Digital youth portraits: What struck you most in these stories? What do these stories teach you? What do they mean for you as a TEFL professional in Armenia?

      The stories gave us a view about new technologies. These stories taught me a lot of new things about new devises.

      They were quite different stories but had the same idea and the same purpose. I found out an important thing from all of these videos. I understood that teacher’s role has become  less important now. Children have started to become visual learners. They say if they don’t understand the materials the teacher explained them,  they can learn it from the computer very easily.  Children want love learning and they don’t want search, they want use they searched for. New technologies are better for kids, because the children have great ideas. It is said that the literacy is not about the text, it is about the combination of the visual, the oral interactivity and began to support children in all different way. The technology is the way to do it. So children don’t need to be gifted to teacher all the time. The computer can be their teacher as well.

              I as a future TEFL teacher think that new technologies still are being developed in Armenian schools. Teachers must be informed about the new technologies and help students to learn easier and faster. The stories mean for me that we have a lot of opportunities to teach them with new devises, on the other hand according to the stories the students didn’t need the help of any teacher. They could connect to the internet and find or search the things that are interested in. 

Reflection on  question 2:

What flatteners discussed by Thomas Friedman do you find most amazing and why? What kinds of implications does this idea have for teaching and learning?

Thomas Friedmen talks about 10 flatteners. The first being the falling of the Berlin Wall in 1989, which tipped the balance of power across the world towards democratic free market and away from authoritarian rule. A second flattener is identified as our ability to not only author our own content, but to send it worldwide with the 1995 launch of the Internet. Subsequently, Free workflow software was developed, allowing people from around the world to collaborate and work together on projects using a shared medium. As Apache and Wikipedia came into play, people became able to develop and upload web content and community collaboration became another flattening force. Then the next flattens are Netscape, which is one of the most important flattener in the planet. It was a huge flattener that gave us an internet, 4.Uploading, 5.Outsourcing, 6.Off shoring, 7.Supply-chaining, 8.In sourcing-again talks about the collaboration between people and companies which is done through UPS, 9.Informing and the last one 10.The Steroids- it is the wireless internet connection which gives people an opportunity to connect with the internet without any devise.

As for me each of them were amazing and interesting. These are the new use of technologies that are going to be developed. I liked The Steroids which is very usefull and gives a lot of opportunities to connect with the internet everywhere without any cables and devises, Netscape, and Free workflow software-  I liked them because these are collaborations on more different things, and helps colleges and universities to connect easier and faster, to send e-mails and do assignments via internet.

This gives a lot of implications in teaching and learning. It helps people to learn everything easier and faster from the internet and be able to communicate with each other

Reflection on question 3:

What connections do you find between the Hole in the Wall project by Sugata Mitra and the other two sources above: Digital Youth Portraits and Thomas Friedman's "The World is Flat"?

     

     All the videos that I watched were connected to each other. The main connection was collaboration. As it helps people to connect and communicate with each other.

The story of Sugata Mitra was very interesting. It was about the project which was called The Hole in the Wall. Sugata has done an experiment with kids. He put the computer in the hole and let the kids to come and use it. After some time later he saw that the kids could use the computer and talk with each other. Children who knew nothing about computer and English, started using it all by their own, and say some English words like delete enter, etc. This resulted that kids became self educated.

      In Digital Youth Portraits and in Friedman’s “The World is Flat” i could see more similarities. Kids became better partners when they started using technology mainly computers to find more opportunities to serve for their needs. They didn’t need anyone’s support. They had a lot of ideas that could help them to be informed and learn more by their own.

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