An interesting discussion I had the other day with a very traditional English language teacher who is not ready to introduce any technology tools to embrace his teaching and learning in the classroom. After one hour of heated discussion I could not get him to accept nor see the benefits of the web 2.0 technology of today. Maybe he did not want to understand nor see the benefits of such tools. Maybe, I was not convincing enough. Anyway, below is a summary of my argument with him.
The web 2.0 tools like Twitter, Podcasts, Wikis, Skype, Voice Thread, Sketch Cast, etc. are tools that are bringing fresh approaches to learning and we should not underestimate the impact of those tools on our students to keep them engaged in classroom discussions.
I believe that many of the traditional teachers and public schools are afraid of letting our students learn "skills" that actually do provide the means to learn on their own.
“Schools are scared because the means to truly become a life long learner often include methods where the teacher and a school lose control over the students learning”. Instead of allowing the community and world to become additional teachers for our students, we are too scared that it will reflect poorly on us if we make mistakes on public forums.
Many of the web 2.0 tools I mentioned at the beginning facilitate the following standards better than traditional methodology:
1. Innovation, Creativity, Communication and Collaboration
2. Critical Thinking, Problem Solving, Decision Making, Research and Information
Fluency.
3. Digital Citizenship
4. Technology Operations and Concepts
As I continue my journey of recording my reflection for the FET8611 course, I would appreciate hearing from people with specific examples from life experience on the effectiveness of web 2.0 tools in English Language classes.
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Hi Ghassan,
You need to tread carefully with traditional teachers. Those teachers believe in reading from 'real' books is better than ebooks or online. (usually they are afraid of new technologies and hate computers) I'm about to make a presentation to the teachers at my school about mLearning in the hope to open their eyes a little. I am going to try the 'it's for free' angle. Being somewhat isolated here will motivate these teachers to try online resources as there are no easy alternatives. To order a set of readers takes several months and my school doesn't have much money. I am using eBooks because they are cheaper and instantly accessible. I hope that this will motivate my colleagues.
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