Don’t limit a child to your own learning,

for he was born in another time.

Rabindranath Togore, poet.

This week’s session is about materials and digital technology and the subject is very close to my heart.  I see the development of digital technologies as one of the greatest changes in the education in the last 10-15 years.

Academics highlight numerous benefits of implementing  information and communication technology (ICT) in the EFL classroom. It’s changing the way we think. It’s changing how we communicate. It’s changing how we access information. It’s changing the way we use materials. Maley (2011, citied in Tomblinson 2012) points out ICT can free ‘teachers and learners alike from the constraints of the coursebook’. Most teachers seem to agree that using technology in the English language classroom is a norm, and using and extending digital literacy skills is expected as a part of a 21^st-century education curriculum ( Hasper, 2016).  Stanley (2013) adds that technology should always be part of what a teacher is currently doing with a class and shouldn’t be something special, done as a break from regular classroom learning or as a reward for good behaviour.

Some, however, are sceptical about the benefits of technology. They argue that there is no pedagogical value in using it for teaching and learning and it is a distraction in the classroom or even a gimmick (Robb, 2016). They refer to it as Everest syndrome (Maddux, cited in Stanley, 2013). Named after George Mallory’s reason for wanting to climb Mount Everest, this refers to a situation where teachers using IT ‘because it is there’.

Another obstacle of embracing digital technology within an educational setting, in my opinion, is it is transitional.   There are a lot of people in education who didn’t grow up in the world where all these amazing technological tools existed. They still do, to some degree, think of them as exotic. Somebody once said ‘Technology is something that happened after you were born’. I think that’s right. You can imagine, 30 years from now, we’ll get a generation of kids looking back at a picture of you and your Iphone with a patronising smile. And this is exactly where another problem lies – the fear. The fear of being replace by a computer.  I don’t think technology will ever replace a human tutor. Or at least not during our lifetime. Quite the opposite,with the advent of technology more and more teachers are becoming authors and developers in their own right, self-publishing their own books and apps (myself included). So none of this should be seen as a threat to a teacher’s future.

So, what is the answer to the pedagogy vs technology debate? The question, in my opinion, is not whether or not to use technology, as the presence of technology alone, no matter how advanced, does not equal transformation. The important question is when to use technology. What are the pedagogical implementations and knowledge needed for the process to be successful?  The following frameworks can be used to evaluate it.

Hasper (2016) suggests her FACE IT key principles based on Griffith & Burns (2012) ideas of effective learning practice.

She argues that technology can be implemented effectively at each of the stages. For example, Google drive can be used for peer feedback whereas voicethread.com records your oral feedback.  Hasper (2016) points out that the rise of technology dramatically increased our opportunity to move away from teacher-centred learning and towards giving learners more choice in their learning process. Technology, she continues, can be used to challenge our learners , for example, using acceleread.com to develop their speed in reading. Finally, technology can be used to increase students’ engagement using todaysmeet.com – a platform for a project work or piktochart.com – a great tool to present project work results visually (Hasper, 2016).

Similarly, Saumell  (2016) considers ways of helping to decide how and when to use technology based on  6 principles for meaningful technology integration. These are:

1. Meaningful technology integration focuses on the learning task and not the technology.
2. Meaningful technology integration involves the students (as opposed to just the teachers) actively using the technology.
3. Meaningful technology integration works well for your specific context.
4. Meaningful technology integration addresses 21^st century skills’ issues and digital literacy training.
5. Meaningful technology integration facilitates learning activities that would be more difficult or impossible without the technology.
6. Meaningful technology integration breaks down classroom walls.

As Bill Gates once said ‘ technology is just a tool, in order to enhance learning, teachers are more important’. I couldn’t agree more. Technology is a fantastic tool available to us, but only our experience and expertise as teachers can transform it into an effective tool.

As we can see, technology has become an integral part of education, and for language teaching this change in the nature of context is extremely important.  In this light, it is important to acknowledge the trends and future predictions of such development.

Walker, A. & White, G. (2013) predicting the technology trends of the future, refer to ‘On the Horizon’ report , which each year attempts to forecast the future of learning technology.  The 2012 report identified  the following prediction:

• In one year or less- mobile apps and tablet computing
• Within two to three years – game-based learning
• Within four to five years – ‘the internet of things’

What I find particularly interesting is that in 2016, I, an average ELT teacher, am working on developing my own mobile game app for ELT classroom. If this is not the indication of a success prediction, I don’t know what is 🙂

Looking at the current report we can see the following areas of important developments in educational technology cited for 2016:

• In one year or less – Bring Your Own Device (BYOD), Learning Analytics and Adaptive Learning
• Within two to three years – Augmented and Virtual Reality, Makerspaces
• Within four to five years – Affective Computing, Robotics

While some seem pretty farfetched as a prediction, others I can definitely see making their way into ELT classroom.

Take, for example, augmented and virtual reality. Personally, I have been successfully  using both of these technologies in my ELT classroom for months. In my earlier posted I mentioned the application of augmented reality (AR) to ELT classroom and even made my own materials using it.

Last seminar I also demonstrated the use of virtual reality (VR) via Google cardboard – a budget version of a VR viewer that now you can even get for free .Very often it’s mentioned that technology breaks down classroom walls and VR couldn’t be a better example, as within seconds students can be transformed anywhere in the world.  Here is an interesting article on how wearable technology can be used in education.

Another one of my personal interests is adaptive learning.  Last year I attended a conference organised by ET Professional titled Adaptive learning in practice.  There were some fascinating discussions and predictions  about how adaptive learning will shape the future of  ELT. Phillip Kerr’s blog offers great guide into the world of adaptive learning and here is the list of his predictions.

I would like to finish by quoting Steve Wheeler – the author of ‘Learning with ‘e’s ‘ blog.

‘’So the future of technology supported learning is uncertain and contested. Are we being made more intelligent by our habituated uses of technology, or are we becoming smarter because we have more opportunities to create our own content, and think more deeply about it? Does our collective increase in intelligence owe itself to better connections with experts and peers, or should we simply put the growth of knowledge down to a natural, progressive evolution of the human mind? Is technology actually a threat to good learning, creating a generation of superficial learners, or do interactive tools such as social media and search engines provide us with unprecedented access to knowledge?

Such questions are exactly what the study of the future is all about’’

Tomlinson, B. (2012) Materials development for language learning and teaching. Language Teaching 45 (2): pp. 143-179

Robb, K. (2016) Mobile technologies, friend or foe? Modern English Teacher, 25(2), pp 19-21

Hasper, A. (20016) Keep calm and F.A.C.E IT: ICT is the least of your concerns! Modern English Teacher 25(2), pp 8-10

Saumell, V. (2016) Principles for meaningful technology integration. Modern English Teacher 25(2), pp 15-17

Stanley, G. (2013) Language Learning with Technology: Ideas for Integrating Technology in the Classroom. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Walker, A. & White, G. (2013) Technology Enhanced Language Learning: Connecting theory and practice. Oxford: Oxford University Press.