As Chilean educators, it will be important for you to know what resources are available in this country. Please take a look around the Enlaces website:
http://www.enlaces.cl
Look through the videos on the homepage under "Estrategias de uso" and "Habilidades TIC para aprendizaje."
This class is has a broad focus, and we will not spend a lot of time covering education topics specific to Chile. However, these topics cannot be left out, and programs such as Enlaces, as well as the Chilean national curriculum, will be present in our work.
(2) KHAN ACADEMY - One-World Schoolhouse
Let me say it right away - this is not directly related to AV tools.
It is, however, all about using Web 2.0 technology to revolutionize education. Please watch this TED talk and pay particular attention to Khan's ideas about using technology to "humanize" education. Technology is often thought of as dehumanizing, but Khan presents an interesting argument that it can be the opposite.
DISCUSSION QUESTIONS:
(1) Enlaces:
What is Enlaces? How might you use the resources it provides as an English teacher in Chile? Do you think the available resources will be useful to you? Give one example of a resource, explaining why or why not (why or why not it would help you).
(2) Khan Academy:
What do you think of Khan Academy (feel free to be honest)? What does Salman Khan mean when he says that this technology can help to humanize education?
Hey Guys,
ReplyDeletePlease remember that the DEADLINE WILL ALWAYS BE WEDNESDAY NIGHT!
...Not Thursday morning.
Try to post earlier, too. That way you will have it done, and the quality of the discussion will improve.
Thanks!
Question #1:
ReplyDeleteEnlaces is a website in which we can find different multimedia resources for teachers to use in the classroom. This website provides help for all the courses students must take (Maths, English, Language, etc). Personally, I think that every now and then I could use some of the videos available on the “Yo Estudio” website, in order to make my classes more attractive for children. For example, I believe that using the videos available on the “English” section to teach some verb tenses, which are always a little boring for students, would be really helpful to introduce the use of certain structures.
Question#2
In my opinion, Khan Academy seems to be an excellent idea! It’s a wonderful complement for what a teacher can do in the classroom, and it’s beneficial for both teachers and students. On the one hand, it is beneficial for students because by watching this videos and practicing online through this Academy, they can understand better and work at their own rhythm; on the other hand, it is beneficial for teachers because they do not have to waste too much time giving boring lectures but rather they can focus on working and interacting with what has been learned. Consequently, when Khan talks about “humanizing education” he’s referring to this latter idea about interaction: education is a much more enriching experience when students and teachers can actively interact with each other instead of just receiving/giving information that makes no sense in the classroom.
Carolina V.
I agree with you, but to achieve so, parents and teachers engagement is needed because students need monitoring and guidance, if we are able to ensure that, we can talk about "humanizing the classroom". :)
DeleteUhh, I forgot to mention something! not everything is lost in here guys...Athough I agree that parents and teachers must be fully commited with any sort of teaching methodology to make it work... what happens with this softwares that block not-very-educational websites? like social network sites. At least in schools, that can be done, and at home... that has always been a sensitive matter. Parents should know what it takes to send their kids to an institution with methodologies like in this academy.
DeleteQuestion #1
ReplyDeleteAccording to the Ministry of Education, Enlaces contributes to improving the quality of education through the development of a digital culture, thanks to this most vulnerable students have the opportunity to access to new technologies from school. Enlaces has been the main public policy for digital inclusion in the country Likewise, it is assumed that the government is making efforts to introduce teachers to the world of TIC because most teachers were not born into the digital era. I as a future English teacher, I would use online platforms with the objective that rural children who don´t find a utility in the English language maybe interact with children from another country and get to see the advantages of learning it, also games are good interactive tools that encourage children to learn a second language. TIC should be a favorable tool for us but the problem for me is that not all children have access to this, although Enlaces try to meet the needs of children throughout Chile, differences between schools are drastically noticeable.
Question #2
When I see this kind of videos, I think that there are many creative and intelligent people who could make big things to help other people. I think that this project is a good and creative idea. There are a lot of people who have been benefited with this project and they have had the opportunity to learn in a different manner that is not the current way of learning. By the other hand I am not completely sure if this kind of learning and teaching helps to humanize education. It is true that on one hand, students are able to interact with people that are away from them but, on the other hand maybe within a classroom this methodology of teaching in which the students are sitting in front of their computers and each one of them doing their own work and in which they are not hearing the ideas of others does not mean that technology always humanize education.
I totally agree with you Vicky in relation to what you said about Enlaces. Although it is a tremendously helpful tool for education, there are still some needs that need to be covered in schools. For this reason, the Ministry of Education should pay attention to those schools that do not have the necessary equipment to start using these softwares, and they should provide what is needed in order to give students the opportunity of enjoying this tool in their classes
DeleteI agree with you Vicky in relation with the second question talking about the humanize thing. Although it is true that the students can communicate with people from other parts of the world and serve as mentors or tutors, they are not achieving their role as active communicators within the classroom, and as Mario said in one of his answers, being at school is an essential time and place where kids need to maintain social relatioships, from classmates to the Principal, as an example. Communication at this age is extremely relevant for their future experiences and how they will develop themselves in the society.
Delete1#. Enlace is a program carried out by the Ministry of Education aimed to include the Tics in the educational system in order to improve the learning process by developing the digital skills of the whole educational community, providing resources and support to achieve the goal of creating a "digital community". From my point of view, there are several resources that can help to reinforce the english learning process. One of them is "Mi taller digital", which can be used as an extracurricular project to make comics, videos, games, and so on. The advantage of this resource is that promotes creativity and teamwork which are significant competences needed in life. However, implementing a well-developed project requires a high investment that many schools are not able to pay.
ReplyDelete2#. Bringing technology to the classroom is beneficial not only for students but also for teachers. Personally I believe that this methodology can be carry out in many subjects, even in language learning. I agree with the idea that nowadays the effort in humanizing the classroom has been focused on student-teacher ratios instead of student to valuable human time with the teacher ratio, but to achieve this goal students need monitoring and guidance of both parents and teachers to make sure that they are using their time wisely, otherwise this methodology can become a drawback instead of an advantage.
In my opinion, in the future, this breakthrough (because it is) can make a difference in the paradigm of education, but we must be careful because it can affect one of the most important instances of socialization: the school. After the family, the school is the place where children interact an socialize with their peers, creating strong emotional ties. Therefore, even when technological advances show excellent outcomes we can leave the school out.
I agree with your ideas, as I said I think that this program is a good idea but it needs to be worked with care, because for me if the technology takes part of most of the things that we do in classes, maybe the communication face to face, in groups or with the professor in certain level would be lost because the students would work in a more auto-efficient way.
DeleteI agree with you guys, I didn't see many points (or flaws) you mentioned when I watched the video. It's undeniable that school is one of the instances of socialisation, and we have to be careful to not losing it. Maybe, this radical idea can be approached to mathematical sciences rather than languages and social sciences (which obviously require communicating with others to learn at the optimal way possible).
DeleteQuestion #1
ReplyDeleteAs my classmates said "Enlaces" through the TICs tools is a potencial website looking for the using and improvement of new abilities that we all,as future teachers, need to utilize in our classrooms in order to teach multiple subjects to our students, and also to strenghten contents in each subject as well. These abilities are particularly related with the use of technological resources which can make us and our students also, part of the new digital community. In my opinion, we can use all the resources provided in the website whenever we need it; the help is always there waiting for someone who wants to use it in order to answer the current and future student demands. As an example, I would use the "Yo Estudio" website to give my students extra examples of what we have seen about a topic; personally, I think is a good way to mantain the relationship between the students and the Internet obviously talking in an educational fashion.
Question #2
I have seen and heard about many new possible strategies of teaching, but there is not the necessary and possitive feedback to transform this "idea" in an authentic and reliable method of teaching. Personally I believe that the "Khan Academy" is an excelent idea that has been growing. I want to say something about why I feel that these is a helpful tool, and it has to be directly with me and how I communicate within the classroom. Often I don't express my opinion just because I'm a bit shy and afraid of failure, and I think that many students feel the same. That's why, on the one hand I think that the Academy serves as an functionable system for those type of people, being as the students don't have the obligation of expressing opinions in the front of the class, but in the other hand, we need to put attention here since communication within a classroom is the most effective method of learning. According whether these Academy humanize education or not, I strongly believe that there is a negative opion from my point of view. Since school is one of the most important places where kids or people in general mantain social relationships, being in front of a screen doesn't make the work completely reliable.
Hi Joseline!
DeleteI agree with you in your last point that says that being in front of a screen can be something negative for the students, but I also believe that that´s not the intention of Khan Academy. As far as I understood the students will first get the information or knowledge from the videos, watching them beforehand and then, they will share what they have learned with their classmates in the classroom supported by the teachers, the last can actually improve the personal relationships between students.
(1) According to the website, Enlaces is the Education & Technology centre created by the Ministry of Education to promote and integrate the use of ICTs in the Chilean-subsidised classrooms. The purpose of Enlaces is to improve the quality of teaching and teaching methods in the country through the use of technologies, as well as developing the students’ ICTs skills. In my opinion and based on personal experience, the ICTs are tremendously useful for the FL classrooms. Nowadays, students are getting more and more interested in using technology to learn and have fun, so if teachers take this into account when planning lessons, will definitely make the class more innovative and appealing for them. The video called “Jugando con el Lenguaje”, showed the use of the interactive board to reinforce the lexical aspect of language in students. Based on that, I thought that having this board in the EFL classroom would help the teachers to prepare matching and grouping elements activities and so reinforcing students’ vocabulary knowledge. For instance, the teacher says an animal name and the student has to match the picture with the name of the animal or group all the small sized animals on one side of the board and the bigger ones onto the other side (activity which can be useful to teach adjectives, comparatives and superlatives), etc.
ReplyDelete(2) Personally, I think that Khan Academy is the newest idea I’ve seen so far in terms of innovative education. At first I thought that this was a self-development process carried out by students and their computers, but then when Khan got to the point that teachers would have more than 90% of the time to sit next to the students and actually help them get through his or her learning process was amazing; even if you have 30 students in the class, you know they are doing some valuable work, and more importantly, they are doing it at their own pace. Because this project involves independent work most of the time, the students take their time when solving problems or developing some difficult tasks; accordingly, they will no longer have to worry about peer-pressure, or a teacher’s annoyed face because somebody did not get a content right away, or a teacher pushing you to learn too fast, disabling maybe not one but many students to follow their regular learning process and making them fear of failing. These examples are some of many other that dehumanise education, and by implementing the Khan Academy they would be avoided or reduced at a minimum rate. What is more, Khan mentioned that by tracking students’ progress, the teacher could ask some students who are doing very well in some areas, to work with others that are having some issues getting through those contents; this idea (and most of the others), suits perfectly fine with what my goals as a teacher are.
I like the idea of Khan Academy because I have tried learning from videos on internet before and is really awesome to go back and check what you need to review. The point you stated reflects what I like of it, however it is difficult to think for me at least that the statement “humanize education” by using technology is true, social interaction is the obstacle that comes to my mind immediately as an argument. Even though, we must keep in mind that trial and error is important when a school or an institution introduce a system like this, especially because not all innovate proposals were made to success at its first try and not even made for all kind of people. We have to work to find the one that suits our group of learners and then put it into practice!
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