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5 ways with examples to show how tech "can truly improve learning" from Matt

"This teacher talk webinar focuses on the latest web tools that can engage students, facilitate collaboration, and enhance understanding for students at all levels. Whether in a technology enhanced, blended or online learning classroom, these Web 2.0 tools can be easily integrated to increase student engagement and interest in learning. Explore this webinar to learn about these tools as well as the shift in learning and teaching that can occur when technology is implemented at its deepest levels."

Discussion on how technology is being used and why we're still struggling to give more control of learning to students. A good read!

"A 2014 paper by researchers at Michigan State University, in East Lansing, provides a tangible example: Teachers and students in the small-scale study were found to be making extensive use of the online word-processing tool Google Docs. The application's power to support collaborative writing and in-depth feedback, however, was not being realized. Teachers were not encouraging group-writing assignments and their feedback focused overwhelmingly on issues such as spelling and grammar, rather than content and organization." This really gets to the heart of the idea of combining education and technology: the technology has to serve the goal and it doesn't sound like the teachers' goals were the same as the stated goals of the assignment. So obviously Google Docs is a fantastic tool, but it has to be utilized appropriately for it to be effective.

I must say I have sat through many workshops in my tenure at my university that included the modification of some practices and even included, to my frustration, the basic structure of a lesson from stating outcomes to assessment. The problem with our particular situation is that usually it is directed to a "one-size-fits-all" use of a given technology that may not apply to many disciplines. I have found them somewhat useful for upper-level courses at times, but the language classes often pose the need for a kind of collaboration and interpersonal technology that isn't presented. Hence my desire to take this course. Another difficulty is the overwhelming number of technological applications presented--I can't tell you how many--and the students really become overwhelmed, since they often have to learn new technologies in almost many courses. Some work and some don't, and since they are the guinea pigs and there are no guarantees that everything will work as planned, and given the astounding changes in tech, the newness never seems to end, neither for the student nor the teacher. So focusing on just 1 or 2 to begin with seems like the only way to deal with it. Finally, I think that, at least in our university, the huge courses found often in the sciences reflect the slowness to adopt meaningful change. Many in these disciplines have simply used the tech to deliver more lectures on topics students must memorize, perhaps adding clickers for comprehension checks. There seems to be a great disconnect between what happens in the classroom and the amazing advances in tech they have made for their hands-on work--labs, collaborative work, etc.

I have been following Shapiro for a little over a year now. I first became interested in him because as a former video-game player I was always interested in game based learning. Jordan covers the gamification of learning but also how ed-tech is changing the culture of learning in the U.S. and around the world.

how to increase student learning - what research on learning tells us. Tech doesn't just increase engagement.

Great resource for skeptical families! Will use for BTS night!!! Thanks!!!

I didn't even know that a tool called Plickers even existed!

A good article in favor of learning multiple languages!  The first part mentions a number of tech apps for assisting in global learning collaborations.

Although this article is about British language education and it's two years old, my interest was piqued when I read it: ""Languages cannot be taught, they can only be learnt. The best way is to tell students right away that they are responsible for their own learning process, and the teacher is just a guide who has to motivate them."" Made me think about relevancy and how Tech is only one part of that.

Really interesting. I wonder if we changed the setting to the U.S. if the same difficulties would apply. I never really thought about grammar being discarded simply because students don't know it well enough. While I've found that most students we teach don't understand their mother tongue, I still think that the shift to task-based work had as much to do with the lack of real communication skills. Just teaching them grammar and relying on them to go abroad to learn to speak wasn't doing it. That being said, I think the mixture of methods is best, and by mixture I mean the integration of many methods into accomplishing a task. And I agree that the meta-learning is key.

I remember getting a comment from a student once, many years ago, that she had learned more about English grammar in my Spanish class than anywhere else... (sigh)

First paragraph: As 21st-century teachers, we are expected to help students master the technological tools they will use in college and the workplace. But in many districts, the one-computer classroom is not extinct. So how can we do a lot with a little? How can we best use limited resources to support learning and familiarize students with technology?" Here are some tips!

A list of tech tools for language learning - listed in groups of skill focus

"Explore the latest in education technology tips and tools, in-depth reporting and trends for K-12 educators and administrators."

This easy-to-read introduction to SAMR (standing for "Substitution," "Augmentation," "Modification" and "Redefinition"), a model for helping integrate "technology tools into foreign-language classrooms," is blogged by a Chinese content and technology specialist who, I trust, has a lot of experience of incorporating media into Chinese learning activities. Besides clearly explaining how the SAMR model works for a L2 class via really useful tech tools such as Google Docs and Flipgrid, this blog also reveals a fact that our students "are not all 'digital natives,'" and encourages us, 21st-century educators, to "meet our students halfway to use tech for learning." I found the first two SAMR stages, namely, "Substitution" and "Augmentation," are very helpful for evaluating the interpretive mode implemented with appropriate media.

Some free classes for teachers about tech - designing presentations, making media for classroom use, and others.

A little off-topic for Week 5 but overall relevant to this course.

"The use of technology is not a goal in and of itself; rather technology is one tool that supports language learners as they use the target language in culturally appropriate ways to accomplish authentic tasks." This quote stood out to me and it is so true. sometimes we feel pressured to use technology but we forgot the pedagogy purpose.

Thanks for sharing it. We are using technology for our language lessons. I agree what ACFLT says about having clear that tech is a tool not a goal since the most important aspect is the learning.

"Over the past academic year, my students and I have been experimenting with the use of a number of web based applications (often known as Web 2.0 tools). My aim has been to enhance our schemes of work by providing our students with new and exciting learning opportunities. In my opinion, using technology effectively has clear benefits for both teaching and learning and can help to improve motivation by engaging pupils in activities which, perhaps, step out of their ordinary school experience and which show them that it is possible to teach and learn about a subject using tools similar to those they use daily outside school. In other words, we have tried to use the types of tools with which they are often already familiar. I have written about each of these individual tools in separate posts, but I thought it would be useful to list the ten most used internet applications on one post. As ever, I aim to provide, not only a list of the web applications we have used, but also examples of practice which you may wish to follow or, indeed, improve upon. Therefore, each of the entries below has links leading to lesson plans which have incorporated the tools as well as working examples of students' work where appropriate. Without further ado, and in alphabetical order, my ten tried and tested internet tools for teachers are:"

from a FL teacher in England - who tries and tests a number of tech tools. Here are his 10 favorite web 2.0 apps.

In a fast changing world impacted by technological advances, language usage becomes "one of the factors being altered most drastically." And as language teachers, most of us feel language teaching has become inevitably bound to technology more and quickly. All this is talked about in "The Edtech Podcast" posted here. Listening through the lengthy audio discussion on how language learning is or can or should be equipped with technology one way or another, one can be happier to see "both sides of change: how we must adjust and what we can take advantage of."

This is a practice-oriented publication that's a bit more casual in tone and practical in content than its scholarly counterparts, while still rigorous in the quality of information it offers. We will feature articles, interviews with notable folks in the field of language teaching and learning, reviews of software, materials, and books, and more!

A lot of great ideas and a nice way to stay informed and to, at the same time, feel connected with a network of language educators who are addressing the same challenges and concerns.

SpatialChat looks so fun! I'll be curious about pricing, and appropriateness and safety for high schoolers.

There was a hyperlink to an article about whether we should still teach cursive. Apparently high schools are not doing it any more. My son stopped cursive in about the 5th grade and didn't have to use it and now he is struggling at the university because he can't read when the professor uses cursive in anything, like comments on his papers. I have to print when I leave him a note. Wow, technology is wiping out one of the long-standing activities that took humans decades to develop.

I like the balanced way this piece presents some of the pros and cons of technology in education. Just this week I had a conversation with another educator who has encountered recent studies suggesting a link between handwriting (of any kind) and certain cognitive development. Some schools are now emphasizing handwriting instruction because it helps boost students' academic achievement.

My daughter is 8 years old and she started learning cursive this year. So it must be back! I'm not sure if will help boost her achievement or not, but I'm glad she is learning it. I think the article made a good point about how students today have a short attention span and easily get off track. If they are typing a paper on the computer, for example, they can open a browser and start surfing the web. They don't necessarily stay focused on the task at hand. It is even hard for me sometimes. If I don't ignore email (just put it off until later, I mean), I would never get anything done!

Here is an article that describes boomwriter, a technology tool that allows students do collaborative writing. Activities may have to be simplified for beginning level students, but I can see how this might work well with higher level students as well as with native speakers.

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