A Reflection on Blended Learning

As we have seen during this year, technology has so many advantages that the non-inclusion of it in the classroom may be considered inconceivable. The use of it helps students to learn in an engaging context that goes hand in hand with the outside world. That is to say that the classroom becomes a more real context.

Another important advantage is the fact that it is environmentally friendly. In a world in which pollution is a topic that worries almost everyone, having resources that allow us to avoid wasting paper, for example, is really useful.

Moreover, it goes without saying that innumerable resources can be found on the web - texts,videos, activities, etc.- which help not only teachers, but also students to have whatever they need at hand.

After reading and watching different resources that emphasize the important role that technology has in the classroom, teachers may wonder whether their role is still important.

As it was said before, technology provides all the resources you need. However, students need someone who guides them, someone to help them in their learning process: the teacher.’Teachers are concerned with more than just the knowledge their students acquire – they’re often called on to act as guidance counsellors or provide emotional support’ (Partarrieu, 2015). The teacher and the students face-to-face interaction is something that technology cannot provide. 

That is why we consider that blended learning is so important since it is a balance between the use technology and face-to-face interaction. The students have the chance to use technology at their home with educational purposes.

Retrieved from http://www.elmmagazine.eu/images/mazohl%20figure%202.jpg

In the following video, you can get a clear explanation of what blended learning is:

Sources:

Partarrieu, S, 2015. Why we still need face-to-face teaching in the digital age. Retrieved from https://www.britishcouncil.org/voices-magazine/why-we-still-need-face-face-teaching-digital-age on 25-10-2016

A talk about education: “Educación y cultura digital” by Hugo Pardo Kuklinski.

A couple of weeks ago we were invited to attend a talk about digitial culture and education. It was delivered by Hugo Pardo Kuklinski at UNL. Before sharing ideas we agree with and others we do not, let’s learn more about the speaker. Hugo Pardo is a PhD in communication and the director of a project called “Outliers School”. He has also written a number of books and numerous articles in relation to digital education.

One of the ideas he shared in the talk we attended is that teachers, in order to integrate technology in the classroom and improve their teaching practices, should be “intraemprendedores”. That is, according to him, they should reflect on how they positioned themselves as regards content, methods and technology itself.

However, Hugo’s position as regards education was too business-oriented. He referred to the red as if it was the most intelligent way of transmitting knowledge inside the classroom. He puts the teacher on a in a passive role. We do not agree with his point of view in this case. We cannot deny that the web is more intelligent than any teacher in the world (you can find anything you need on the internet), but there is something that it cannot offered you: the experience teachers gained by being in front of the classroom, and the benefits this offers to students. 

Even thoguh we did not agree much with him, there are certain points which, in our opinion, are good and important to take into consideration. For example:

- The fact that we need to adapt to the changes that take place in society and technology. If we do it with others, much better.

- We need to help students to move from where they actually are to the place they want to get.

- We have to take advantage of the opportunities offered to us.

What do you think of these ideas? Do you agree with them?

Word Clouds and Voki: two interesting tools

Sometimes, teachers do not have the necessary time to think of different tools that can make the lesson more attractive. Trying to do so, we end up including things that may not work so well, or students do not understand how they work or how to use them. But that is not the case of word clouds and voki. Not only are they engaging, but they can also be easily created and included in the lesson.
Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English define a word cloud as “a drawing of the words used in a speech, on a website etc, with the more frequent words shown larger and the less frequent words shown smaller”.

There are plenty of websites where you can create your own word cloud. The ways this tool can be included in the lesson are innumerable. For example, we used it for a game: someone designed a word cloud with a definition of a word, and the rest had to guess which word was. Since the only thing you have to do for creating a word cloud is to write a text, teachers (or even students) can use it for summarizing a text, a short story, among other things. 

The other tool that is mentioned in this post is Voki. This personalised tool allows you to create a speaking character or avatar. The voki will say the text you type with the voice you choose, or you can record your own voice! An easy way of integrating this tool in the lesson is to use it as a key to solve an activity. For example, we used it to solve the guessing game with the word cloud.

Although these tools may have some disadvantages - as all tools do -, we think that the most important thing to take into consideration is the fact that sometimes the voice the Voki has is not clear enough. The solution to this is to record our voice and to speak in the speed that students are used to.

All in all, these two tools are really interesting and should be taken into account when planning our lessons. Moreover, it is important to highlight that both are free and easy to create: either by teachers or by students.