Interaction, collaboration, creation, community, dialogue,
discussion, meeting point, contribution, participation... these words could
serve as a humble attempt to describe what Web 2.0 is all about. As teachers
and students, we are not merely reading, watching, listening information that
some other people upload; since we can actually do the same and more by making comments
and re-organizing other people´s ideas.
All the teacher resources that we looked this week are
extremely useful tools to help our students improve their English language
performance. Our responsability now is to make sure we know who the students
are (level of English, interests, needs, motivation, degree of independence),
the facilities we have, and what problem we are going to be tackling.
We might be eager to start using everything right away in
our classes, however it is mandatory
that a real language problem or goal is that which drives our channels our
decision to use one type of technology over another. I think that our ultimate
goal is that the students learn English... though if we are not careful enough,
we might end up making the use of a new technology or tool the ultimate goal.
That's exactly why we have to be very specific when identifying
and defining the problem in our projects: "The
issue or problem is explicitly and clearly stated, focused to a single or
connected teaching issue. The problem is solvable with technology, and within
the time frame of the course."
Autonomy is a process that sometimes includes technology and
online tools and sometimes it doesn't. Therefore let's ensure that when we decide to
use the interactive Web 2.0, that our decision it is a carefully thought
through one.
Hi David,
ReplyDeleteI couldn't agree more with you about the fact that this week's resources, although extremely useful, must be taken into serious consideration when it comes to using them in a manner in which the technology will not be used for it's sole purpose, but to really help us solve the classroom problems we're facing. It's a great opportunity to be learning such a great variety of tools, but it seems a double-edged sword even. I hope you have managed to focus on your classroom problem and that your final project will be a success.
Best,
Maida