Thank-You Letter
Dear Instructor,
воскресенье, 14 декабря 2014 г.
Final Remarks
I started blogging a few months
ago, to be more precise 4 months ago due to the “New Technologies” course that
discovered a completely new world for me that I was not aware of before. Without
it I would never have learnt about blogging. It is kind of funny, living in the
digital era and not be able to make use of such resources. I consider the fact
that I have never used blogging was because I was not aware of its implications
as a student, network user and moreover as TEFL professional. Now I understand
that blogging is the part of my life and even after finishing this course I
will still go on using it.
This is only one of the new tech
tools that I have learnt and understood during this course.
But what else?
This course gave an amazing
opportunity to discover and explore a completely new world, digital world that I
was not aware of before. This course is definitely the best course I`ve ever
had. It gave a chance to dive into the depths of new technological tools, and what’s
important to see education in a new light. During this course I got acquainted
with and learnt many diverse technological innovations that can be implemented
into teaching/ learning process, making it more effective, informative, interactive,
engaging and interesting and therefore create huge opportunities for 21st
century digital learners. Owing to this course I became technologically
literate and skillful not only theoretically, but also gained invaluable
experience due to our practical sessions. I am glad that now I am more informed
about new approaches and their implementation in teaching/learning process.
There are tools that I will definitely be
using in my teaching. Blogs will help my learners to develop their writing
skills, turn them into creators and users, and provide the interactive and
interesting learning environment for them. Among the cloud computing google
applications I will use Google Drive for creating google docs, and Google
groups, for discussions outside the class, etc. which
is very helpful for creating the collaborative learning platform for the
learners. Video games are another tool that I am also going to use mainly with the
low level students. However, I will try to be careful, because basically the
essence of video games is to distract rather than to teach. Podcasts are also important
tool for listening activities. I would also integrate digital story-telling to
help my students to develop their language skills and produce the language they
learnt. I will also use video and audio production tools to enhance my students’
creativity and help them to shift from the role of consumer to the role of
producer.
Thus, I'm very glad that I had
the chance to take this course which gave me a broad and clear understanding of
implementing new technologies both for educational and life purposes and also
experience in the application of these new technological tools. Finally, it
taught me how to become a life-long and autonomous learner, which, nowadays is quite
necessary and valuable quality to possess. All of this knowledge and skills I
will gladly pass to my students.
Comparing Armenian higher education and K-12 to the
Horizon reports, the following points have been highlighted
v Rethinking the
roles of the teachers
I
consider the role of the teachers in Armenia won’t change, because,
teachers were, are and will be the center of the classroom and nothing can make
them concede their place to the student centered classrooms to make them
autonomous learners. Therefore they should allow students to change their roles
from consumers to producers.
v Shift to Deeper
Learning Approaches
In Armenia students mainly make
use of old, “Soviet” books and teachers mainly focus on grammar-translation
method where students only read and translate texts. Classes do not have any authentic
materials or interesting tasks and activities. However, it is not our teachers’
fault, because traditional way of teaching still exists and teachers either do
not know about new methods and techniques that can be very useful in acquiring
this or that material or probably they know, but simply do not want to prepare
lesson plans, to create and design activities, to put efforts in what they do.
Instead they’d better stick to their initially established way of teaching and
“do not bother their teaching routine.”
When
teaching, we do not want our students focus only on learning language as it is,
but alongside to solve problems, to collaborate, to develop critical
thinking skills, create and be engaged in the learning process that will help
them to get more experienced and acknowledgeable. During their life time they
will face many problems demanding solutions, that’s why schools should pay
attention to this fact by implementing authentic situations into the school
curriculums in order to prepare them to the real life problems and be able to
find solutions and therefore easily to be
integrated into the community.
v
Increasing Use of Hybrid Learning Designs
It is
difficult to speak about technology, because schools do not want to implement
new methods of teaching, moreover new technological tools that are so important
and efficient in learning language. Therefore speaking about technology in
Armenia is not as easy as it seems. Schools in Armenia do not only use
technology, moreover they are not equipped with modern devices, like projector,
computers, even Internet access. Students in Armenia are not aware of such
concept as working, developing and improving their skills via new tech tools.
If such things are happening in cities and towns, imagine what’s going on in
rural areas of our country. Nowadays, in most of the rural areas Internet is a
great finding. In case of existing it serves as a tool for getting into social
networks. Though many new tech tools and applications won’t work in Armenia
mainly in rural areas nowadays, it is quite useful and important for teachers
to know about them and in case of possibility to use, however the majority do
not know about these wonderful resources that can help them and be beneficial
for their students not only from the language learning perspective, but also
from the perspective of being knowledgeable of tech tools and their implication
in our life.
v Creating Authentic Learning Opportunities
It is quite important to
create authentic learning environment in EFL classroom settings, because
authentic learning encourages and helps students to occur and bring about real
life experiences, and let outside world creep into inside world in the frames
of classroom. This type of learning is created through real life tasks,
simulation games that facilitate and stimulate students and enable to connect
directly with the real world. In Armenia this type of learning as well as
others does not exist.
v Gaming
Nowadays many students play computer and video games. These games can serve
as a tool guiding them to improve their learning skills and develop their 21st
century skills, life skills. Among the main skills are promoting collaboration
and problem solving, developing critical thinking skills, ability to quickly
make a decision which nowadays is very important and demanding, but difficult.
Therefore, the role of the teacher is to show the reverse side of the coin – of
playing games-that can provide students with knowledge and skills that can be
implicated for educational and life purposes.
v “Flipped classroom”
Flipped classroom is a new model aimed at helping
teacher to organize time spent in and outside of classroom and pass the
ownership of learning to students. In this type of model class time is
transformed into a social space and allocated to project-based learning where
students collaborate, work team wise to solve real-world problems and
challenges, and therefore gain deeper understanding of the subject authentically.
v Learning Analytics
In Armenia, EFL classrooms and other classrooms comprise more or less 30
students. It is quite difficult for the teacher to track all of them simultaneously
, therefore it would be reasonable to make use of learning analytics where
teacher would be able to track students throughout their learning process,
their overall performance, challenges, dropout rates, due assignments and so
forth. Based on the data collected teacher would be able to offer students help
and improve their current learning position.
To conclude, it is quite
necessary for English teachers in Armenia to completely change their way of
teaching, integrate new methods and techniques and discover the world of new high
technological tools, because we live in the world where the education is gradually
being digitalized and therefore to share knowledge to students by using the new
and efficient ways of teaching.
Cloud
Computing
When you’re
undertaking a new business or some other institution you need a system that
will enable you to manage and share any kind of information or data easily.
However, you are tired of sharing, storing a bigger data and saving all of your
documents in hardware, in a computer. Then your right solution is cloud
computing.
What
does it mean?
Cloud
computing is a term, used to describe a large system of computers which are
connected to each other through a real-time communication and provides an opportunity to run a program in different
computers at the same time.
Now,
let’s see what cloud computing can offer us.
Owing to cloud computing we can create one
document and have multiple users in it, thus promoting real-time communication
and collaboration between the learners, for
instance like in Wikis or Google Drive. Secondly, one of the priorities of
cloud computing is that you don’t have to install new programs and can have an access your data
whenever and wherever you want to without carrying memory card with you
everywhere. What do we do then? We simply log into different softwares
and start using them. Therefore, it is quite economical in terms of the
hardware and software. Cloud computing is scalable and reliable, because it
allows us to store everything securely online (in the cloud.) Another advantage
of cloud computing is its cost-effectiveness. To make it clearer, let’s view
this point from the educational perspective. You want to share your data with
all of your students, but in order to keep it all you need a bigger server .This
type of servers will cost you a lot, to make it precise more than you can
afford and therefore will limit the number of students who can access and use
the program simultaneously. In this case cloud computing is a better
alternative which will enable you to reduce that large amount of expenses and
use them only in extra-cases.
For more information watch the following video:
воскресенье, 7 декабря 2014 г.
Learning Analytics
What is analytics? This word is always associated with
either statistics or metrics. However, analytics is the detection and communication
of meaningful patterns in data. Consequently, analyzing and analyzing data is a
necessary tool in every field that helps to make decisions and find solutions
to problems that arise around the world.
Analyzing data, i.e. its collection and measurement is quite crucial in
the field of education. But what is the purpose of analyzing this data and what
can the results of this data give us? The answer is quite simple and can be
easily anticipated. It enables us to create more solid grounds and make more
valid, objective and reliable decisions rather than to rely on our instincts or
experiences of individuals. Therefore the best term that is more applicable in
this case is learning analytics.
What is Learning Analytics?
Learning analytics is the measurement,
collection, analysis and reporting of data about learners, the purpose of which
is to understand and evaluate this or that issue connected with their learning
and the environment in which the learning occurs. The key that can help us to
get the answers as to how form education is Big Data. Big Data is a plethora of data and
datasets that are enormously big and can capture, store, manage and analyze
them.
Learning analytics provides evidence about the success and also challenges of
the learning environment that can help to take further steps according to the
results of the analyzed data. Owing to academic analytics we can
intercede when learners are having problems, i.e. detect performance
difficulties and provide immediate feedback; predict future learners’
performance, and build predicting model profiles of students who are at risk,
i.e. dropout rates and therefore offer those students help; whereas owing to
learning analytics learners can get up-to-date information about their own
learning, and try to improve it based on the evidence given by the learning
analytics. Therefore with the help of the learning analytics we can make
the quality of the teaching and learning more efficient.
The history
of learning analytics dates back to the recent rise in popularity of MOOCs.
Education acquired through these online courses assesses large groups of
learners. At the same time it constitutes sets of learner activity data that
can be used to develop analytics. Analytics will be able to follow students’
digital traces in online or virtual learning environments in order to improve
teaching and learning and the environments in which these take place. (Ferguson,
2014) You may consider that you are spying on your students. However, this is
the best opportunity for you to control all of your students’ learning process
at once. This is also a good way for students, because they are always
organized and structured. Therefore they offer ways for learners to improve and
develop while a course is in progress. Mostly, these analytics focus on the
development and measurement of key skills: reflective, collaborative, and
networking skills. Isn’t it simple?
Imagine a situation where you assign a task
to your students, but you are not sure whether they remember about it or
whether they come across any difficulties while doing it. What are you going to
do? You will wait for the next class to find answers to your questions. This is
a familiar, traditional situation in a traditional school. Let’s take a minute
and think that you are using new tech tools and platforms in your teaching and
you are assigning task in www.moodle.com or other platform. Here you have
various opportunities, like discussions boards, where your students can
communicate with you and their peers and ask questions referring to this or
that assignment. What’s more important you can follow their learning process,
for instance how or when they study how many times one logged in to check the homework assignment, how
active he/ she was in the discussion
boards.
For more information follow this link on
TEDTALKS by Daphne Koller
and by Rebecca Ferguson
You
may find their information useful and helpful .They both provide a clear understanding
of what the learning
analytics is about.
P. S.
Upon completion
their education we must make sure that students leave the program with detailed
knowledge in the area of their specialization, alongside with the skills necessary
to keep on throughout their lives. They
need critical skills to estimate and evaluate information and situations,
reflective skills to design new activities and skills in networking to act team
wise, either as a team member or team leader. Learning analytics will help to
develop these skills.
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