Today, we watched a video about how technology can be beneficial for students. In the video, Vicki Davis says that working only with the old paper and pencil working method is not very effective because only a certain type of students will be able to succeed with it. As a solution, she brings out the idea of doing classes by showing students how some software are working and then, students become comfortable with it and they begin to learn by themselves when it comes to do projects such as an Avatar. Vicki Davis use digital medias to help kids to “learn how to learn” by , first, giving them an overview of what a software is capable of, and then letting them work on their projects and discover the software’s functions deeper. By doing this, students are developing strategies to learn how to learn faster with new software. When she lets them work alone on it, students begin to help each other to find out how things are working and that’s what she calls empowerment. Empower can be done in many ways: in schools, it is teamwork and , at home, it can be done by peer-feedback when students send their work to each other or even ask questions on a forum to know how a specific software works.
Personally, I think that having kids collaborating with other students across the world can be a good thing because it can bring them to discover new things and to improve their written/speaking skills in an authentic context. They can learn useful things about new cultures. Furthermore, they can share their vision on a specific subject, which may differ a lot depending on where they come from. Moreover, students can see that they are not the only ones to talk/do research about a specific subject. On the other hand, having this type of communication has its disadvantages: having a response might take some weeks/months, so you cannot have a fix work schedule. As a future ESL teacher, I think that I can use something like the tandem network to help my students to improve their level of English by putting them into an authentic situation with native speakers. Therefore, a schedule of sending/answering mails should be established to make communication flows easier (not losing a month for waiting for an answer). I also liked the idea that Vicki Davis brings us in her video: having a blog with students all around the world posting their research on the same subject. I think that it could be motivating for a lot of students to compare their findings with others from all around the world.
Here is the link to Vicki Davis' video: http://www.edutopia.org/digital-generation-teachers-vicki-davis-video
I agree with the fact that collaborating with foreign students helps them improve their writing and speaking skills in an authentic context. I didn't think about the fact that having a response from the other can be very long but it is true and that can lead to having the students get bored and discouraged about projects using digital medias. Good post!
ReplyDeleteGood blog Audrey!
ReplyDeleteI like the fact that you thought about some disadvantages of collaborating with people around the world because I did not. I agree with you when you say that collaborative online tools create authentic situations for students. I think that both situational and interactional authenticity are then attained.