Teachning, Learning and Develpoing with Technology

As teachers, when we assign a research project, we often focus on the end product: the research essay, presentation, etc. However, students (especially young students) do not automatically know how to conduct meaningful research. Our modern students are used to Googling answers. They have grown accustomed to information being readily available. However, as academics, we know that research isn’t a  fast process. It’s slow and deliberate. As a teacher, I need to intentionally slow my students down during this exercise. I do this by breaking down a larger project into more manageable chunks and focusing on the process.

We now live in an age where we can take information for granted, many people even complain of being bombarded. So, what good is this information?

From Virtual Classrooms to Moodle MOOCs and Google Docs,you can be sure that this web education tool box is brimming with complete solutions for teaching online.

How to use tongue twisters for pronunciation practice and to teach English language learners minimal pairs and vowels sounds.

Switching from a traditional classroom to a flipped classroom can be daunting because there are a lack of effective models.  So, what should an effective flipped classroom look like?  In our experience, effective flipped classrooms share many of these characteristics:

"Mobile computing is the wave of the future. While the high school economics book still has a chapter on 'balancing the checkbook,' I do my banking between grocery lines with mobile banking apps, rarely even seeing a check. I shop on Amazon, I send gifts remotely, and Google share important business and school materials for collaboration. Then I Skype or do a Google Hangout for remote collaboration. Why, then must students use paper agendas, put their phones away, and use a pencil and paper?  Students can do so much with an iPhone (or an Android, or even a BlackBerry). It can truly help them work smarter, not harder. How?"

A survey of teachers shows that digital tools are widely used in their classrooms and professional lives. Yet, many of these middle and high school teachers are hampered by disparities in student access to digital technologies.

It was labelled one of 2012's most important inventions and "the next big thing".

E-readers and tablets are becoming more popular as such technologies improve, but research suggests that reading on paper still boasts unique advantages

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  This lesson is designed around a beautiful short film called Everyday by Gustav Johansson and the theme of everyday routines and empathy. Students imagine and write about a day in the life o...

Student: ‘Teacher, am I going to pass this course?’ Me: ‘What do you think? Do you have any thoughts about your performance so far?’ This is a conversation I’ve had many hundreds of times down the ...

Padlet is a browser supported tool that you can be used for many things in class either using iPads or computers. It was previously known as wall wisher but has been revamped and is now a lot more ...

My point is that if we use social bookmarking frequently, it becomes a mechanic process. Every time you see something interesting, we press the “share button”, add as many tags, keywords as we can think of, and that’s it. We’ll filter the information later on, no need to deal with it right now. Even if this process doesn’t save time right now. In the future, when you need to retrieve information for any kind of project, and if you have bookmarked it before, the whole process could be a time saver.

Sit up straight!

They are known as wearable computers and are yet to hit the streets, but already they are creating controversy.

The problem is that the decision makers often don’t have the marketing skills to differentiate between different addressable audiences. External adult learners may not want a long-winded, over-engineered, six to ten week course on anything. Life’s too short. Yet academics are used to producing courses of this semester length. What many may want are mini MOOCs. They may want them to be asynchronous starting and ending when convenient for them. This, of course, is exactly what’s happening. All in all, however, the good news is that MOOCs are forcing HE institutions to change. MOOCs may very well be the force that makes them more open, transparent and relevant. There will, of course, be a backlash, but the digital genie is out of the bottle - MOOCs are here to stay.

As teachers, when we assign a research project, we often focus on the end product: the research essay, presentation, etc. However, students (especially young students) do not automatically know how to conduct meaningful research. Our modern students are used to Googling answers. They have grown accustomed to information being readily available. However, as academics, we know that research isn’t a  fast process. It’s slow and deliberate. As a teacher, I need to intentionally slow my students down during this exercise. I do this by breaking down a larger project into more manageable chunks and focusing on the process.