New Technologies in TEFL #14 Revision of 13 technologies

Dear Readers,

I want to wrap up all the technologies that I have made a blog post on during my course.

So far, I have presented different technologies that are being used for language teaching purposes globally, as well as their feasibility for application in the Armenian TEFL context. Although most of the institutions and language schools do not have the necessary tools and facilities, there are some useful and adaptable technology programs that can be used by the teachers in Armenia:

• As Blogs are not very well known technology for most of the Armenian students, introducing them the instructions and assign them to post their reflections or thoughts would be an effective way to develop the learners’ writing skills.
• Based on my peers and students’ reflections, digital storytelling and filmmaking have been the most favorite ones especially among young students in Armenia. The drawbacks to be mindful about these technologies are the amount of time to be considered in order to give instructions and availability of computers, which can be solved by teachers dedicating class time on giving instructions and providing the devices by asking learners to bring their own devices or consult with the stakeholder of their institution or school.
• Mobile Assisted Language Learning (MALL) is a highly practical and efficient technological tool. According to the findings demonstrating a high rate of access to the smartphones both in urban and rural areas in Armenia, integrating MALL in language learning courses would motivate learners to engage in lessons and produce the target language efectively.

The most important take-aways that I consider and use based on what I have learned during this course are:

• There is no need to have high-quality devices to use technology in your classrooms, even simple mobile phones or recorders can be used to keep students motivated and excited to learn.
• Never trust technology and always have a plan B.
• Teach instructions prior to the lessons and be sure that your students have understood the steps.
• Online resources are not limited to Google searches only, online educational resources (OER), Learning Management Systems (LMSs), and Personal Learning Environments (PLEs) contain valuable sources and materials that you can include in your lesson plans.
• There are tons of innovative online games that can be involved in your assessment plan.
• I did not know about Artificial Intelligence-Chatbots and 3D Virtual Worlds-Second Life and their impact on language learning before. Now I know that they are beneficial for students who get frustrated when talking to native speakers in person. These programs are the best choice to give them freedom and confidence to practice the target language virtually.
• I also really liked the activities with QR codes which I will use them in my course design project.

Personally, I really enjoyed learning about all the new technological tools and gadgets. I am also grateful for having a helpful instructor who provided us the most updates and useful online sources.

 

New Technologies in TEFL #12 Learning Management Systems (LMSs) Vs. Personal Learning Environments (PLEs)

Dear Readers,

Today’s post is about learning management systems (LMSs) also called Virtual Learning Environment (VLEs) vs. social networks or Personal Learning Environments (PLEs).

A learning management system (LMS) is a software application for the administration, documentation, tracking, reporting and delivery of electronic educational technology (also called e-learning) courses or training programs.

Whereas, Personal Learning Environments (PLE) are systems that help learners take control of and manage their own learning. Some say it is a concept while others say it is a technology.

These two diagrams show the connections and the concept of each system more vividly.

LMS:

PLE:

You can find the differences of these two systems in the following table. The information has been gathered from this video and other online sources.

LMS	PLE
Is centralized.	Is decentralized.
Collaboration through LMS.	Separate collaboration environment.
Connects to members of Federation: different but connected LMSs.	Directly connected to individuals.
Data stores in the system, it is not portable and can be shared by who are the member of the system.	Data belongs to you, sharing requires your permission.
Purposefully designed.	The PLE tools integrate this outside life with formal study.

A researcher named Differences between students using PLE and LMS systems was conducted to measure differences in network formation and structure between low and high achievers in two types of online learning contexts. Two contexts were used in this study, the first context was based on traditional LMS (Moodle) activities; and The second used a variety of tools including iGoogle, Google Groups and FriendFeed and an array of  digital resource repositories such as Delicious, Flickr, YouTube, Scribd and SlideShare.

The finding shows that: obviously, the information flow in Moodle forums can be rich, but more extensive opportunities to contribute, and as importantly to browse and consume information produced by others, increases with heterogeneity and richness of sources of that flow. However, more interesting was that the PLE students interacted more and also built more expensive personal networks.

Personally, I think that both systems are essential for fostering your academic learning. Depending on the materials and your field of education some sources are more helpful than others; thus, I cannot suggest one system to be very beneficial than the other. I hope that we would have more Armenian online sources in the future that we can enlarge our personal learning environment.

New Technologies #10 Open Educational Resources (OER)

Dear Readers,

I am going to introduce you to one of the most effective and useful tools in education, which I would call it a revolution in the educational field: Open Educational Recourses (OER).

OER which you can guess from its name has free and online recourses or materials available for teachers, students, and self-learners. You can learn about the history of OER by checking its timeline using this link,  which mentions the fact that OER originated in 1999 at the University of Tubingen in Germany.

Minds on Fire: Open Education, the Long Tail, and Learning 2.0 describes the OER as a way of providing free access to a wide range of courses and other educational materials to anyone who wants to use them, and the advantages of OER as follows:

• It is a mean for social learning;
• Open source communities have developed a well-established path for newcomers;
• Encourages ‘productive inquiry’: the process of seeking knowledge in order to carry out a particular situated task;
• In addition to formal education, a great deal of informal learning is taking place on and off campus;
• Provides a place for unlimited resources;
• The e-Science movement provides students with access to expensive and specific tools and research conducted by professional scientists;
• It provides continuous, lifelong learning that extends beyond formal schooling.

The disadvantages of OER can be considered as follows:

• Not all students or population have access to computers, which restricts their access to OER;
• Some course participation is limited to people with programming skills;
• Authors will frequently update their resources to prevent them become outdated;
• Some students may refuse to learn in colleges when there are free courses online.

Since 2010, the UNESCO Institute for Information Technologies in Education (IITE) has been implementing a project on Open Educational Resources in non-English speaking countries including Armenia, several Armenian universities use the Moodle course management system (CMS), which will be developed by most of the colleges and universities. Developing OER in Armenia will provide students in remote regions of the country (Armenia) to  have access to a wide range of courses and other educational materials.

Helpful sites for:

• Open Resources:
  • http://orelt.col.org
  • http://www.merlot.org/merlot/materials.htm?category=2451&&
  • MIT Open Courseware: http://ocw.mit.edu/index.htm
  • http://www.coerll.utexas.edu/coerll/
• Open Courses:
  • https://www.coursera.org/
  • https://www.udacity.com/
  • https://www.udemy.com/
  • https://iversity.org/
  • https://www.edx.org/
  • https://novoed.com/
  • Carnegie Mellon University OER: http://oli.web.cmu.edu/openlearning/forstudents/freecourses
  • http://www.ocwconsortium.org/en/courses