Blended learning: Future now?

Future is a word that some people may find frightening, to some others it may imply challenges, or to others may be a beacon of hope. For learning, it might as well be all of the above. But why talking about the future? Shouldn’t we talk about the present situation of learning? Most definitely. However, we think that there is a need to debate about a blending of the two.

Nowadays we are experiencing a situation unthinkable 50 years ago, where technology is a central part of the learning process.  To integrate technology into the physical classroom seems a regular thing in the present, whereas in the past it was unconceivable. The teaching environment evolved naturally, allowing this transformation to become a common aspect within the teaching institutions.

In the article “Why we still need face-to-face teaching in the digital age”, Sophie Partarrieu (2015) talks about the concept of “blended learning”. Do students need to go to schools instead of learning online? If we think the process of learning as acquiring basics concepts, information, etc., we can say that nowadays all this can be done without the physical help of the teacher since these facts can be found in the world wide web. There are even special platforms where a teacher can post the contents of a subject so students have a more controlled access of what kind of information they need. However truthful this is, we cannot leave aside the endless factors that are at interplay in the educational process. In the words of the author: “(…) teachers are concerned with more than just the knowledge their students acquire – they’re often called on to act as guidance counsellors or provide emotional support.” (Partarrieu - 2015)

The reality is that a factor that has to be taken into consideration is the context of teaching. In Argentina we can try our best to implement online teaching, but there are certain regions where internet connection or hardware accessibility at home are non-existent. The truth is that other more important priorities are on stake, such as food, clothing or housing.

Technology is becoming a priority in many fields, and teaching is not the exception and blended learning is  one of the options we need to start taking into consideration to expand the borders of the classroom. 

Source:

Sophie Partarrieu (2015) "Why we still need face-to-face teaching in the digital age" 

Web 2.0 in Education

The term "Web 2.0" first appeared in January 1999, used by an information architecture consultant, Darcy DiNucci, to describe a change in the previous concept of "web 1.0". In the following years, its usage gained popularity, and nowadays, most people know the basic concept behind it (or at least it rings a bell).

There is not a clear-cut definition that was agreed on the field, but as a broad definition, Tim O'Reilly (2005) said in his article "What Is Web 2.0", that Web 2.0 is "(...) a set of principles and practices that tie together a veritable solar system of sites that demonstrate some or all of those principles, at a varying distance from that core." This encompasses a plethora of resources at the users' disposal that make their experience even more rich.

If we apply this concept to education, it allows a more collaborative process. The endless tools and devises available in this Web enables a multi-dimensional teaching, especially in the EFL classroom.

For example, we can mention two tools that can be very helpful to our lessons, adding an extra flavor to our students’ interests.

First, we have “word clouds”, also known as “tag clouds”, which is a typical phenomenon that appeared with Web 2.0. A “word cloud” is a visual representation of text data. It can be used in a wide variety of ways, such us free form text, hyperlinks, etc. In our lessons, we can use it as a pre-reading activity so students can hypothesis about the text. It can also help students to review a writing task since “word clouds” can show you the prominence of the most used words. 

For instance, we can take a sentence related to Web 2.0 and make a word cloud so students can reconstruct the correct order of word. 

Another tool that can be helpful in our EFL lessons is “Text to speech” (TTS). There are many TTS tools available but we are going to talk about Voki. With Voki we can create an avatar that can verbalize the phrase or text that we want. We can use this tool to make a presentation, to create a message (since once the Voki is done you can send it by e-mail or post it in any platform), or to practice isolated phrases or words. 

As an example, we can reconstruct the word cloud above with this Voki.

As we have said, the Web 2.0 offers us limitless possibilities to improve our teaching and to make it more interesting.

We encourage you to try these tools that we presented in this post and to dive in the depths of the available options that we can find in the world wide web.

If you have any other interesting tool, leave a comment!

Sources: 

Tim O'Reilly (2005) "What Is Web 2.0"

Teachers as Material Designers

Teachers all over the world need materials to teach. Most of them rely on textbooks or materials already produced for specific levels. However, that is not always the case. Depending on the context and the content, some teachers decide to design their own material for their lessons. But why bother to do so if only by typing a few key words in Google we can find endless resources ready to be used? As we said before, it all depends, mainly, on the context and the content of the teaching situation.

It is obvious that the context of teaching will determine what and how we teach. That is why teachers have to carefully choose the right materials whether they are to teach in the most prestigious university of New York or in a rural school in Chaco, Argentina.

"For many teachers, designing or adapting their own teaching materials, enables them to take into account their particular learning environment and to overcome the lack of 'fit' of the coursebooks" (Howard & Major, 2005, p. 101)

"English language classrooms are diverse places, not only in terms of where they are situated, but also in terms of the individual learners within each context." (Howard & Major, 2005, p. 102)

It is also important to give the material a "personal touch" to increase motivation. Moreover, the teacher designer can use the current local and international events as resource, creating relevant tasks to respond to up-to-date affairs. 

But it is not a bed of roses, designing materials has its drawbacks. It is time consuming, the material can seem unprofessional due to the lack of printing quality, unclear instructions or bad organisation. 

In the paper written by Jocelyn Howard & Jae Major (2005),Guidelines for Designing Effective English Language Teaching Materials you can find 10 guidelines to help you when designing your own materials. 

Here is a graphic summary of the content of the guidelines. 
Hope it helps. Leave a comment.

[This word cloud  was created in https://tagul.com/]

Source: Jocelyn Howard & Jae Major (2005),Guidelines for Designing Effective English Language Teaching Materials