Patricia\’s Blog

If we look back to 1994 and the steps that have taken place in the last thirteen years, we can begin to imagine the size of the leaps that will occur in the next thirteen years when it is 2020. In 1996 Hillary Clinton published the book It Takes a Village. The title comes from a beautiful African proverb that reminds us that children learn within a community, not in the seclusion of a family. Learning through connections is the core of this proverb. People learn through human connections and if we learn through connections, then finding ways to strengthen our connections will strengthen our learning. As we move from 1996 toward 2020, we are beginning to see how the Web 2.0 is strengthening our connections and affecting our learning.   Learning is becoming a process rather than an end product. This change has been occurring for some time and Web 2.0 is enabling us to expand this process even further. As we progress, education will involve less taking in of information and more active involvement in the creation of knowledge. The old model of students as sponges, soaking in the information will hopefully have almost disappeared by 2020. Project based learning will be even more evident we utilize Web 2.0 technologies. In 2020, classroom time will be used for authentic, collaborative activities rather than for teacher fronted lectures. Knowledge will progressively become more of a living thing that takes place through reciprocal connections than dry static facts. These connections will be less confined by space and time. Some of our connections or nodes will continue to be with people we see every day, but increasingly with people who live far away. Communication will be both synchronic and increasingly asynchronic.  

Classroom time will be used more efficiently as well. Web 2.0 technologies will allow students to be better prepared when they come to the classroom. Preparation will vary depending on the particular needs and interests of a student. A student who is completely unfamiliar with a topic will prepare differently than a student who has a great deal of familiarity with a topic.  “Just in Time” teaching techniques will be widespread. Students, using the Web, will prepare for classroom activities outside of schools. Teachers will be able to review both group and individual work and tailor classroom time to the specific needs of the students who will come together in the classroom.  

Right now students are herded in large groups from one level to the next. Web 2.0 will allow students to “advance” from level to level more efficiently. A student who is able to move through learning very quickly will not be delayed by the need to wait for the end of one school year and the beginning of the next. A student’s network will expand in order to encompass nodes which meet the student’s learning needs. As a result, we will not find large groups of people divided into just a few levels.  

In order to be successful learners, students will need the skills to develop connections. These connections could be with those sitting next to them, with the teacher or with people from around the world. Cooperative skills will be more important in the classrooms of 2020 and as a result of these skills, students will learn from others and this learning will improve as a result. Students will model the successful outcomes that they will see within their networks and weaker students will find support in this cooperative environment. Hopefully more students will be successful learners in 2020. 

Another factor that will influence student success will be the ability of education to increasingly address the needs of a variety of learners. Technology addresses most of the senses and students who don’t learn well visually can use other means that suite their style. Inhibited students may find that communication over the Web is more comfortable for them than communication in the classroom. All students will be heard, not only those with loud voices. Students with special needs, those who see without using their eyes or those who hear in ways that do not use ears, will also be increasingly assisted.  

As Web technologies progress, learning will be further integrated. Audio and visual will increasingly be combined, but I believe that just as we still enjoy radio, students will still learn from single media instructional materials like podcasts. These will be particularly useful as students multi-task, using portable tools and learn while they are engaged in other activities such as doing the dishes, riding the bus, or mowing the lawn.  I am certain that technology will be even more sophisticated in 2020 and that when students set aside time to devote all of their energies to learning (in the classroom or out) these technologies will allow learning to take place in venues where connections are enhanced. I hope that virtual spaces will allow me to sit down and talk with students and give them guidance and feedback on their work individually. Since I teach English as a second language, I dream of a huge variety of virtual scenarios where students can practice their language skills and get support from the network before bravely using them in the real world.  

I believe that in 2020 learning will be more physically active. Today this type of learning takes place on field trips, but learning using Web 2.0 is currently very sedentary. The possibilities that I see are virtual spaces where students use those devices that look like eyeglasses (sorry, I don’t know the word) and move as they learn. I once read a study that compared students learning vocabulary words while sitting with those who were learning the words while walking. The active group performed better than the sedentary group. Humans seem to learn things that involve action very quickly and hopefully technology will make better use of the human body and movement in the future. This type of learning will also allow us to learn in ways that our bodies now do not allow. We could travel to a far away planet using virtual reality. A student who isn’t able to walk could take a mountain hike. Movement will also be used more when students use their desktops. I have read that the mouse will become a thing of the past and computer desktops will become more like coffee tables where we will manipulate items with our hands.  

The Web also has the potential to break down the divisions between academic fields of specialty. Right now students choose a major that allows them to specialize, but it also limits their opportunities to explore areas outside of their specialties. As networks expand, linguists and biologists, mathematicians and artists, and musicians and computer scientists will communicate more and find that the divisions between their fields are less defined than they had imagined.  

The roles of teachers will evolve as learning evolves. First and foremost, teachers will be facilitators. They will want to help students learn how to make connections. Students will need to learn how to find others, but also how to enable others to find them. Teachers and librarians will also need to help students develop the skills to manage the increased amount of information that is available to them. This means managing what comes in, but also filtering and tuning information to what will increase learning. 

Teachers will learn even more from their students in 2020 than they do now. For centuries, teachers have asked students to join them on their educational journeys, but as students make connections, they will learn things that their teachers could never have imagined. 

I believe that Web 2.0 will enhance student teacher communication. When I first started to use technology with my students, my fear was that the technology would reduce the amount of teacher student communication. In practice, though, technology has increased this communication. This has helped me to better serve the needs of my students whether they are common needs that the entire group has or the needs of a single student. I hope the student teacher connection still involves face-to-face meetings in 2020. 

A lot will be gained by 2020, but we will hold on to the good things in education as well. I predict that people will also find creative ways to use the new to make use of the old, like the videos made by the Common Craft Show where human hands and paper drawings are used in combination with screencasts. This is a type of genius that will increase, although I can’t say how. We are just beginning to use the technology of the Web to make use of our lovely human village.

Zoho Notebook allows the integration of content. I think that this type of technology would be very useful for language learning. At my current school the skills (reading, writing, speaking, and grammar) are divided into separate classes, but in reality these skills overlap and the courses integrate these skills. For example, even though the primary focus of speech class is spoken skills, students read and write while preparing for presentations. Grammar obviously affects everything. Zoho Notebook might allow all of these skills to be integrated into one notebook. The students could first include the links to the information that was read. Then the writing portion could be saved in the notebook. The speech could be practiced on Zoho and then the presentation itself along with the visuals could also be saved on Zoho.

Zoho Notebook might also be useful for ESL students whose speaking skills are much stronger than their listening skills. This sometimes happens with students who have been residents for a while, but haven’t yet developed their writing skills. Sometimes a student is able to communicate complex ideas quite well while speaking, but makes basic punctuation, capitalization, or spelling mistakes while writing. These types of learners might benefit from first recording their thoughts in audio and then organizing and writing them in the same notebook.

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With a paperless class it would be possible to enjoy what Richardson described in his tenth big shift: “Contribution, Not Completion, as the Ultimate Goal.” The role of the teacher would still be to set goals, organize activities, and give feedback, but a paperless class would allow for students, as well as the teacher, to make more contributions to the content of the class. The course would remain under construction by both the teacher and the students and this construction could continue from semester to semester. Building a learning network would be easier and that network would not necessarily be limited by the time frame of the class. With a paperless class, student contributions (previously known as assignments!) could be organized into portfolios that would involve links and media and might be built collaboratively. According to Abigail Beshkin, a paperless class would combine traditional face-to-face interaction with all of the stimulation of the senses that the Web can add!  

Since language is socially constructed and innately conversational, I think that some of the shifts Richardson outlines don’t really apply to language education, but “The Web as Notebook” is the one that I think may affect my teaching the most. As I have mentioned several times before, I would like to get rid of my writing book. As Richardson said, “As the Web becomes more and more a source of content for our teaching and learning, it also renders paper less and less effective.” Perhaps my dream includes a wiki organized by chapter with “audio, video, photography and more.” These things can feed into student learning. Now I can also see how coursework might be collaborative and then organized in Web-based portfolios.

On their wiki the group that was assigned the con side of the discussion about Connectivism as a learning theory stated, “When you discuss theory, you have to know a specific spectrum. You have to define your parameters.” I am not sure whether Connectivism is truly a learning theory or not, but I would like to question this statement.  

Meaning can be viewed in different ways. The traditional way is to limit meaning to small definable segments. This is a “dictionary” approach. I want to know the meaning of a word, so I look it up. The meaning of the word has a defined parameter. The other way to look at meaning is the see it as something that is large and vague. This is the approach taken by many linguists. In this type of theory, the meaning of a word is large and vague. As I mentioned in an earlier blog, prepositions have large meanings and that is why they are one of the last things acquired by a second language learner of English. The car drove through the tunnel is an example of the use of through that is specifically defined.  I have to work through my problems is a sentence in which the meaning of through is not as easily defined. In the same way, Connectivism could be a theory which allows us to approach learning without forcing it into a specific spectrum or well defined parameters. Connectivism allows us to recognize that knowledge cannot be possessed and any resulting learning theory will not be specific or well defined. What we used to call learning  becomes less and less well-defined as we add emotions, feelings, more nodes, and a diversity of opinions. Perhaps we need new words to convey the broad meanings that learning and knowledge have.

I teach a basic grammar class and while I was exploring podcasts, I discovered Grammar Girl. This is a radio show that deals with various grammar questions. It is hosted by a young woman who has a lively and interesting presentation style. I found a segment on less and fewer which is one of the grammar points that we will be working on later this semester. I downloaded Grammar Girl Less and Fewer from iTunes. These podcasts also have transcripts that go with them. The original presentation might be little challenging for my students, so I put the podcast on Audacity and edited out some of the language and then edited the transcript. I will link this to Blackboard so that my students can listen to it during the week we work on count and noncount nouns.

As you know, my students are second language learners. The two most difficult grammar points of using English are articles (a/an/the) and prepositions. Even some very advanced learners of  English have trouble with these two things. In both my writing a grammar classes, my students work on prepositions of location. The illustrations in the books work, but they are line drawings in black and white. Also, there are not very many and they are rather boring. It would be so much more interesting and authentic to make an exercise with photos. I could put them in Soft Chalk which would allow me to use the photos in a “quiz” format. Students could get instant feedback on whether or not they used the correct preposition. One example could be:

I can see the wall ______ the wine glass.

©ainus. (2006, May 30). Wall through Wine Glass. ©ainus’s Photostream. Retrieved October 22, 2007 from
http://www.flickr.com/photos/caius/156796056/.

Last week Deb added some links on Educational Reform to our wiki project and one of them got me thinking about teachers and leadership. The link to a blog by Neil Rochelle referred to some questions about teacher leaders, specifically the questions asked by Sheryl Nussbaum-Beach in February of 2007.  

Below I have paraphrased Nussbaum-Beach’s four questions and targeted them more specifically to you – my classmates, setting them within the context of our work on the Read/Write Web.

• Do you feel your responsibility to act as a leader has increased as your understanding of the Read/Write Web has developed?
• Do the new skills that we are acquiring make us “teacher leaders by default?”
• What role does Web 2.0 play in the role of a teacher leader?
• How do you see yourself contributing to teacher education?