New Technologies

     New Technologies. A new course I am going to pass during this fall semester. The first class was on September 1^st. It was quite informative for the first day.  During the first class we got acquainted with the syllabus. Our professor introduced us to the learning goals / objectives and outcomes of this course. We also got acquainted with the course structure and methods of evaluation. During this course we are supposed to do a number of projects which seem to be quite “foggy”, particularly for me, but I suppose during the course I will be able to get clear picture of what I am supposed to do.

     One more thing that seemed to be very interesting and new for me is blogging. This is the first time I am going to work with this type of technological service in the network sphere. It’s not like I am not the person of the 21^st century, but I think I am going to handle it.

     This course prepared a lot of new tools in the field of social media and networks for us. I hope that by the end of this course I will be acknowledgeable with the new trends in new technologies and even more conversant in Internet.

    ''The World is flat'' by Thomas Friedman

      New technologies have bursted into our life so rapidly and nowadays take a big part of our time and life. I think everyone will agree with this statement, because with the creation of new technologies and services our world and our life have completely changed.

     I suppose this is what Thomas Friedman tries to tell us with the help of his book” The World is Flat”.  In this book he describes ten flatteners or ten forces that gave us the opportunity to connect and collaborate with the whole world much more easily than ever before. These ten flatteners such as Collapse of the Berlin War, Viral Marketing, Outsourcing, Offshoring, Insourcing, Outsourcing and etc made colossal changes to the best in different spheres of our lives starting from economy and politics to informational technology.

     The most amazing flatteners in my opinion are Netscaping, Uploading, Informing and “The Steroids”.  For instance, owing to search engine as Google and Wikipedia, we are able to find any information our heart wants to. If decades earlier our generations had to look for any particular material in scrolls, books, libraries whose information was not enough for particular works or researches, then now we have new technology as search engines, cell phones, wireless devices, IPods which help us always being connected with the whole world just by typing a word and clicking on the search. Moreover it does not take time, because it can be done at high speed with total ease; it can be done anywhere, anytime by anyone; and what’s more important it can be done by you. This is what our world offers us today.

    One can not only find something by typing, but use their voice over Internet and in a second you get what you want. Isn’t that amazing?

    All of these new technologies have found their place in teaching and learning. For example, let’s us take blogs, podcasting, microblogging, discussion forums and etc where everyone can not only communicate with the rest of the world, upload and download files, but also share their experience, thoughts, ideas, knowledge; collaborate, ask questions and learn answers that may cause them to reflect on and help them find a way out or just find an answer to the questions they are interested in. We can surely state that these new technological services can be good implication for teaching four skills as reading and writing (for example, in case of blogging), listening and speaking (for example, in case of podcasting), or from the point of collaborative learning they can help students to form a firm ground for teamwork (for example, while playing video games) and etc.    

    This is just the beginning. This is only the half of the spheres where technology “left its trace” or can be used. Imagine how many spheres are still awaited to be discovered and developed where new technological services can be applied to which will make our world a new place.

    “The Role of Blogging and Microblogging in Classroom”

    Honestly speaking I have never thought of using blogging or microblogging, as a part of my social network life as I use Facebook, moreover thinking about using these technologies for teaching and learning purposes. That’s why, out of professional curiosity I did a small research, if I can call it like this.  Right before listening to Will Richardson’s  lecture I decided to interview some familiar teachers in/ outside of Armenia about usage of blogging and twitter and most of them stated that ”these two technologies might be extremely distractful for students and not be beneficial from the point of acquiring knowledge or improving particular skills”. I am not sure why they gave such a negative answer about using these technologies; whether the issue was because most of the schools, for instance in Armenia do not have an access to informational technology in the EFL classrooms. On the one hand this is quite understandable and acceptable, but, on the other hand, what about schools outside of Armenia, like the USA, Russia, Germany and etc? That does not mean that “all of the corners” of these countries have access to emerging technologies, but they are steps ahead in this sphere. Here comes a question: Is teachers’ negative attitude towards using blogs and twitter the result of the lack of new technologies, inability of using them or just reluctance to learn using them for educational purposes? I suppose the answer to this question will stay open for a very long time. However, listening to Will Richardson’s lecture, who is the promoter of implementing new web tools in classrooms, I got really useful ideas about microblogs and twitter and understood that these two technologies are even more than they just look like and can be successfully used for educational purposes, for instance, for TEFL purposes.

      Nowadays people all over the world, both teachers and students are building a network learning space where everyone is able to connect people around the world and share their comments, links, experience, stories, ideas and thoughts, interests and etc. All these comments and thoughts are not only the way of information exchange, but what’s more important the way of learning from them. All of the people around the world you are connected to involuntarily become your teachers, your network teachers, who by commenting to your posts or tweets teach you and vice versa. Sometimes this is something you have already heard or known long before, but sometimes whatever you learn from” this newly acquired knowledge” challenges you, makes you think more broadly and reconsider about particular point; helps to develop and improve your  critical, metacognitive  and reflective thinking. Owing to blogging and microblogging we become a part of a big and strong community of network learners. Every second our number is increasing.

     According to Richardson one of the benefits of using blogs in a learning / teaching space is that whenever students are assigned to write a blog on a particular topic they have read or watched or experienced, they become more interested, because their message or content is aimed at the more real and big audience and the assessment or evaluation is supposed to be more real, more experienced and more serious. This type of assessment makes students become more creative and motivated to make their blogs even more interesting and useful for other users.

     Another positive side of blogging and microblogging is their implication for improving writing and reading skills. As Richardson says by reading your brains absorbs a lot of information, which you have to digest, first, and only then to decide what’s necessary and important and what’s not and only then you start commenting. Blogs and twitter are important tools for developing writing skills, which is quite obvious. Writing a blog is not just a writing diary where you can leave a note and finish with it. It is a constant conversation with the real audience, constant update of the ideas and thoughts, which does not “give your hand a break”. Have you ever thought how many posts you do during the whole day? Imagine how skilled you become with every blog, tweet you post every day, every minute, every second.

     Blogging is one of the ten flatteners described by Thomas Friedman, an American journalist and author of the bestselling book “The World Is Flat”. In his book he analyzes globalization and talks about ten flatteners that levelled the global playing field. You will ask: how is this connected to blogging and microblogging? This has a direct connection. All of these ten flatteners changed the world and blogging is not an exception.  Blogging can be a good force for many various fields that surround us. As long as we stay connected to the world via new web tools we are able to share knowledge and resources (that are effectively flattening the world) and find innovative ways towards the problems we face today.  

     To sum up the foregoing and coming back to the first passage and commenting on the teachers’ statement mentioned above I would like to say that the usage of these new technological tools is not distracful for students, on the contrary, it draws their attention, makes them become more attentive, careful and responsible for what they are posting, secondly, all of the sides described in this blog prove that  blogging and microblogging  have a positive impact on the world as a whole and are beneficial for using them for educational purposes. That’s why after listening to Will Richardson lecture I got a whole picture of what blogs and tweets are and how they can be used as a part of network life and for teaching and learning purposes. I came to conclusion that I would use them in my teaching practice, at least I would experiment, though I am not sure whether my students will be ready to use this new technology as a tool for learning and improving their skills on a regular basis, but being representatives of “digital natives” I think the opinions will be positive. 

     “Digital Youth Portraits”

     To start with, I really loved the series of Digital youth portraits very much both as a simple viewer and as a TEFL professional. They were really interesting and useful. These videos must be shown to students at schools. I think this is going to be very motivating and encouraging for them, because, owing to the videos we may discover more digital youth portraits and new breakthroughs in the technology and virtual world. 

     I found that all of these videos are closely interrelated and have common things that were interesting for me as a TEFL professional to observe. All of these kids are given God-given talent. All of them are so creative and enthusiastic. The main thing that makes them so creative and connects all of them is their interest in technology which will definitely be their guiding light towards the future they’ve already paved. Technology made them who they are now and who they want to be. They are so determined about the path they have chosen, that nothing can stop them from pursuing their passions. What surprised me as a TEFL professional in a good sense, of course, is that all of these kids have a real understanding of technology and its applications towards learning. They know exactly how to use these technologies; they know what they want and what they expect to do with what they’ve searched and learned. In all of the cases described this technological learning and development takes place not at school, but basically at home which once again proves technology and high tech tools make us become self-learners and self-educators. What I saw is that these kids don’t just play video games, or listen to IPods or just search something; they want to use what they searched for and do something with it, i.e. they want to create something and work with it. The amazing thing is that they manage to realize their plans. They do projects; create online websites for certain purposes, for example, against animal cruelty (Dylan’s case).

    All of the kids acquired their technological skills on their own. Even the lack of technologies did not stop them from learning how to get started (Olivia’s case). It seems they do not need any guidance, on the contrary, they can teach and teach their teachers and mentors. It shows that we teachers do not only teach, but also learn from our students.

    Like any kid on this planet these amazing kids love to play video games either alone or with their peers. However, these video games are not just for fun, but they are also a playing ground where children have to work with completely different people, i.e they have to work team wise. Video games help to foster collaboration, develop social and problem-solving skills which are important for educational purposes.

     Most of these kids have already brought into the world some of their creations/ inventions and all of them caught my attention.  Nonetheless, I liked the idea of making animated movies (using an online world and creating avatars) about different world issues, where students are supposed to find solutions to them and that way get a touch of reality by discussing and debating or holding meetings (Nafiza’s case).

     In one word, these kids’ passion for new technological tools and further inventions shows that these kids love learning; learning motivates and encourages them to create something new, something integrated with technology and something that will be useful for the whole world.

    When I think about the role of new technologies in Armenian schools for educational purposes I see that there is a huge difference between these kids and Armenian ones. I suppose there are two reasons: first, high tech tools are not widespread in classrooms, especially in EFL classrooms and second, these kids or their teachers are not well introduced to technology in an appropriate way that it can be used for teaching/learning purposes. As I have talked earlier these kids are self-learners. This means that everything comes from the individual himself/ herself  and how much he/ she is interested in learning and learning through new technology. In Armenia there are the examples of digital youth portraits, which I used to know, who are not kids or teenagers any more, but whom technology gave a green light to realization of their lifetime passions.

     One more thing that I have found out is that all of the kids are musical. All of them listen to music, some of them play different instruments, and others compose and write songs. I am sure this has something to do with the technology these kids use. It is difficult to find right explanation to this fact. The logical explanation will be that music inspires them for new technological creations. I think this or that way this phenomenon should also find its psychological explanation. However, I am inclined toward the opinion that music does have a strong connection with high tech tools and what these kids do with these tools.

     In conclusion, I would like to say that all of these kids serve as an example for adults to become lifelong learners, and we should always strive to improve in our profession in the same way that these kids improve on their use of technology. “If something does not work out, go back and try something else and explore until you figure it out” (Sam’s case).They take great initiative for their own learning and show us how much we can truly learn from our students each day.

    P.S. I would be glad to have students with such creativity and enthusiasm for learning in my class.

     The main thing traced in all of these topics or themes Digital your portraits, “The World Is Flat” by Thomas Friedman, Blogging / Microblogging is self-learning and collaboration. We do not pay attention to this fact, but when we write blogs or statuses or post comments we educate ourselves and become more experienced, more skilled and more conversant in particular fields of our interest without even noticing. When we communicate with other people from different places, when we play some video games or create conjoint online projects, we establish collaboration and cooperation which helps us to learn how to work team wise which is not as easy as it seems.

    New technologies. This is what gathers all of us together and helps us stay connected.