Be it a teacher or device, we learn from various sources. Does it matter from which? Did you know that some people in Ottoman Empire opposed using printing machines and considered it evil so it was forbidden to use? Can we say that the same thing is happening now with the tablets? We are resisting and opposing but there is only one way to learn it; sink or swim. It will either work or fail but we have to try hard to see if the fence is really greener on the other side.
When tablets are put into use, we will be using Applications or alias Apps in classes. I recently read a great article about the future of education and the evolution described was more than fortune telling.What good is a school if students are not able to learn in class? Why not let them learn by themselves or infer meaning by themselves. That is imitation of life.This imitation is learning by doing or “Applied Learning”. Applied and Application are the key words in this article. Applications offer users the chance to learn by doing in a virtual environment. I like to combine the terms and call it ApplicatedLearning; applied learning through applications (apps)According to Merriam Webster online dictionary, rarely used word, Applicate means: to put to use : applied Is this just coincidence or fate? 🙂Homeschooling, Virtual Schools, Distant Learning and many others are alternatives to standard schools and what makes a school effective is its ability to integrate performative skills, shortly doing. Has the invention and availability of the books replaced teachers? No, it just changed the role of the teacher and contributed to form various school systems. Rome is still there but some prefer guides and some prefer books…Implicitly or ExplicitlyTeachers, students, parents, brothers and sisters are using the latest mobile technology which are accompanying them wherever they go. We are voluntarily letting them stalk us. Why not use this stalker for a good purpose? Implicitly or explicitly… Have you ever played AngryBirds? Have you ever thought that it teaches us/kids the gravity rules implicitly? Space edition offers another info; gravity in space. It doesn’t have an aim of teaching gravity but the life itself does not have direct lessons either. You live and you learn. Are apps our current jagged little pills?Implicit learning is typically defined as the acquisition of knowledge that is independent of conscious attempts to learn, and in the absence of explicit awareness of the knowledge that is acquired. (Cognitive Neuroscience)Apps can be used for implicit or explicit learning. We can design apps focused on directly teaching and even testing but we don’t really have to teach directly.Apps simply make you do something; play games, take photo, watch, listen, type, send, receive, play, speak, drag, drop… The more people interact the more they learn. Imagine using an application telling you what to do in a video and then… gives you the materials to do your science experiment without real explosions or enables you to practice speaking by makeing you play a related game etc… In all of these you actually do something and you do it on your own. Please check out my blogpost about Digital Literacy for the examples of learning by doing. But to cut it short, it gives examples of teaching kids about Computer Programming by using simple games in order to understand the nature of programming and make it more kid-friendly. The idea is brilliant and supported by the most famous programmers and billionaires like Bill Gates and Mark Zuckerberg. Welcome to applicated learning 🙂Emrah Akkurt
Spell and Pronounce application has been developed to fulfill a need in students’ performative skills without having the pressure by the peers or teachers. We developed it to help learners and teachers so this application is completely FREE and it doesn’t contain annoying advertisements. It is the developed version of our previous application Pronounce.it
Spell and Pronounce contains super cool features like:Proximity Sensor,Spelling Practice, Voice Recording, Instant Practice. Please feel free to share your experience and feedback with Spell and Pronounce.
You think you are literate in this digital age just because you attended school or graduated from university, probably with an MA or PhD… ? Literacy used to mean simply “being able to read and write” but as time has passed, this definition has been redefined with many additions like “being able to read and write at a level to be successful in today’s world and also being proficient at math, knowing how to use technology, and knowing how to solve problems and make decisions” (Kent.edu)
The question is: Are you “digitally literate”?
Can you READ in digital? Meaning can you operate technological devices, use software for your own convenience, and use web based applications… Most probably “YES”.
But can you WRITE in digital? I am not asking if you can create files and folders and edit online ready-made web pages. Be honest, heating a frozen meal you bought from supermarket does not make you a cook. Let’s face it we are DIGITAL READERs.
But don’t worry, your kids will be Digitally Literate. They will click, tap, touch tablets and computers before they touch pen and paper. Games will teach them how to write virtual codes to understand the notion of coding. Have a look at the links below which aim to teach people especially kids to write codes.
Where is English Language teaching in that? 1. Changing role of teacher in digital age. Teachers will prepare their own apps, web pages and maybe even software. 2. Materials are so great that we ,teachers, might want to integrate into their own materials. There are great examples of instant feedback and direct manipulation (which is a coming blog post) 3. The role of the teacher is changing, more roles will be added while some existing ones disappear. 4. Knowing how the programming works, you will be able to support aid to develop digital materials.
Now that mobile tools like smart phones, tablets, laptops have become one of our limbs especially Smart Phones. How do we spend your time on our Smartphones? An article on Telegraph says people spend average 2 hours with their mobile phones each day. Why not use this opportunity to teach? Making phone calls is just the fifthpopular thing to do with your mobile phones according to O2 mobile network company. Thanks to evolution of mobile data transfer technology (WAP, EDGE and finally 3G) faster communication is made possible what’s more evolution will go on with 4G, meaning even faster internet connection.
Teachers tend to turn almost every occasion into a learning opportunity and also complain about the shortened attention span of kids due to ads, computer games etc… in which something new keeps coming or gives the message in a short time.
For me, one important aspect of teaching is trying to help the student to be an autonomous learner and as we all are highly experienced students and know how to learn or unlearn.
Using Mobile Technology You Can:
1. Prepare your own materials.
2. Use already available materials
3. Integrate into your classes.
1. Prepare your own materials:
Prepare your own document, videos, tutorials, blog and have a paid or free web storage such as Google Drive and Dropbox that enables you to share downloadable files.
The key is to keep it short, simple and interesting as much as it can. (American Ad Council radio commercials are great examples of short, simple and interesting)
Remember to prepare mobile device compatible materials, meaning small size yet good enough to hear, see or watch.
A good example of Visual Aided Listening activity by Katy Perry – Roar (you can also prepare a similar one)
2. Use already available materials: (are not limited to subject based materials)
Find a language level appropriate material with the content or object you want to be learnt. Youtube videos, movie trailers, direct teaching websites, and songs.
Share the link of your resources with students.
Search application availability of materials on mobile platforms (iOS or Android or Windows)
3. Integrate into your classes: What to do in class?
Find (including non-educational) end product activities (to see the students practice what they have learnt) Those can be the homework sheet you were planning to give, song compilation, acting and recording a specific topic.
Use mobile devices to create stress free lesson which allows editing, deleting so to say practising until the best.
Encourage them to be creative and publish their work.
Doing these is not easy though. Most important drawback is that students may not be interested in those end-products based on performative skills. I like the idiom “you can lead a horse to water but you can’t make him drink” Let’s go back to the roles of a teacher, I guess another aspect of teacher comes into picture “role-model”. I wanted my students to compose a song and sing it using an iPhone application. But as said in the movie Titanic “you jump, I jump” so I jumped for good and wanted my students to follow my example. I composed a song (am not proud though) and surprised my students, some even cried. 🙂 And they all followed (happily ever after:)
Teachers know the importance of practicing the language being learnt. But they also intervene between real life and the school life so practicing looks like a boring class activity. Teachering has changed since Pink Floyd’s rebellious song Another Brick in The Wall in 1979. But what has not changed is that “Teacher still does not leave the kids alone”. With this in mind, why don’t teachers do something cool that will make their kids want to show off in real life.
Language and Music: Words, theme, syntax, dialogue, expression, character, narrative, reading, composition… (music-in-education.org)
As indicated above music has many benefits in language learning and everybody is on the side of using it. If you are a teacher of very/young learners, you are lucky as your kids will be willing to sing their lungs out. But as they grow older, they start to care about what their peers think about them. They start to form a charisma by doing or not doing something that sometimes creates hard times for teachers. Some of the things you do work in class, some don’t. We all know that selection of songs are important and the most favorite, hit record of your teenage years can now just be a stinky cheese. Instead of imposing them what to learn, we can give them the opportunity to either write their own lyrics or choose their own favorite song.
Here is a tool which can make them look cool! This tool is called LADIDA by Khush. Unfortunately it is now (April, 2012) only available in Apple iPhones/iPads. Windows, Mac and Android platforms don’t seem to have them. What does this tool do? Basically, it makes your beautiful voice more beautiful (or bearable). It contains different types of music and you arrange the tempo and a few other very easy settings. Just let students write their own lyrics or let them cover a song they already know. This is Education and Entertainment or as it was made popular “Edutainment”. This free tool is no longer free !! so I suggest you to find a free one.
Some students will not be willing to do it as it is the first time and it has the risks of being “uncool” what’s more mockery is ready hanging out there. Solution? First, teachers can do it themselves so that students will stop saying “he would never do that but he is making us do”. Another option is identifying the student with the will to sing and have him do kick the ball running. If your students don’t like their voices to be recorded because of their beliefs, you could try singing in chorus.
What I also realized is that when the teacher provides some information about the cause of doing such a “stupid” activity, students start to become more willing to do it. Telling them how learning by songs can be permanent with some scientific information helps the teacher. After giving students little information about the function of brain and that when the two lobes of brain interact learning becomes more permanent. As a quick summary; Left lobe representing the hard disc of a computer and Right lobe represents artistic side including songs so when lyrics meet songs, they will remember it for a long time. Ask them to remember a lullaby or childhood song, many will succeed to remember and be convinced. In Brain Based Learning it is important to understand how brain works and then plan your lessons accordingly, also giving students some metacognitive information creates awareness in activities. Teachers can reveal their own basis on why they are doing it.
Below are the two examples of two different students singing recorded by Ladida. In one of them lyrics are made up by the stundent and the other is a cover of very well known song. (Thank you… Gamze and Yasemin for letting me share them)
As I stated earlier, it would be meaningless to announce the winner, but I do wish to express my preference. Developer of both OS have huge amount of experience, knowledge and fame. For me, the best educational tool would be Android. Being able to develop it in your own needs (Open Source Code) is the initial reason why it should be used. You may restrict or give full permission to your students to operate their mobile learning assistant. Another significant reason is Affordability. With the money spent on the cheapest iPad, you may buy a few (minimum 3) Android tablets running on latest OS, and with a dual core processor. It depends on the country you live in, here in Turkey you may buy one iPad mini (wifi) or five Android tablets. If we are talking about mobility or mobile learning it is not only about Tablets but Smart Phones as well. The same rate (almost) applies to phones. I hear some people say, but “they are not the same quality or functionality, apples and oranges idiot!” I just want to remind “educational use”. Number of general and educational applications are really not a matter of concern. Numbers are increasing but Apple is for sure way better in this business but my personal opinion is that there are more educational apps because payment either through app sales or ads are better than Android. Also sales channel of Apple is better as it is a cool and maybe prestigious device to have. I want to share my experience; I needed to borrow an Android device in the UK but I just could not, as all operators raced to offer the latest Apple product on really fair rates on contract. Whereas in developing countries people still want to have a Smart Phone with an affordable price. The last and the most important feature is File Sharing. I hate receiving or sending files or pictures to/from my iPhone. All the features that makes it super safe also makes it boring. Bluetooth connection attempts failed both in Mac and PC. You have to install applications or everything has to go through iTunes. As teachers we have a lot of audio files, videos, documents in various formats, pictures etc… With Android it is really easy to share files, devices have extension slots and by SD cards you may swap files from computers or devices. Bluetooth becomes life saver when you don’t have cables or memory cards.
Number of Apps in iOS and Android: http://www.statista.com/statistics/208599/number-of-apps-available-in-leading-app-stores/
You will find more statistics at Statista
It all started when one of my English teachers made us “repeat after her”, and it still echoes in my head “I sink…” just like the infamous commercial indicating the importance of learning English but correctly. All the descriptions my teacher made to pronounce “think” were perfectly alright but the end product was not accurate. It could happen to all non-native English teachers and in times like these “Who ya gonna call? Ghostbusters or Batman? Here comes technology to the rescue. (once again)
In times when your sole information source was your “teachers” it was quite important for us to rely on them. Technology in this case replaced teachers. Learning had to be in class most (sometimes all ) of the time increasing your dependency on teachers. What’s more, trying to pronounce words in front of your peers was a painful experience due to fear of being corrected and mocked , even outside the class, until accurate pronunciation is heard. We now have countless means to be exposed to language instead of “repeating after teacher”. That’s why I decided to develop an application with a close friend and colleague of mine to help students improve their pronunciation skills.
If you had a look through my own blog you must have realized the Speech (Voice) Recognition technology for pronunciation practice. Now the idea is turned into reality by adding functionality through creating an Android Application which recognizes your speech and gives you instant feedback when you wrongly pronounce it three times in a row. That is not the invention of all times but the notion is being aware of the latest technology as a teacher and looking for ways to adapt it into your teaching. I was looking for a way and asked my colleague and friend (Mustafa Kırgül), who is also an instructor of English and way better in writing scripts than I am, to create an application that includes vocabulary of the books I am teaching. Please share your comment as it will evolve but please remember that we are not Professional Software Developers but English Teachers who love technology. We used internet to learn how to develop the software, meaning technology again replaced teacher.
Why do I need an App like this? Students will be able to practice pronunciation using the vocabulary they will learn through their level, not some random vocabulary. Although the main focus is on Pronunciation practice it has another function which is as important. Side effect is about Vocabulary. During practice students will familiarize themselves with the vocabulary in that level or class. That way a visual and audio retention will be created in students mind to ease remembering or learning a vocabulary.
Why did we develop the app in Android platform but not in iOS? Forbes* answers the first part of the question; Over this past quarter, of the mobile devices sold, 64.1% are powered by Google’s Android and 18.8% are operated by Apple’s iOS. (22.08.2012). Also Apple requires a lot of procedure , expertise and money whereas Android is Open Source meaning no requirement of procedures and high cost (free).
Benefits of the application:
Focusing on target vocabulary.
Aids/supports teacher in class
Saves teacher time in class
Reduces peer/teacher anxiety
Practice anytime & anywhere
Application is not distributed through Android Market (Play Store) as it is still under construction trying to complete its evolution. But you can download the .apk and install:
What if you could understand other languages? Would you still want to learn them and most importantly would we even need a Lingua Franca?
For those who watched “Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy (HGTTG)” Babel Fish might be familiar. When Babel Fish is put into ear, one can understand any language. Can this “Babel Fish” phenomenon be possible through Technology?
Technology has already started to change the world as we know it. Why not languages?
To give an example, we think we are speaking the same language with computers just because they have interface in human languages. But machines use binary code (0-1) to communicate one another and us. Just because we see the interface does not mean we speak the same language.
I made a search on internet on “reasons to learn a foreign language” and the most common ones are; study and research, travel, studying abroad, career, culture and communication. Babel fish enables you to do all these without needing to learn a language. Is it Science Fiction? Not really.
If you think that’s a “fly idea” you probably have not seen what Google can do. To give you a perfect example, Google owns Youtube.com and we watch videos on Youtube everyday either directly or indirectly through sites like Facebook. I am sure you have realised “Captions” menu by now and liked it. Captions can be created by you or Auto-captions, which uses “Voice Recognition” technology, can be activated. It recognizes what people say and transcribes it and when you choose Translation language it will be translated instantly.
Chrome (Google again) browser asks you whether you want to translate pages into another language. Who does all the translation? GoogleTranslate is the best translation tool for now but unfortunately not good enough for complicated sentences. It scans many Human translated documents online and match the Cyber Translator translation with Human translations, then come up with best possible result. To be fascinated, watch the Google Translate video below and please check out Captions and Translation menus.
Babel Fish example of today can be the smart phones. Install an application like Google Translate and speak, it will recognise your speech and translate within seconds. It is available in Android and IOS platforms. The next Lingua Franca seems to be the Binary Code. Please install Google Translate and see for yourself.
By reading the information above you might you might think the world of languages is going to an end. On the contrary, I believe that:
Technology is in its advanced primitive evolution now. Voice Recognition is not good enough to distinguish speech from noise so it recognizes speech 90 % correctly if only speech is slow and clear enough without background noise. And although translation softwares have improved over the last decade, it is only natural at elementary level translations and sometimes not even them. As the artificial intelligence technology improves and the number of online sources increase, translations will improve.
European Union is giving away funds for protection of rare spoken languages. This technology may decrease the level of interlanguage interaction and word replacement level or reinforce people to speak rare languages more in the future and accordingly help them survive.
I personally don’t think this technology will be effective within next two decades and the use will also take some time to be absorbed by people but who knows, we are already living in Science Fiction when compared to 50 years ago.
What will happen to language teachers then? Industrial Revolution?
Handcraft; less but more valuable…
Special thanks to Mauricio Escobar for the friendly chat and endurance.
This is the “Technology Use” part of the survey I posted earlier in this blog. I would like to mention, in case you did not read the previous post, that survey was conducted for a Forum by contribution of 594 students and the help of colleagues from 12 different English Preparatory Schools of both private and state universities in Turkey. You may find the list of universities below.
Here are the questions and my comments. There are five answers “Never True, Rarely True, Sometimes True, Mostly True, Always True”. Mostly and Always True will be considered as “Yes” and I will Comment accordingly. Data below is processed by SPSS.
Majority of our students like to spend or create time to be with computers or smart phones. I had no doubt about that but the question is “are they using it to entertain or to do something to improve their language?” and that question takes us to the next statement (2). What we can do as teachers is to guide students to use computer to assist their learning process. I am not trying to say that they must go and learn “about” English. Teachers must direct or lead them to opportunities that will make them practice the language even when they are playing PC games. Prep. Students say they try to operate their devices in English whereas they are not really into using forum, comment or download web sites in English. I know and try to be one of the people who use English forums to find an answer to my problems as this is on a global scale rather than local and includes many different solutions. What’s interesting in the results of Statement 5, they do know that English will help them reach more info and the rate is really high (68%). But despite this fact they don’t seem to prefer forums in English.
Computer is a natural interaction device, natural because people interact and make mistakes but not scored or judged afterwards just like a child learning. The last statement tells us that students are highly aware of the importance of devices in learning English, if that is the case why should not we integrate computers, tablets, smartphones or any other device into our lessons. There has been a debate in one of the blogs about the use of smartphones in class and it is surprising to see that some teachers object the idea of using it but as I saw the main concern is the abuse of them which I believe is the same for any kind of materials including course books.
What I always say is that virtual world should be used to create opportunities to use the language in real time environment rather than putting computer in teacher’s place when he is there.
Universities that contributed to the survey.
Bahçeşehir University
Doğuş University
Eastern Mediterranean University / Doğu Akdeniz Üniversitesi
Eskişehir Osmangazi UniversityHacettepe University
Izmir University of Economics / İzmir Ekonomi Üniversitesi
İstanbul Aydın University
Koç University
Özyeğin University
Pamukkale University
Sabancı University
Yaşar University
(If you don’t like reading, just watch the video above)
We all accept the fact that language learning process is not only about boring students with tenses, topic sentences, skimming/scanning… Teaching is creating difference in students’ lives and we all look for ways to do it. Teaching “about” English can lead a horse to water but does not make him drink. Technology provides a great virtual world for learners of today.
Virtual world of today can help you become a Rockstar! Many songs have been composed on how cool it is to become a rockstar. Now as an ordinary person it is your turn to become one. You can be drummer, lead or bass guitarist or even the vocal.
With this opportunity in hand I took my students to a Guitar Hero Café where we had access to Guitars, Drums and Microphone. All of my students played Guitar Hero for the first time and this made me a little anxious as I was worried about the outcome. I was expecting to be there for about an hour but we spent two and a half hours and got out because there was no air condition inside. My students said they really enjoyed it and are now sending me messages saying they want to do it again soon. It also improved cooperation between students, two people shared sticks for drums and other two shared Fret buttons and Strum bar of guitars and this allows 7/8 people to play and sing together. The best thing about this is that you are not teaching something directly but creating an awareness of language. Do I have to mention that you turn out to be a cool teacher?
Suggestions:
Try to introduce the songs before you go (if you have the chance).
Don’t direct but lead.
Give them time to practice and learn.
Don’t expect the best of them.
Let them enjoy and want to do it again.
Homeschooling, Virtual Schools, Distant Learning and many others are alternatives to standard schools and what makes a school effective is its ability to integrate performative skills, shortly doing. Has the invention and availability of the books replaced teachers? No, it just changed the role of the teacher and contributed to form various school systems. Rome is still there but some prefer guides and some prefer books…
Implicitly or Explicitly
Teachers, students, parents, brothers and sisters are using the latest mobile technology which are accompanying them wherever they go. We are voluntarily letting them stalk us. Why not use this stalker for a good purpose? Implicitly or explicitly… Have you ever played AngryBirds? Have you ever thought that it teaches us/kids the gravity rules implicitly? Space edition offers another info; gravity in space. It doesn’t have an aim of teaching gravity but the life itself does not have direct lessons either. You live and you learn. Are apps our current jagged little pills?
Implicit learning is typically defined as the acquisition of knowledge that is independent of conscious attempts to learn, and in the absence of explicit awareness of the knowledge that is acquired. (Cognitive Neuroscience)
Apps can be used for implicit or explicit learning. We can design apps focused on directly teaching and even testing but we don’t really have to teach directly.
Apps simply make you do something; play games, take photo, watch, listen, type, send, receive, play, speak, drag, drop… The more people interact the more they learn. Imagine using an application telling you what to do in a video and then… gives you the materials to do your science experiment without real explosions or enables you to practice speaking by makeing you play a related game etc… In all of these you actually do something and you do it on your own. Please check out my blogpost about Digital Literacy for the examples of learning by doing. But to cut it short, it gives examples of teaching kids about Computer Programming by using simple games in order to understand the nature of programming and make it more kid-friendly. The idea is brilliant and supported by the most famous programmers and billionaires like Bill Gates and Mark Zuckerberg.
Welcome to applicated learning 🙂
Emrah Akkurt
emrah akkurt 
