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
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:)
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:
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 