Infographic: Applying the Pareto Principle to ELT Minimum Viable Products
Here’s a catchy infographic depicting the Pareto Principle and its potential application in the development of ELT products. It’s based on a previous post by Nick Robinson.
Learning design
Humanizing adaptive learning for ELT: Part 2
Part 2 of a 2-part post from English360 CEO, Cleve Miller.
The value of open platforms in blended learning is not really about what happens online, it’s about what happens in the classroom …
Humanizing adaptive learning for ELT: Part 1
Part 1 of a 2-part post from English360 CEO, Cleve Miller.
The debate over adaptive learning at eltjam, Philip Kerr’s blog, and Nicola Prentis’ Simple English has been both fascinating and instructive. It’s a fun topic because it involves our core beliefs regarding language acquisition, effective teaching, and the roles that technology can play. That said, I can’t help but feel that in some respects we’re thinking about adaptive learning in a limited way.
ePerfection: Collaborative Textbook Design
It’s quite simply a phenomenal idea; utilising a powerful toolkit of online collaborative applications to deliver a 5-week course on how to develop an eTextbook.
E-Learning: What’s In A Letter?
The ease and speed of accessing the material shouldn’t be misinterpreted as reflecting the ease and speed of actually learning what there is to learn.
Game-Based Learning 4.1: Future Expansions
Some fundamental aspects of games should not be forgotten when an ‘educational game’ is designed, such as finding a balance between giving the player a sense of progress and the feeling of being challenged.
SimCityEDU: Learning What Games Can Do
Way back in June we wrote about GlassLab’s partnership with Pearson and Electronic Arts and their collective efforts to develop a game-based learning product out of SimCity. Well, GlassLab launched the first edition of this hugely anticipated super game earlier in November. Called SimCityEDU: Pollution Challenge! The game puts learners in contact with a hugely effective … Read more
Game-based Learning 3.1: A Learning Walkthrough
Having looked at some myths about game-based learning and some questions and doubts about it, Dave Dodgson returns with the third post in his guest series, this time looking at the different forms a GBL lesson can take and how we can ensure that gaming translates into language learning and development.
Game-Based Learning 2.1: How & When
In last week’s opening post in his series about game-based learning, David Dodgson looked at some of the myths that surround both GBL and gaming in general. This week, he discusses some of the benefits and pitfalls of introducing gaming to the language learning classroom and also examines when and how a teacher might take such an approach.
Game-Based Learning 1.1: Myths & Mistakes
In this first instalment of a four-part guest series, David Dodgson talks about some of the misconceptions of GBL and the culture of gaming in general. Dave Dodgson is an EFL teacher working with young learners in Turkey. He has always had an interest in the use of technology to enhance the learning experience and … Read more
Online learning and the demise of the ‘social gap’
It’s very commonly said by ELT people that online learning can never fully replace learning in the classroom because of the need for social contact and face-to-face interaction as an essential part of the learning process – and there’s a ‘social gap’ if you’re learning in the virtual world. The same argument is made in … Read more
busuu.com: The State of Language Learning Pt. 2/2
In our previous post on busuu.com we took a preliminary walk through the platform in order to get better acquainted with the learner experience and how the platform presents learning opportunities to its members. In this post we want to to think about how busuu manages to leverage such effective appeal. How do you get to … Read more
busuu.com: The State of Language Learning Pt. 1/2
busuu.com is inconceivably big. It is in fact the largest social network for language learning in the world with over 30,000,000 users from 200 countries. That’s more than the population of Uzbekistan. It’s more than the populations of the Czech Republic, Sweden and Austria combined. It’s more than 800 times the size of Liechtenstein, the homeland … Read more
Vocabla: The Words On The Street
The folks over at Polish startup LangApp have come up with something rather special; a heady mix of vocabulary tutor, social network and shareable media library. It’s a potent brew. Vocabla is a powerful demonstration of how addictive language learning can be whilst also being both effective and entirely free. Its premise is a simple … Read more
#elthack: Using Virtual Assistants in ELT Publishing
It’s a common occurrence; as the projects and deadlines start to stack up it gets increasingly difficult to get to the bottom of your inbox let alone move ahead with organising the work that actually needs to be done. Keeping on top of the correspondence and coordinating a team has a knack of becoming an … Read more
#elthack: Using Twitter as an ELT Project Management Tool
We at eltjam are always looking for a more innovative, intuitive way of doing things. One such ‘life hack’ that works incredibly well for managing or collaborating on ELT projects is good ol’ twitter. It can be used as a very slick (and free) platform for communicating and coordinating with your project team. As any … Read more
Breaking up is hard to do: the ‘atomisation’ of ELT content
Is the linear ELT course on the way out? There’s a growing trend towards the provision of modular mix and match content, or even completely ‘atomised’ content. There are four key things driving this trend: The need to make content development faster and more efficient The potential for huge improvements in production efficiency The rise … Read more
Ahead in the Clouds: Cloud-Based Publishing and ELT
The typical creation, development, production and publication of an ELT title is an often gruelling process. The sheer amount of meetings, emails, phone calls, emails, meetings and Word docs is overwhelming to the point of maddening. But … that’s the way books are born, right? The key project team (publishers, editorial, production) correspond with each … Read more
The 5 EdTech trends of ELT part 5: Learning management systems
Learning management systems were supposed to have died out by now, weren’t they? Swept away by a wave of 21st century platforms, mobile apps and MOOCs. In fact, in ELT, it feels like they’re only just getting going. Let’s have a look at the LMS market in general and see what the main ELT publishers … Read more
The Flipped Classroom in ELT
Flipped learning – or the flipped classroom – is one of the hot topics in education at the moment. It’s a core part of the ‘EdTech agenda’ and often espoused as one of the things that will fix a broken education system. So, what exactly is the flipped classroom and what could it mean for … Read more
