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Connecting online and in class

Flipped classroomKristin Sherman, Network co-author, looks at how to take advantage of technology in the classroom. Kristin will be hosting a webinar “Help Your Students Get Connected” on 24th October and 1st November.

How can we use our classrooms and technology to the greatest effect? A recent study at the University of North Carolina indicated that a “flipped” classroom helps students perform better. Graduate students who used technology to watch mini-lectures at home and then engaged in active learning in the classroom showed significant gains in performance. The success of such a “flipped” classroom suggests ways we can effectively wed technology and language learning.

Technology serves as both a system of delivery and as content itself. We live in a digital world, one that places increasing importance on digital literacy. Our students need not only to be able to use technology to find and manage information, but also to connect and collaborate with others around the world.

Use technology to deliver traditional content

In a flipped classroom, content, in the form of videos and readings, is delivered to the student outside of class. Teachers can use photos as writing prompts, link to video lectures or articles, and post questions for online discussion. These are all activities that have traditionally been conducted in the standard classroom, but teachers can adapt them and move them online.

Use the tools of the traditional classroom to teach about technology

Our students need to be savvy and responsible users of technology. One way we can help them is to provide content instruction in social media and other digital tools.

Online content is visually rich and stimulating, but it encourages surface-level engagement rather than deep thinking and prolonged attention. Users move quickly from one link to another, often reading only parts of texts. Instructors can use the classroom to help students better understand difficult texts and to think critically about online sources. Engaging, collaborative activities in the classroom help learners practice new language skills and improves social skills.

Think creatively

Teachers come up with new ways to blend technology and language learning all the time. For example, you can teach students important skills of summarizing and paraphrasing by condensing a book to an essay to a paragraph to a tweet.

What are some other ways we can combine technology and language learning?

Sources

  1. The Shallows: What the Internet is Doing to Our Brains, Nicholas Carr
  2. The Post Lecture Classroom: How Students Will Fare, http://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2013/09/the-post-lecture-classroom-how-will-students-fare/279663/
  3. http://www.teachthought.com/social-media/20-interesting-ways-to-use-twitter-in-the-classroom/

To find out more about using technology to connect with your students, join Kristin for her webinar on 24th October and 1st November.


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Social Media and ELT

Kristin Sherman has been an ELT teacher, teacher trainer, consultant, and coursebook author for more than 15 years, and is the author of Network, a new five-level general English course that harnesses the power of social networking to help students learn English. Register for Kristin’s webinar on social media in ELT to find out more about this topic.

Another class interrupted by the chirping of a cell phone – has this happened to you? Are your students reading their cell phones or tablets under the desk, or even jumping up to leave the classroom?

Despite warnings and strict classroom rules, students still have trouble ignoring texts and Facebook updates during class. Recent brain research helps explain why. With every small burst of information the brain receives, it releases dopamine, the same pleasure chemical released when we take drugs, fall in love, or eat chocolate. In other words, the information students receive through social media can be addictive.

So how can we, as ELT professionals, harness the power of social media to our advantage?

Again, we can look to recent research for ideas on how best to use social media for language learning.

Engage students in the practice of English. Students who use social media in their courses increase their technology and communication skills, are more creative, and are more open to diverse ideas. (Greenhow). They can also master course content more efficiently. In one study, twice as many students who received a tweet about the focus question for the next class mastered the material compared to those who didn’t receive a tweet. Think about tweeting a focus question before your next class.

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A pre-JALT interview with Kristin Sherman, co-author of Network

Kristin ShermanKristin Sherman, co-author of Network, OUP’s first adult course book to use social media, sits down with us to talk about using social media and technology in the ELT classroom. Kristin is the author of several ELT materials including the hit series Q: Skills for Success, and has extensive teaching and training experience.

1. What do you think is the greatest challenge ELT teachers face in the near future? How can they prepare to overcome that challenge?

I think definitely one of the greatest challenges that ELT professionals face is trying to adapt to new technology. So many changes have been created by technology, and trying to figure out what it means for our teaching is the biggest nut to try to crack. The way that people communicate and access information has changed dramatically which has a lot of implications for both language teaching and learning.

Students and learners can be exposed to a greater variety of English with new technology. For example, if they are using online discussion forums or using social networks they’re going to see not only American English or British English, but a wide variety of English. That’s good because it’s authentic and the learners are going to be exposed to the kind of language that they will need to practice in their professional careers and so forth. But on the other hand, all of this input is a considerable challenge for them and for the teacher.

In addition to exposing us to a greater variety of language, technology is also changing our brains and the way that we learn. Research shows that all kinds of things are changing from how we read to how we process information, and even our learning style preferences. I think that teachers are really going to have to take these changes into account, and if they’re going to be successful and effective they need to adapt their teaching to address what’s happening with learners.

Another big challenge with technology is bridging the gap between younger learners – who are much more skilled at using the internet and who have grown up with it – and the instructors who are a maybe a bit older and are not as tech-savvy. Bringing these instructors up to speed is an interesting challenge because if they don’t adapt they’re not going to be as effective as they could be as instructors.

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