Critical evaluation of online information.

If you are asked, for example, to write a report on environmental issues, what’s the first information source that comes to your mind? If you are thinking about websites you may be part of what Marc Prensky describes as a Digital Native, i.e., “native speakers” of the digital language.

In fact, the Internet is the most complete and practical source of information: with just a couple of clicks we can have access to an enormous amount of data through texts, pictures, videos, etc. But, how much can we trust in what we find?

Last month I had to write an argumentative essay about the inclusion of French and Mandarin in the British curriculum. I was trying to find economic reasons that support the inclusion of Mandarin and I found out in a webpage that the UK was “the top EU investor in China”. It was only when my teacher corrected it that I learned that Great Britain is not even a member of the EU.

 Unlike similar information found in other sources such as newspapers, encyclopedias or television broadcasts, information available on the Internet is not regulated for quality or accuracy. Therefore, being able to identify and select trustworthy and reliable data is a competence we should not overlook.

The British Council proposes a list of criteria that we should take into account when evaluating and selecting websites:

• Accuracy refers to the veracity of the information, weather we can authenticate it from other sources, and if it is updated and properly presented – in terms of grammar and spelling.
• Authority makes reference to the author of the information, his/her credentials and the way to contact him/her.
• Audience and relevance speaks about whether the information is relevant or not and who is it intended to.
• Educational focus evaluates whether the site has educational purposes and caters for different intelligences and learning styles.
• Ease of use refers to the webpage’s structure and format, its loading speed and weather its design is appealing or not.

I usually pay attention to the last item in particular, especially to the colours and fonts of the page. However, we should always bear in mind that appearances can be deceiving, and be aware of the other criteria in order to select proper and reliable information among the huge amount of data found in the cyberspace.

Digital Natives call for a change.

After reading Prensky’s article ‘Digital Natives, Digital Immigrants’ I started to think about the importance of using technology in our classrooms. Nowadays, it’s not only a tool to motivate our students or keep them engaged; technology has changed our learner’s thinking processes and we can’t ignore this, teaching “slowly, step-by-step, one thing at a time, individually”.

Even though there are some teachers who deny the importance of technology and spend their time criticizing the way in which the new generations have changed, I think most of the Digital Immigrant teachers accept the technological development and try to learn about it in order to improve their lessons.

Before continuing I want to explain why I speak of Digital Immigrants in the third person. I was born in 1993 and, even though I was not born in this technological era – or at least some devices were not used by children – I spent part of my childhood and adolescence using computers and mobile phones. I really love technology and whenever I can I watch tutorials to learn how to use programmes such as Photoshop or new social networks. I search for information on the internet, I read through my netbook, I always have Facebook and Twitter open and I answer the messages I receive on Whatsapp while I study. I definitely consider myself a Digital Native.

Now yes, I will share some effects of technology on classrooms:

• It has changed students and teachers’ roles: When students use technology they are “actively making choices about how to generate, obtain, manipulate, or display information.” Some of them can even become coaches, helping their classmates to use technology. The teacher becomes a facilitator or monitor and is no longer the controller of everything.
• It develops student’s motivation and self-esteem: We all know how students enjoy using technology, how they prefer doing the same activity in a computer rather than with pen and paper. “Compared to conventional classrooms with their stress on verbal knowledge and multiple-choice test performance, technology provides a very different set of challenges and different ways in which students can demonstrate what they understand”. At the same time, technology empowers students. They have the immediate results of their performance and they can see how much they are progressing. The simple fact of learning to manipulate a new technological device will foster their autonomy and give them the feeling that ‘they CAN do it’.
• It increases cooperative work: As I mentioned, some students become tutors and they help each other to successfully complete the task that is proposed. What’s more, “students often look over each other’s' shoulders, commenting on each other’s' work, offering assistance, and discussing what they are doing”.
• It expands the audience: Student’s work is no longer aimed to the teacher or to other peers. Through Skype, for example, they can communicate with native speakers, and through social networks or blogs, their works can be shared to the entire world.

Of course there is much more than this if we want to comment on the topic, but just with what I have mentioned we can recognize how important it is for us, as teachers or future teachers, to become acquainted with these technological changes and learn about the best ways to include them in our lessons so as to benefit our students and to adapt to the way in which they learn.  It’s high time to accept the changes and, instead of complaining, profit from them.

If you want to know more about the effects of technology on classrooms read "Effects of Technology on Classrooms and Students." by the U.S. Department of Education.

Guideliness for Designing Effective English Language Teaching Materials.

Hello everybody! I found this mind map about the text by Howard and Major that we read in class (click here to see it in full size). 

I would like to highlight the most important factor to consider when designing materials - the learner. Coursebooks or ready-to-print material that we can find on the Internet may be useful, but we must bear in mind that each of our groups and, even more, each of our students, have its own distinctiveness. 

Creating new material or adapting the one we have to our learners' needs can help us to highlight aspects that coursebooks -created by people from other culture- may not consider important. Most of the times English coursebooks are created by native speakers and sold to teachers and students from different cultural backgrounds. By adapting them, we can design more accurate material which takes into account our learners' first language and culture. In that way, we will be teaching our students not only another language-culture but also making them reflect about their own.

I consider it utterly important for us to observe and analyse our learners' particularities and interests so as to design materials which are relevant and motivating for them. We need to acknowledge the fact that each group of students is different to the others and, even though we can re-use some material, we should pay attention to the differences between learners so as to adapt what we have created, tailoring the material and making it more profitable.

I suggest you to read Kumaravadivelu's 'Understanding Language Teaching' to see the relevance of recognizing learner's particularities.