Tag: technology

Using Technology versus Integrating Technology

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SCAD Language Studio ? Professor Christina Cavage, Human Resources headshot, Fall 2013 ? Photography by Stephanie Krell, courtesy of SCADChristina Cavage

Last month I introduced the concept of using technology versus integrating technology. Since then I haven’t stopped thinking about this concept and my own classes.  I believe that we need to strive towards true integration rather than just technology use.  One criteria outlined in recent publications regarding the integration of technology is where we use the technology.

With this push towards technology in learning, is it really effective to use it in the classroom?  Research says no.  Although certain tools can help facilitate learning, students using technology in the classroom takes away from the cooperative, communicative environment needed for language learning.  So, how can we effectively use tools in the classroom to facilitate learning while at the same time integrate technology outside of the classroom? Continue reading →

Uses of Technology:
Sharing Resources with Students

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Sharing learning resources with students is a great way to utilize technology in language teaching.[i] Like a lot of teachers, I compile resources that I find that I think will be suitable for my students to utilize as they try to challenge themselves outside of the classroom. And I’ve organized my resources into a kind of mind map[ii] that enables me to locate the kind of resource I might recommend to any particular student or any particular class. Now I wasn’t always so generous and certainly not always so organized in the ways that I recommended resources to students. In fact, I was probably very conservative about protecting resources rather than sharing them early on in my career.

I’d like to share with you a story of how my perspective on this began to shift. Continue reading →

Reasons for Using Technology

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By Michael Rost    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VjX8Nff0U8QV

Video Script:

I use a lot of technology in my teaching now, but this hasn’t always been the case.[i] In fact, when I first started out teaching a number of years ago in West Africa in the Peace Corps, I had zero technology effectively. My main technology was chalk. I had white chalk, I had a blackboard, and I even had some yellow chalk to emphasize things. Continue reading →

Applying the FLIP – Part 2

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SCAD Language Studio ? Professor Christina Cavage, Human Resources headshot, Fall 2013 ? Photography by Stephanie Krell, courtesy of SCADChristina Cavage

Like many of you, I am bombarded on a daily basis with ESL and education “news” from a multitude of sites. There are a few I breeze over, and others that I really pay attention to. One that has me stopping and thinking on a weekly basis is te@chthought.com. For those of you who may not be familiar with te@chthought, it is a vibrant website that is committed to providing resources for the 21st century teacher. Personally, I love the site because it really holds true to its mantra: learn better.

I recently came across a great article that reinforces what I believe about a good blended or flipped model. The article highlights the difference between using technology in the classroom and integrating technology.
UsingTech

While many of us are simply trained to use technology in the classroom, few of us are trained to effectively integrate this technology in a planned and purposeful way into our students’ learning experiences beyond the classroom walls. This integration of technology transitions us nicely into our discussion on the next two pillars of a FLIPped model: Intentional content and Professional educators. Continue reading →