Shouldn’t we be prepared to dispense with the deep-rooted analog dependancies and create tech that reflects where we are now and what we want now?
“Digital native” and “digital immigrant” are labels that have graced training seminar powerpoint presentations the world over for more than a decade, but what are the implications of these terms for publishers (and all other participants in the learning biz)? Are there any implications at all, even, or are these simply sassy strap lines that ricochet between blogs (like ours) but are inherently void of substance?
It’s definitely a term that is being bandied around the ELT-osphere like a banned elastic band at a Band Aid concert. The Impatient Optimists site (of the Gates Foundation) declared that: “If 2012 was the MOOCs’ year for capturing venture capital and unrelenting media coverage, 2013 looks to be a big year for the adaptive learning … Read more
In the first post in this series, Nick set out a challenge to see if – and how – it might be possible to radically speed up the process of ELT course creation. The simple fact is that established ELT content providers don’t have much of a choice – radical change is needed because the … Read more
Making ELT products takes time. A lot of time. Too much time. And in the current climate, we can no longer afford to think about product development in terms of years; the rest of the world is moving too quickly for that, and if we don’t catch up, well …
SimCityEDU is the Great Gatsby of the video gaming world. That’s right. I want that to be my opening line. In the same way that Gatsby is a self-made man pursuing an idealised (albeit fundamentally flawed) dream that draws into it the rich variety of the city and its inhabitants, so too is SimCityEDU an … Read more
Now that web 2.0 is passé, and we’ve all got used to the concept of crowd-sourcing and the ‘wisdom of the crowd’, one of the hot crowd-related trends of the last couple of years has been crowdfunding. You may have heard tales of people raising huge sums of money in weeks on sites like Kickstarter. So, could crowdfunding have an impact on ELT? Well, why not.
Book map. Sequence. Contents. All of these terms suggest that the course book is a predetermined learning journey for students; their participation or engagement is not required, they only need to listen and turn the page to the next activity when instructed. Learners are bystanders to their own learning journey rather then active participants.
So it’s one thing to avail oneself of the endless blogs and sites that tout the ‘Top 10 Games For the Classroom’ or ‘Top iPad Apps for Learners’, but it’s entirely another to create a forum and approach for users to comment on the learning experiences they have encountered through the various games they play. This is … Read more
So, you think gamification is only for the tech savvy? You think you couldn’t incorporate it into your classroom without having all the latest tech tools? Well, think again! Here are 3 ways to gamify your classroom with and without tech.
A few weeks ago, Laurie wrote the first of five posts on the Edtech trends of ELT, covering online learning. In his post, he wrote:
it’s only a matter of time before someone is teaching English via a MOOC – either delivering courses through the existing platforms or creating an ELT MOOC (honestly, why has no-one actually done that already?).
Here’s why: there’s a good chance it won’t work.
Following on from our part 1 post I’m taking up the question that was left hanging in the air: what does gamification really mean for language learning?
The answer, as unsatisfactory and contradictory as it may sound, is: it means what it’s always meant. ‘Good’ language teachers will always instinctively apply such concepts to engage and help their learners. The technology utilised in this approach could range from a piece of paper to a room full of iPads. The tech is the vehicle for delivering the solution, not the solution itself.
Interested observers of developments in the field of Edtech will undoubtedly be aware of the snowballing sexiness of the term ‘gamification’ as its advocates look at ways of transferring it from the world of business into the world of education.
What is emerging as the term gets shared and amplified is the fact that it is being interpreted differently and in increasingly erroneous ways. If the concepts and opportunities that the gamification proposition offer are to get effective traction within the education community it’s vital that teachers and learners are clear on what it actually entails (as well as what it doesn’t).
The next time you’re sat opposite that businessperson on the train engrossed in their BlackBerry or iPhone, don’t assume they’re frantically trying to get to Inbox Zero. It’s just as likely they’re trying to get to the next level of Angry Birds.
Or so GlobalEnglish might have us believe.
Edudemic recently identified The 5 Biggest Education Technology Trends To Know About.
The 5 trends are:
That’s great, but the angle is very much focussed on US higher education and K-12. So, in this mini-series, let’s have a look at what they mean in the world of ELT.
The Grading Game is an addictive action word game centered around the pursuit and eradication of grammar and spelling errors. The game’s levels take the form of students’ papers, with a fresh set of errors generated for each play. Meanwhile, the papers themselves cover the most interesting and unusual topics, from the history of ramen to … Read more
In the week that Livemocha was swallowed up, Busuu has announced that it has now reached 30m users, with a growth rate of 40,000 a day. It’s not clear how of those are active users, though. Their main growth is coming from countries like Brazil, Turkey and Russia – the same group of countries that most ELT publishers see as the source of their own growth.
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