Learning Management System versus Personal Learning Environment

PLE is a unique interface into digital environment. It integrates personal and professional interests of the owners, including formal and informal learning. Users of PLE can select the content they need and it is a social and informative environment that connects the users through the Net. The responsibility of learning in PLE is on the user, as users of PLE we can manage our own data and access resources of our interests. PLE has many advantages and one of the most important features of it, is that it enables learners be in a lifelong learning  process. PLE could be anywhere, learners don't need a school or educational institution to get the information from. Users can simply get the information they are interested in through searching on line.Examples of PLE are iBook, youtube, google, etc.

While LMS is a tool designed purposely to facilitate a net enabled class to be understood by both teachers and learners. It provides a comprehensive set of tools for educators to manage learning resources, administrative functions, assessments, and grading. Users of LMS connect to each other by the school or college to share information, so it can be done in educational institutes only. And this is the drawback of the Learning Management System. The data stays there when learners leave that educational environment or the institution. Examples of LMS are moodle, dasaran.am,etc. www.educause.edu.
As an ESL/EFL teacher I think both systems are important in educating individuals. Nowadays teaching learning processes demand modern tools and systems to engage the learners and help them be creative and active learners. Twenty first century learners need technology and media inside the educational institutes and out of them. As Dr. Madyarov mentioned in our class discussion  today, many Armenian high school students prefer to drop schools and have private tutors which is something the ministry of education should worry about, because as I said before learners need both tools. PLE and LMS should be equally used by the learners to develop their skills  throughout their life.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LAOuDcC6DwM.

 

Online and distance learning

Many years ago, a new obligation for teachers aroused in my country, the obligation was from the ministry of education demanding teachers to have a master degree in order to continue teaching. Thousands of teachers were married, have kids and many other responsibilities, even for the unmarried ones, was hard to work and attend college at the same time.  So e-learning became very popular and convenient. I think even e-learning could be a perfect opportunity for language learning.

According to the two articles that I have read online learners can choose and participate in the programs that meet their needs, they have the flexibility of access, the possibility of developing their own skills, the opportunity of self-direction and become more independent language learners. Of course distance learning differs from face-to-face classroom learning in many areas, especially the language learning. So learners should be aware of many things in order to be successful learners.  E-learning is more isolated, so learners should have high motivation, and they don’t have the opportunity of immediate feedback and clarification. So distance learner should be independent learners because the teachers are not there moment by moment to monitor them and give assistance whenever needed. So teachers in distance learning are less available, and here rises the role of good educators of e-learning programs. The second article I have read is a research on the success of distance and online learning that cannot exist without having good educator tutors who help learners and provide guidance, feedback, assessment, support and motivation. The collaborative study involving the Open University UK and Massey University, New Zealand was on distance language tutors and Hurd, Beaven and Ortega(2001) based on their experience in foreign language teaching at the Open University in the UK, argue that distance learners should have strategic competence and reflective approach. So the emphasis of the two articles is basically on the distance learners and on the distance tutors. 
http://alison.com/subjects/27/Languages 

Both the distance learners and the tutors should have certain characteristics in order to have a successful distance course and successful learners, because there are many challenges that face the learners and the educators.

Open Educational Resources

 

 

Open Educational Resources (OER) provide free access to different kinds of educational materials to all those who wants to use these materials. This movement started in 2001and it meets the needs of all those who are interested in knowledge. The most interesting aspect of this kind of learning is that users of OER share ideas and communicate with people who all have common interests in different parts of the world.

It meets the needs of twenty first century learners and educators who can have access to the information they are interested in whenever and wherever they want. The choice of the information depends on each individual. The learners can also talk to people around the world about their problems in a social context.

As an ESL teacher and as a student of a master’s degree program I totally support the idea of using the internet and especially EOR, because it makes my life easier. I seek knowledge and I always want to be updated to all the new methods and activities of teaching English as a foreign language, so searching on line helped me a lot in the past and it helps me now while I am doing my research projects at the TEFL program. Unfortunately I don’t have much time as before to search for new activities and methods, but I am using the internet in teaching and in my education as I said before. I really like the idea of blogging and the idea of using moodle as a medium of communication between our instructors and peers. I wish I had more time to check my blogs more often and be more active on line. Another important great educational resource for me as a student is the online library, Papazian library of the American University of Armenia which makes thousands of students lives easier.

OER have many advantages plus to the ones that I have personally experienced, when I have read the article I really had great ideas of how to use OER in teaching high school students and even graduate and undergraduate students. Here is a site for free robotic telescopes  (http://faulkes-telescope.com/). I really liked this project for astronomer students, that provides them training and where students and expert astronomers can work collaboratively. I this website you can find reports of small but meaningful contributions of student astronomers. The use of OER in higher education is not only in astronomy, history and science but it is also very effective in Arts, Humanities and in many other majors. We just need qualified teachers and educators with wide horizons to be able to apply the technology in classes.

 

 

MALL

OR

Mobile- Assisted Language Learning

How can we use mobile devices in ESL/EFL classes? Or how can we as ESL/EFL teachers use them in teaching? What are the mobile devices?

Mobiles mean all the devices that one can carry and use them easily. But how can we use these devices in teaching and learning?

I think the idea of using mobile devices like ipads, iphones, ipod, mp3 player and so many others is incredible, because students can use them inside and outside the classroom very practically and I personally experienced that with a group of learners who were tweeting every day for almost two months. They didn’t tweet only for the class but they even started to chat using English in everyday contexts. They were all excited and whenever I forget to check their tweets they ask me to do so to be sure of their correct use of English. I totally agree with the ideas of the article “Twenty ideas for using mobile phones in the language classroom” by Hayo Reinders that those devices facilitates authentic communication among the second language learners, and they practice their language anytime and anywhere.

Here are some examples of how to use those devices for different kinds of activities in EFL/ESL classes, students can take notes, do some short writing like text messaging, listening, speaking, voice chatting, reading, blogging, surfing, tweeting and many others. The only thing that I didn’t know before our class discussion was producing flashcards which I really liked.

Of course using MALL has its own negative sides depends on the age of the second language learners, because students might use the devices for other purposes rather than completing the task and specially the young learners and the teens. However, no one can deny the advantages of using the mobile devices in ESL teaching and their addition of fun and joy to the learning process while practicing.  

 

Second life

I liked the idea of using virtual world in teaching especially for teaching history, chemistry and science. Students can be in the virtual world and experience the incidents happened in the past and by experiencing and living in the virtual world they can learn by interacting in real world but the real world of the past, which is something can’t be in traditional history class.

I think we can use it in language teaching too, but I think after our class discussion I will have clearer view about how to use it in teaching a foreign language. I am not sure about how we can make sure that students are interacting with native speakers. If they can interact with native speakers that would be a great opportunity for them to learn the language in a very communicative environment which is something traditional classrooms cannot offer. I think that travelling abroad to learn a language is expensive and unpractical and not everyone can do it, so by using the virtual world learners will get the chance to travel to the country they want and use the target language in a meaningful environment. The article that I have read mentioned that the learners’ fluency has improved and they gained confidence. Malvern and Graham (2008) said that French foreign language exam in UK schools are graded on knowledge of only 1000 words in French. But the research claims that the users of the second life produce more than 2000 words which is something great but can learners develop a variety of vocabulary words? I am not sure; they may develop certain vocabulary words important for their interaction so I think all this will be clear after my discussion with peers and our instructor. I wish I can observe classes that these technologies are used in teaching so I have the chance to learn more about the use of technology in teaching English as a second language.  

 

  

Using video games in teaching

I am not sure whether the video games are good educational tools or not, may be because I have never seen a good educational video game yet, except a few ones I saw on edutopia videos. I agree that traditional schools and traditional ways of teaching should be abandoned, but having innovative schools does not mean teaching by video games. This could be by having experienced and creative teachers who love teaching and it can also be by having well equipped schools that help teachers use their creativity to help students become producers and explorers and not just consumers. For example, having science labs at schools help students experience what in the science book and I think it is more helpful than the video games. I remember myself when I was a junior high school student, every time I was looking forward for the lab classes where we used to dissect animals, go to the yard of the school to plant seeds and see different kinds of trees with their different stems and leaves, go to the rivers and forests to see their habitats. I think all this help students more and they enjoy their time while learning I do not like the idea of having students sit by a computer and play games for long hours. Some scientific topics might be taught by video games but not all, especially the ones that we can take students to the nature or real life settings where they can discover the world by themselves. I am one of the teachers who experienced the bad attitude of many young students at schools who were watching and playing this “pokemon” games. Students on recess were imitating the pokemon characters hitting each other kicking and fighting violently. I assure you that those students who were not playing video games but were reading books and playing sports were healthier and they had more balanced characters than those who were playing video games for hours. Those even did not know how to share classroom objects, they were not good in group works and pair works. I don’t agree that video games are the only tools that teach students problem solving skills. Puzzles, interactive games, playing in the sand in one corner of the school, taking students to field trips, having different jobs room where students can play with the objects of those jobs and being a shop keeper or a doctor help students more than playing a video game where there is no interaction with a being of his age. Many computer games took so many morals from our children and as educators we should be careful in choosing the proper video games where there is no racism or wars.   

ESL Teachers’ Video production

The hardest homework I have ever had! The words can’t express how frustrated and exhausted I am. I didn’t get the meaning of doing all these as a teacher. I am an ESL teacher and not a video producer, plus I am not interested at all in producing videos. My sister and I dedicated too much time to shoot and when we wanted to import the recordings from the cassette, it didn’t work simply because the cable and the computer device didn’t match. The computer device is more recent one, while the cable is a bit older although they both are from the same company. And because of this problem we used one of our earlier videos for the homework. And this is so discouraging. I really want to know what is the point of doing all this in a masters’ degree program of teaching English as a foreign language. I am here to learn about the effective ways of teaching English as a foreign language and to know the recent methods used around the world. And this video production is really time-consuming for me as a teacher, and I am sure I will never use it.

Plus why to produce a video if there are thousands of videos on line and if I couldn’t find a proper one for my class I can ask a video producer to do it. Almost all the technologies that Dr. Madyarov presented in the Technology class were great and can be used in teaching, but this one I do not think that it is a good idea for teachers to produce or ask their students to do. I prefer to spend hours looking for great activities for my students to let them interact meaningfully than spending days trying to be a video producer. I am sure even if I ask the students to produce a video they will not be able to do it. Plus not all the students might have all the good technological devices to complete the homework. Although the technical part was not that hard, but still I am against the idea of teachers producing videos. I can use my creativity in creating interesting activities for my students, where they even can use their own creativity to complete a task. And it is not necessary for my students or for me to be video producers or know all these information about the video production.