language learning Archives

InnovateEdTech sessions: Harriet Ballantyne & Doug Belshaw

January 31, 2020June 22, 2018 by Tim Gifford

Here’s another look at some of the excellent talks from last year’s Innovate EdTech conference. First, we hear from Harriet Ballantyne, who talks about how to manage and develop online communities through learning apps, as well as the importance of gathering feedback from learners and acting on it. Then, Doug Belshaw gives us some great insight into developing digital literacies and shows how we can demonstrate achievement online with Open Badges.

ELTjam LXD Session: Lindsay Clandfield and the game changers

January 31, 2020June 20, 2016 by Tim Gifford

ELT EdTech, if we use a video game metaphor, is like Pong. (Lindsay Clandfield)

Possibly the best quote on the state of ELT digital products ever. Lindsay was one of the four speakers that addressed the topic of Learner Experience Design (LXD) at our ELTjam Session on the 13th April. His 10-minute spot covered the growing influence of video games and the surprise survival of the fitness industry. Find out how Lindsay tied it all together…

Apple’s electric car and the death of language teaching as we know it

January 30, 2020December 2, 2015 by Nick Robinson

When I was four, going on five, a TV show called Knight Rider premiered in the UK. I loved it and remained a fan for most of my childhood (OK, I admit it; I’m still a fan). There was The Hoff, of course – all leather jackets, open shirt buttons and swagger – but the real star of the show was K.I.T.T – Knight Industries Two Thousand – the ‘advanced, artificially intelligent, self-aware and nearly indestructible car’. Over thirty years later Apple and Google are in a head-to-head race to bring K.I.T.T’s spiritual successor – the driverless car – to market. And, as a little-known and hard-to-spot side effect, the ramifications for the teaching of languages, especially English, could be huge.

Brainly: Can ELT learn from social learning?

January 30, 2020October 29, 2014 by Nicola Prentis

I wasn’t brilliant at physics at secondary school. I managed in class, though, with the help of my peers which you could call social learning. Pre-internet, that social network was confined to the real world – and occasional phone calls. Homework wasn’t generally a topic of conversation but I don’t think I had anything like the 2-3 hours school children can have today. On one occasion, my homework included a question about light refraction and where a fish would appear to be to an observer from the surface as opposed to where it actually was. I couldn’t answer, so I just wrote “Don’t know” and handed it in.

Exploring the British Council MOOC

January 30, 2020October 15, 2014 by Nicola Prentis

Either ELTjam and its community of commenters can see the future, or the British Council closely followed this post from January 2013 when they created their 6-week course Exploring English Language and Culture in partnership with FutureLearn.

There’s one critical difference, though. ELTjam thought an ELT MOOC probably wouldn’t work. The British Council made sure that it did. Although, as we’ll see, that does depend on your definition of ‘work’.

Learnification

January 30, 2020July 30, 2014 by Philip Kerr

We now have young learners and very young learners, learner differences and learner profiles, learning styles, learner training, learner independence and autonomy, learning technologies, life-long learning, learning management systems, virtual learning environments, learning outcomes, learning analytics and adaptive learning. Much, but not perhaps all, of this is to the good, but it’s easy to forget … Read more

The Future of ELT

January 30, 2020April 7, 2014 by Gavin Dudeney

It was interesting to be at IATEFL this year, the annual land grab for attention larger than ever, and a conference dominated by discussions, presentations and a plenary about the future of ELT, which – it is suggested – will be completely mediated by technologies (more of this fallacy later). With Sugata Mitra selling his … Read more

Startup Stories: The EdTech Journey of ClassWired Pt.1/2

January 30, 2020November 29, 2013 by Lindsay Rattray

The problem was that no technology connected what I did in class to the rest of my life.

It’s In The Game: ‘Gamification’ and Language Learning Pt. 1 of 2

January 30, 2020May 24, 2013 by Tim Gifford

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).