Blended Learning: a different way of conceiving education

           Along this year we have analysed the use of various technological tools for material designing and classroom work. Therefore, we would like to introduce you to blended learning which, as explained by Frederic Skrzypek, is the mixture of two models: online teaching and face to face teaching.
           There are four main blended learning models we can work with:

•  Lab rotation: students will move in and out of a classroom to a computer lab. The data from the content in the leanring lab informs the instruction in the classroom.
•  Class rotation: students are divided into small groups which will move across different stations –one will be with the teacher, two of the other may include work with computers and another group can work on their own, integrating information for their project or practising.
•  Flex: there are smaller rooms within the lab for students to work in groups and the teacher can intervene for a seminar or direct instruction.
• Pod: 'school within a school’. Each pod might have multiple grade levels. The role of the teacher is discrete (an adviser, a behaviour specialist, an instructor to support each pod).

           These models are intended to give students more control over their own learning and allow teachers to personalize instructions and feedback since they can work with the small groups.
           We have had the opportunity of working with blended learning as students at Brown Institute since many subjects integrate the use of virtual classrooms at the Institute’s Moodle platform. Some other subjects gave us the possibility of working with Edmodo and for other subjects we are part of Facebook groups. They are all different tools used to complement face to face teaching and learning at the institute. Teachers post there our assignments and homework so as to remind us of them but they also create forums (on Moodle) for us to debate and express our opinions on several topics related to the specifics of each subject. If we wish to express our opinion in Edmodo or Facebook, we can comment on a particular publication and respond to it. All in all, our experience using these tools have helped us remind our assignments, they have become a repository of the material used along the year and we regard them as good elements to mix with face to face teaching.
           However, we would like to highlight again -as we have mentioned in older posts - that the inclusion of technology in the classroom needs to have a clear purpose and, ideally, it has to do more for our teaching than substituting pen and pencil work. According to the SAMR model, substitution is the lowest level of the hierarchy and we should aim for redefinition of our tasks. Therefore, it is of utmost importance to take into consideration the fact that we should always use these tools as complements and not as a replacement. That is to say, we should share digitally what we cannot show to our students in the classroom and the works we ask them to do should include ICTs only with a clear purpose, not just to make a simple work more complex. We believe that this is the best way to work with blended learning and that it should help our students in their learning process.

Sources:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lIh4jJlvF44

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3xMqJmMcME0

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q5txJfv2q0c

Further reading:

https://www.britishcouncil.org/voices-magazine/why-we-still-need-face-face-teaching-digital-age

Useful digital tools for material designing: Wordclouds and Voki

           We would like to share with you our personal experience when working at the Institute with these digital tools a few weeks ago, one of our teachers at Brown presented the idea of working with these resources so as to integrate them in our lessons.
          First of all we want to make clear what wordclouds are. By means of wordclouds generators such as wordclouds or tagul we can create ‘an image composed of words used in a particular text or subject, in which the size of each word indicates its frequency or importance.’ (Oxford Dictionary, 2016). Here is an example:

           These could be thought as not so relevant technologies to manage when thinking of material designing but it is important for us, future teachers of English, because our field of study sees languaage as a whole, being the written word an integral part of it. We can use them with different texts, we can also provide them as material during our lessons so the students can work on the words present in the clouds or we can even encourage them to produce their own and share them with the rest of the class. The possibilities are endless and the use each of us make of them depends on our personal choice since they offer many opportunities by being such a flexible tool.

           For instance, the ones you can see above are the ones we produced to share some related concepts with the rest of our classmates in a subject where we work on material designing and ICTs integration for this purpose. They are simple and easy to read but there are many other shapes, fonts, colours and sizes to choose so that wordclouds can adapt to any topic and to all kinds of needs, you just need to include words in isolation or you can paste a selected text.

           As regards Voki, the other tool we have used in this lesson, we can say that it is another tool we can use to integrate ICTs in the classroom. They mix written and spoken language since

you can also paste a previously selected text  and then, a cartoon character would ‘recite’ it aloud. It is an interesting tool since it is innovative and it definitively calls students’ attention but we, as future teachers of English, dislike the fact that the characters sound like robots and pronunciation is hindered, affecting the perception of connected speech, That is why we should consider using the microphone function where teachers or students can record themselves.
           All in all, we can conclude that the experience of using these tools has been enriching because we could be acquainted with different kinds of devises for designing material which we were not used to work with, being these two different ways of integrating ICTs into the classroom.
Sources:
http://www.voki.com/
http://www.wordclouds.com/

Is a school without specific subjects feasible?

Hugo Pardo Kuklinski

At least this is what Hugo Pardo Kuklinski believes. Having attended to his talk at Universidad Nacional del Litoral on September, 28th, we wonder: can we work through projects at workshops instead of following strict curriculums for every subject?  He proposes that teachers in this ideal context should be ‘mediators’ to which turn for help or guidance only, but not so a necessary actor that students cannot work if he or she is not around. Something Hugo tries to achieve by letting students work in “networks” (in groups that are in constant connection) is that they become independent learners.

You might be thinking “Okay, so I need to change the whole system if I want to create this learning environment, how do I do it?” Hugo Pardo gave us an insight on how he tried to change the system in his project “SERo” in Colombia. To give you an idea of what this project was about we can say that during his stay at Colombia he and his coworkers visited a school where they made all sort of change. They modified the sitting arragement in the classrooms challening the idea that the teacher should be always the center of attention in front of the class. In order to do this, they encouraged group work and project work as well. He admits that since it was a totally different way of teaching which tried to turn upside down everything, he and his co-workers found some resistance among parents and teachers which led the project to ‘fail’. He also mentions that students had a rough time in adapting to this new learning environment because of the drastic change. Seeing this, we came to the conclusion that if teachers and schools are trying to adopt the “networking” method, they should create a new school from scratch or they should do it gradually on existent schools.

On the other hand, he also told us of the same kind of project taking place in our country. Due to the fact that the context was so different to the one in Colombia, it was a success and students together with the teachers at such school enjoyed the experience and were motivated to participate. Therefore, we can state that is worth it to take the risk of getting out of our comfort zone so as to try new ‘methodologies’ and practices which can motivate our students to go to school with renewed energies and expectations.

It is a fact that nowadays people need to be creative, innovative, and independent as well as able to work in cooperative groups if they wish to succeed in what they want to do (all concepts mentioned by Pardo in his talk), so the learning environment should be one in which this characteristics are encouraged. What is more, the inclusion of ICTs in the education of 21^st century students is a must for them to have all the necessary tools to succeed in further activities.

To read more about Hugo Pardo’s projects you can visit www.outliersschool.net or his  blog www.digitalismo.com/blog.