Language teaching is one of the most thought-provoking issues in the area of education. It has been around for many centuries, and over the centuries, it has changed a lot. There have been many changes that have affected language teaching. Based on these changes occurring in the area of teaching and learning, the advent of digital technology and online learning has provided students with an abundance of communication tools and 21st century learning and 21st century skills have emerged.

Taking these changes into consideration, as an educator, my mission is to educate my students not only by teaching but also making use of available technologies to help them build their understanding of the technology as a part of the education process and to increase their motivation. My vision is to help my students to graduate with 21st century skills to succeed in work and life and to be productive members of the society so that my students will be good explorers and communicators of knowledge by using technology

Technology in my classroom is used for communicating and working collaboratively, facilitating student learning and creativity, using critical thinking skills to plan research and to manage projects, modeling instruction, record keeping, and sharing work. So far, I have incorporated online learning into my classroom in a variety of different formats including Learning Management System, WebQuests, blogs, educational gaming, online research, online research validation, online projects as well as interactive discussions between students and blended instruction. Yet, using career planning tools would be harder to use with my students because of the timing problem. Since each module in my workplace lasts 7 weeks, it would be difficult to keep track of student work although I believe that using this kind of career planning tools would help my adult students a lot.

Although I have been infusing some aspects of educational technology into my classroom, one technology that I would like to use is interactive discussions with experts. Actually, to improve students’ speaking skills, a colleague of mine and I created a website, Discuss With Us. The website blends two learning environments, face-to-face learning environment and online learning environment. By using this website, students interact with a real audience in the target language via computer-mediated discussions and this authentic nature of interaction augments student motivation. But, using interactive discussions with experts would complete this online experience. This technology can cover a variety of content, but for my language learning students I would focus on speaking and listening. However, one drawback of using this technology is that students might have difficulty in concentrating on a screen for longer periods. Thus, before I start using this technology, I have to plan some activities and add variety into the sessions to help students maintain their levels of interest and concentration. For instance, to prepare my students for the video conferencing, before the sessions I can send a welcome letter to all students which will introduce them the video conferencing. Additionally, I can provide regular feedback sessions for my students because they may be apprehensive and not sure what to expect from a session. I can also prepare some “in the session activities” such as discussions, role-plays, and quizzes because I think variety is an important part of video conferencing which also increases student engagement.

To get informed about interactive discussions with experts, I tried the links in Michigan Merit Curriculum Online Experience Guideline Companion Document. Unfortunately, many of the links were outdated. Below are some helpful resources that you can also use to incorporate video conferencing for learning into your classroom.

Global Leap Video Conferencing in the Classroom helps to deliver interactive video conferencing across the curriculum in the UK and around the world.

Video Conferencing Sharewood Guide provides a list of video conferencing tools.

In general, a StAIR (Stand Alone Instructional Resource) is an educational resource that allows students to navigate through information on their own and provides instant feedback based on learner's interaction with the information.

Posted below is my StAIR. This Stand Alone Instructional Resource on Paraphrasing and Summarizing is an interactive lesson designed to help students practice for paraphrasing, summarizing, and differentiating between paraphrasing and summarizing effectively.

I created this interactive lesson for my Advanced Level English Language Learning students. Although they can refer to sources when paraphrasing or summarizing by using APA citation guidelines, they have trouble paraphrasing sentences and texts, summarizing texts of their level, and differentiating between paraphrasing and summarizing.

Also find this resource on MERLOT - Multimedia Educational Resource for Learning Online and Teaching 

UPDATE: Below is the power point show version of my StAIR. This retains all the effects of the kiosk mode. Thus, this version runs much more smoothly. You will need PowerPoint to view. The file is compatible with PowerPoint 2008 for Mac and PowerPoint 2007 for Windows.

For my graduate course (CEP 811), this week I learnt more about wikis, which permit asynchronous communication and group collaboration.  I am impressed with how easy it is to add, edit, or delete material from the wikis. Since wikis offer a flexible web-based collaboration tool, they can be used to increase student involvement. In addition, faculty members can use them to collaborate on projects. Yet, since any visitor to the wiki can change its content, it is important to ensure that inappropriate language is not allowed. But, because this can be time-consuming, your wiki can require authorization so that only group members can edit its content.

Despite their downsides, wikis show great potential as a flexible collaboration tool. Here is the wiki I created at Wikispaces for my school entitled SeppMeetings. This is a private wiki and therefore its content can only be viewed and modified by its members. This wiki will be a repository for meeting notes. Agenda items will be uploaded prior to our level meetings and notes will be added during the meeting. Also, since we can export our notes to Microsoft Word, reporting will be easier.

In addition, I also edited pages for my workplace in Wikipedia. First, I checked all the links on the page and found out that they were all broken. Then, I made the necessary updates. Also, I checked the information in the organization section of the page and then updated it. I added missing information related to two new faculties, School of Law and School of Islamic Studies, and one graduate school, Graduate School of Business. I also updated all the links in this section.

Here is a screenshot of my update:  

This week, I really enjoyed creating and editing wikis. You can also create your own wiki with one of these websites:

PBworks

Wikispaces

I was born and brought up in a developing country, and as such I am painfully aware of how poor education systems can hinder the development of a country. On a more positive note I have also seen many examples where improvements in education and education systems have aided the progress of a country. This excites me! The importance of education is by no means unique to my home country but instead can be felt all round the world. Fend (2001) states that current questions with regard to the role of educational institutions have to do with the quality and effectiveness of educational institutions in providing services for individual development and the innovation of society to serve the basic needs of social change in the context of a global society. Yet, most current curricula do not take this role of educational institutions into consideration. First, curricula often do not address the diverse needs, strengths, backgrounds, and interests of students. However, we do not need curricula which generate massive answers on which everyone agrees, but we need curricula which account for individual learning styles and preferences and thus create different answers. Second, curricula often fail in what they teach. Such curricula mainly constructed around print-based media do not give chance to students to critically evaluate the world in which they live. Third, curricula often fail in how they teach because they provide for very limited instructional options, and the result is banking education (Freire, 1970/2003). He defines this type of education as “an act of depositing, in which the students are the depositories and the teacher is the depositor. Instead of communicating, the teacher issues communiqués and makes deposits which the students patiently receive, memorize, and repeat” (p. 72). Then as educators, how can we address such disabilities? Universal Design for Learning (UDL) is a framework for designing curriculum that can help teachers to differentiate instruction for differing learners.

On the one hand, UDL can allow educators to design curricula from the beginning to address individual differences; therefore, disabled curricula can be reduced and be flexible and customized via new interactive, flexible, and malleable media. The teacher is no more the one who transmits knowledge to the student, and thus, the student has control over their learning. Then mastery of learning through tools, strategies, and scaffolds can be achieved as well as praxis, “reflection and action upon the world in order to transform it,” (Freire, 1970/2003, p. 51). In other words, such curricula can help students to extend understandings of the nature, development, and complexity of the world. On the other hand, starting the curriculum from the beginning can be a challenge because it requires a lot of time and preparation. Additionally, today teachers have to prepare their students for standardized tests and these tests are not differentiated as opposed to UDL. Thus, universal design for learning can mean a disservice to students if they fail in a standardized test because students who become accustomed to differentiated instruction may not be successful in a traditional paper and pencil test.

Yet, I still believe that the benefits of UDL outweigh its drawbacks. It is with this in mind that I enhanced one of my lesson plans to include some of the UDL guidelines.

UDL Checklist
UDL Enhanced Lesson Plan

REFERENCES

Fend, H. (2001). Educational Institutions and Society. International Encyclopedia of the Social and Behavioral Sciences, 4262–4266. Amsterdam: Elsevier Science Ltd.

Freire, P. (2003).  Pedagogy of the Oppressed (30th ed.). (M. B. Ramos, Trans.). New York: Continuum. (Original work was published 1970).