Going Mobile

We are pretty sure that many teachers have experienced situations similar to the one you can see on the picture. Luckily, there is some discussion on the topic of mobile learning that helps us think on mobile devices not any longer as enemies of students’attention span but as tools to be included in our teaching proposal.

Recently, we had the opportunity to listen Nicky Hockly’s talk “Going Mobile”. She works in the field of EFL Teaching and Training and is Director of Pedagogy of The Consultants-E, a consultancy that offers online and face-to-face training to teachers who are willing to integrate technologies into their classroom or online teaching.

On this occasion, Nicky explained what mobile learning is and provided interesting examples as regards activities students can do with devices. An example she exposed in the talk is that, as most cellphones have audio recording and photo-taking capability, learners can record conversations and dialogues in pairs, or take photos out of class that can be used in classroom discussion, as well as part of a project.

The talk was really interesting and, as Nicky herself explained, when it comes to motivate and keep our students engaged in the tasks we propose mobile devices can be helpful tools. Moreover, it opens the door to a not less important issue in the EFL classroom: enhancing digital literacies.

You can find more interesting activities Nicky proposes in her blog.

Web 2.0



So far, we have been exploring new ways of integrating ICTs in EFL teaching, we have learned to analyze critically the sources and tools available, and we are now well aware of the relevance that digital literacies role will have in our teaching. This learning process, together with the making of this blog are part of a bigger, umbrella term: ‘Web 2.0’ and, as the name of this blog makes reference to, its influence and importance in Teaching.
‘Web 2.0 is the current state of online technology as it compares to the early days of the Web, characterized by greater user interactivity and collaboration, more pervasive network connectivity and enhanced communication channels. One of the most significant differences between Web 2.0 and the traditional World Wide Web (WWW, retroactively referred to as Web 1.0) is greater collaboration among Internet users, content providers and enterprises. Originally, data was posted on Web sites, and users simply viewed or downloaded the content. Increasingly, users have more input into the nature and scope of Web content and in some cases exert real-time control over it.’From: WhatIs.com
Among the range of web 2.0 teaching tools that are available to explore and use, we would like to comment on two belonging to Instructional Videos and Video Sharing category which we found interesting. One of them is TEDx and its youtube channel, TEDx Talks; it is an international community that organizes TED-style conferences. TED (Technology Entertainment Design) purpose is sharing riveting talks by remarkable people, free to the world. The other tool, Tubechop, is an application that allows you to cut Youtube videos and share only the section that interests you, for free. It provides you with an embed code, a link, and the possibility to share the video.
When deciding to introduce a new topic with an instructional video these two sites (to see these and more tools go to: Edjudo) can be really helpful. We have chosen a talk by Michael Wesch, ‘From Knowledge to Knowledge-Able’ and we show you the most interesting part to us. Michael Lee Wesch is an associate professor of cultural anthropology at Kansas State University. As you will see in the video, he is interested in the emerging field of digital ethnography, where he studies the effect of new media on human interaction. If you like to see more about Michael Wesch we highly recommend you to visit his website My Teaching Notebook.
Michael Wesch says we are headed towards ubiquitous communication and information, at unlimited speed, about everything, everywhere, from anywhere, and on all kinds of devices, which makes it ‘ridiculously easy’ to connect, organize, share, collect, collaborate and publish.We think he explains very well the web 2.0 current state we tried to describe above and its implications in students’ everyday life.

TPACK and SAMR Models

There are two useful models that help us understand the sometimes overwhelming challenge of integrating technology in our lessons, TPACK and SAMR.

TPACK is a framework that combines three knowledge areas and it looks at how they work together to increase students motivation and to make the content more accessible to students. As you can see in the image these three knowledge areas overlap.



The SAMR model describes technology integration in four levels, and categorizes those levels into Enhancement and Transformation.

Enhancement includes Substitution and Augmentation, whereas Transformation encloses modification and redefinition.

Now, this it may seem abstract and difficult to apply in an everyday lesson but if you work hard, you will be able to put all this into practice. We had to create a didactic sequence, the content to teach was “love/like/hate + -ing” and the task needed to be presented by the use of a PowerPoint presentation and/or any other technological device.

We decided to prepare a PowerPoint presentation about an ideal trip to Mendoza in which we were going to describe the activities that we like/love/hate doing and which we can do in that province. We agreed on using videos from Google Earth to show our students the different places. The final task for our students was to make a similar presentation (not necessarily using PowerPoint) in which they can talk about where they would like to travel when they finish high school.

Analysing our sequence following the TPACK model, we needed an extensive knowledge of the content and topic that we were going to deal with. We presented that content in an innovative way adapting the now technological materials to our students’ background knowledge and needs with the aim of facilitating their learning process.

If we analyse our sequence following the SAMR model, we used ‘substitution’ when we replaced the use of simple pictures by the videos from Google Earth. We also took into account that students were not going to write their presentation’s script on pen and paper but they were supposed to use Microsoft Word or any other word processor as well as when they had to show their presentations, they had to do it using any technological devices (audio files, images, photographs, videos) that they know instead of a poster, leaflet, etc.

Designing a lesson that includes technology is a time consuming activity, it demands a good predisposition on part of the teacher, a great knowledge of your students’ previous knowledge and needs, and being acquainted with the technology you are going to use in your lesson. It may seem impossible but it is not! We think that including attractive presentations in our lessons might engage our students and might make them feel that learning the language is not only “filling in the gaps” or “complete with the correct form of the verb”.

Sources:

http://www.hippasus.com/rrpweblog/archives/2011/10/28/SAMR_TPCK_In_Action.pdf

http://jaltcue.org/files/OnCUE/OCJ6-1/OCJ61%20pp%2041-51%20Taylor.pdf