Rethinking Technology

Anneli Ryan

Beyond Test Scores

Confidence Motivation Student Engagement

Use It Right Appropriate Use Preventing negatives of distance learning

New Possibilities Authenticity Access Today’s Technology

Rethinking Technology

Beyond Test Scores

Confidence

S32: “I feel interested in performing role plays in class, I like to speak English actively instead of passively memorize English words.”

Student comments after using e-learning for

constructive role play:

S8: “I can really speak English out, not just read the same materials out.”

Beyond Test Scores

Motivation

Lesson from Adventure Learning Activity: Bringing students with to Mount Kilimanjaro

Motivation

Autonomy

Competence

Relatedness

Beyond Test Scores

Student Engagement and PreparationBenefits of Blogs:

Student: “I like reading others points of view and having flexibility in time when doing my homework.”

Blogs have other benefits of blogs in education both for students and instructors: 2-Students can also practice their writing skills on the web, and they will be careful if they know someone will comment on their work; 3-Blogs empower students to become more analytic as well as critical; 5-Students can discuss with the others on the course topics and reflect their views with others on the blog; 6-Students are able to link their blogs to other resources of learning to gain knowledge. They may link their blog to other blogs or any other related media to the subject; 7-Students can converse and discuss with their teachers; 13-Blogs support class interaction (CHANG, et al., 2008) and discussions as well as enhance class presentations; 14-Blogs use an automatic dating system which helps tracks assignment submission. This dating system helps in searching and locating postings on a certain date.

Student: “I think blogs increase the sense of community in the class, because it helps students and teachers to know more about each other’s through communication and feedback sessions.”

Use It Right

Students now engaged:

S15: “I really enjoyed the role play activity because it is quite active and I have the chance to speak something out instead of doing some reading.”

Changing e-learning to use constructive role play: more language generated through substitution, variation.

Use It Right

Distance Learning-isolation-disconnected

How do we do this?

Distance Learning-community-connected

New Possibilities

Adventure Learning, a virtual experience: Mt. Kilimanjaro

in Africa

Videoconferencing in Taiwan: engaging with

native speakers of target language in spontaneous,

natural conversation

Authenticity

New Possibilities

Location no longer a barrier:

Connect with resources, information needed

Experience another place virtually

Reach the native language

Access

Today’s Technology

•Affordable•Lower cost

•Netbooks, cell phones, webcams

•Free •Blogs, Skype

•Already in use, available•School networks, existing systems, software •3G Network, the Cloud

•Simplified•Prevalence of technology•Comfort level•Less complicated than before

“An early decision was made to deliver curricular content via the Internet, a.k.a. “the cloud”, rather than through a device-centric software and hardware based system. This allowed us to keep the system low cost and highly portable.”

“In American education, videoconferencing technology has been available since 1975, and online collaborative learning has become increasingly common and valuable.”

And the problems of yesterday