Speak Up with L2 Learning Tech!

I watched two videos of future learning and teaching as follows: 

Future Learning Documentary

A Vision of 21st Century Teachers
 

World-class education system for everybody of the next generation?   

The first video starts with the message that making the world-class education system for everybody is a key to the prosperity of the next generation. How? The answer is so simple and predictable: Keep learners self-motivated, engaged in, and interested in class.

However,it is not that easy to draw learners' attention to class with only a textbook fully packed with small fonts and no images. This is why the latest education technology is inevitable and essential in current and future classroom settings. Using the Internet information or multimedia tools, learners can teach themselves anything in and out of the classroom. A wide range of eye-catching and informative high-tech learning tools encourage the learners to find how to be self-motivated and store up self-directed knowledge. Also, collaborating with teachers and other learners, the learners, even shy ones, can express their intention and share ideas in the easy-to-access online discussion forums as I do now in the discussion board of UB learns. Surely, I must say that blogging is a very efficient way to connect and communicate with teachers and other learners when solving the problems or writing reflections on the topics.

To sum up, it holds true that useful and handy education technology tools (e.g. Blogging, Voice Thread, Google Docs, etc.) are fundamental elements of future learning and teaching.
   

   

 

We can do more with technology!

"Adapting and evolving, teachers digitally empower diverse learners to connect, communicate, collaborate, and create in an interactive technology-rich environment." - from A Vision of 21st Century Teachers

The second video shows what the 21st teachers and learners can do with diverse technology tools (e.g. digital cameras, videos, e-books, blogs, etc.)through the messages on the sketchbooks. More specifically, with technology learners can understand numbers, words, the wonders of science, analyze literature, make music, and share their opinions on the blogs. 

The most impressive part of the video is a female teacher's message that "on our blog, my students SPEAK UP, even the shy ones." I think this aspect of digital telecommunications is the most useful and appealing in that I do not have to feel anxiety to say what I am thinking in front of a teacher and the other classmates in face-to-face classroom settings. So, I think online learning like LAI 590 is as good as face-to-face one.

In short, as the Wordle image that I created above, the 21st teachers can do a myriad of things for their students to do more together in the technology-rich education contexts. Hence, I believe that teachers should keep in mind the following statement: 

"Who dares to teach must never cease to learn" - John Cotton Dana from A Vision of 21st Century Teachers