Professional Documents
Culture Documents
Presenter Details
Alex Grevett Jinbu High School Email: alex.grevett@gmail.com Blog: http://breathyvowel.wordpress.com Twitter: @breathyvowel Please feel free to get in touch, or subscribe to my blog and Twitter feeds.
Presentation Details
Todays presentation is online permanently at prezi.com. A direct link will be supplied. Please visit if you want to review this workshop.
Communicable
The beauty of technology is that we can share everything with everyone (this is not always a good thing). What this means for us as language learners is that we can reach out to and establish dialogues with native speakers, who can help us to experience the real language. It also means that we can make connections with other learners who can provide input at our learning level, and help keep us motivated.
Saveable
Students work is difficult to keep track of, and in class accidents happen. Technology helps us to keep students work safe to use again, and makes it far easier than using paper.
Editable
Trying to edit with pen and paper is boring, time-consuming and messy. Using technology, students and teachers can make corrections to work neatly. In addition, other students or anyone else can make comments, corrections and suggestions without spoiling the work. Finally, the work can be easily rearranged through the use of mind-mapping or sorting.
Extendable
One of my favourite things about technology is that it can remove classroom walls. In fact, I ran a short writing course without ever needing a classroom! Students can access their work from anywhere, anytime, and the teacher can help them when they need it. Sometimes it can even take away the need for a teacher completely. Im not so keen on this!
Inevitable
Technology is becoming more and more prevalent in schools. Reports in the media suggest that by 2015 (thats just 4 years away!) tablet PCs will replace textbooks in South Korean schools (Source: http://www.usatoday.com/tech/news/2011-07-20-south-koreatablet-pc_n.htm). Even closer than that, the new NEAT will be internet based (as is the TOEFL). If the examination is technology based, we have a duty to our students to help them learn using the same technology.
Twitter
Twitter (or any other messaging program) can help us to instantly, efficiently and neatly collect ideas from students, and to put them into an electronic format that can then be worked with further. * Note: Twitter can be a great educational tool for teachers and students. It is also a wonderful resource for English teachers professionally. Most of the ideas in this workshop have been inspired by other teachers sharing their work on Twitter. For more information on Twitter as a professional development tool see the following resources: http://sandymillin.wordpress.com/2011/09/29/twitter-for-professional-development/ http://larryferlazzo.edublogs.org/2011/01/18/twitter-chats-for-eslefl-teachers-how-toparticipate-in-them/ http://jeffthomastech.com/blog/?p=9250
Sharing: Ideas developed during brainstorming can be shared through Twitter, blogs or wiki sites. These can then be commented on by other students, teachers, parents or anyone else. Here are some useful sharing resources: http://www.wikispaces.com/ http://wordpress.org/ http://edublogs.org/
Spending some time developing ideas puts students in a much better position to write. The thinking part of the writing process is as important to learn as the technical skills involved in writing.
Solving Problems
Technology can really help us in the classroom, but it also comes with some difficulties. Here are some common issues with technology, and some suggestions for overcoming them.
Accessibility
Getting one student to a computer is difficult in most schools, unless you can get the keys to the computer room. However, it is not necessary to have one computer for each student. In fact, I prefer to have two students per computer as they can then support each other. Three or even four students at a computer can be OK. Many students have smartphones these days, and enjoy using them in class. Carefully controlled smartphone use can be beneficial. Finally, if you really cant do it now, wait a year or two. As the tablet PC reports suggest, we are in an era of rapidly increasing access to technology. Store this handout in a safe place and get it out again in 2013.
Safety
The internet can be a dangerous place, and when using it we have to help our students to be safe. This means educating them about the dangers as well as the benefits of social media use. One of the benefits of Twitter is that much of the communication that takes place is public and visible to everyone. This helps to keep our students safe and their communication responsible. As teachers we should try to protect our students identities by publishing work anonymously and avoiding publishing photos of students entirely.
Class Control
Keeping students on task is even more difficult when using technology. There are a huge number of distractions to students using the internet, and they are easier to access while
using technology. There are some ways we can reduce the potential for students to go off task: Keeping technology use controlled is the key to maintaining classroom focus and discipline. Set strict time limits in class to ensure that students dont have time to get distracted. In addition to this, clearly marking technology and non-technology times is important. This can be done by asking students to turn off screens, shut laptop cases and put smart phones in pockets when they are not using them. Finally, having a clear set of rules, and consequences for breaking them, is essential.
Wikispaces
Wikispaces (http://www.wikispaces.com/) is an excellent place for students to write as a team. All students can access one piece of work using a password, and the work can be made public or private. It has advantages for teachers too; changes are recorded so you can see which student has contributed.
Online journal sites can be used in a variety of ways. They can be used for short homework writing assignments, grammar practice or, as I think would be most beneficial, simply keeping a journal in English for the students own enjoyment. Andees research showed that university level students, after some initial encouragement, developed an enjoyment of writing and wrote for themselves every day. The ability to make friends through giving and receiving corrections is also important because it establishes a dialogue between learners which further increases motivation. I use http://lang-8.com/ to write a journal, but there are many similar sites. One major advantage of lang-8 is that it has a Korean interface.
Final Note
I hope that you enjoyed this workshop, and that you found out something that you can use in your classroom. If you have any questions that you want to ask after the workshop, I can be contacted through email, Twitter or my blog. Thank you very much for attending.