Task 6: DIGITAL TRENDS
In this section, I will be talking about 5 main digital trends that I have researched about in the English classrooms.
Google docs version of Task 6
Considering that we are living in a changing and dynamic society where technology use and power in our workfield and social filed, it is important for us, as teachers to bear in mind how to include technology and enhance the digital competence in our classrooms in order to help our students be more than ready to live and interact in their future lives, which will be even more technologically-enhanced.
Having said that, many educators, experts in the education field and teachers are beginning to question the current education approaches used in the English classrooms. Most of them argue that education should be more student-centred in which teachers help students to acquire the appropriate competencies and knowledge that will help them to be successful people in their lives.
Therefore, according to Bloom’s Taxonomy, it is about getting students to create, think critically, make important decision sand collaborate rather than just listen, reproduce and understand what they are told to. So, what teachers aim to do is to focus more on the High Order Skills such as creativity, cooperation, analysis and creating their own products rather than just promote Low Order Skills that only enables them to understand, describe and remember facts. These HOS are reshaping and determining a severe change in the ways of teaching and approaches English lessons, which will enable student’s learning to go beyond the tasks they carry out in the classrooms.
Having said that, we can find 5 main digital trends that are considerably changing the ways of teaching English in the classrooms of 21st century. These top 5 trends are:
TREND 1: BYOD (Bring your own Device): This trend considers the use of mobile phones and tablets in the classrooms to carry out activities and to engage more students. This trend can help those teachers and classrooms where computers are not available for all students and so it is about taking advantage of the digital tools that students already own and have been using. There area lot of variety of tools that can be used to carry out different types of activities that require using students their own electronic devices. It is important for teachers to know how to use each one of these tools as well as which are the strengths and benefits that can bring to the learners when using them. Plus, every teacher should consider the Chapelle (2001) criteria to evaluate each one of these tools when using them in their classrooms (language learning potential, learner fit, meaning focus, authenticity, practicality). Some of the tools that can be used for this trend are: Nearpod https://nearpod.com/ , quizlet https://quizlet.com/latest or plicker https://plickers.com/.
TREND 2: DGBL (Digital Gaming Based Learning) → Taking the advantage that our children are into video games and computer games, this trend aims to take hold of this fact, and use gaming features as a tool to learn English. More precisely, this trend is about taking advantage of the “affinity” of the spaces (real and online spaces where the players can interact with each other and share their interests and comments about the games they play.) as they are spaces that require the students to write and express and communicate among them through the use of digital tools such as videogames, blogs about specific games. Plus, many of the blogs and communication happening among the players is in English, so this can help students to increase their motivation and attitude towards learning English, as they might see English as a useful language that can help them to communicate with people of the same interests in their present and future. Some of the tools that can be used for this trend is for example: Machinima (creating settings and backgrounds for their creation of games) https://www.machinima.com/ , Fanfictions (using favourite characters from favourite movies or series in order to create stories and games) or use of podcasts (they can enhance learners to work on their listening skills).
TREND 3: Flipped Learning: This trend follows a blended learning approach: students carry out most of the lessons at home independently through watching video lectures, sharing comments and reading articles about the contents of the lessons, and then at class they do homework or tasks that are based on constant interaction with their peers without the teacher intervening too much. The idea behind flipped learning is that it is not the teacher who teaches and transmits the knowledge but the learners who by interacting, sharing and problem solving, they construct their own knowledge. The main disadvantage of this if students at home do not own computers or internet access because of their different economic situations, they may not acquire the same learning quality as others.However, they can be offered with the chance to let them stay in the school space and use the school digital facilities to carry out their flipped learning.
TREND 4: Remote learning: This trend follows a model that gives the learners the opportunity to attend the lessons virtually in the case they cannot attend to schools personally. They can have access to the content of the lessons, materials and they carry out the usual lessons through video instead of a face to face class. Also, different technological tools can be sued such as video conferencing, class forums, social media or through emails. Finally, another interesting option of remote learning is that it can also bring teachers and experts about a certain field to give conferences to the learners.
TREND 5: Social Media: Nowadays, many young children and teenagers and adults are familiar with social media networks and is part of their daily lives, so why not taking advantage of this? The social media trend intends to use social networks such as Twitter,Facebook or Instagram to enhance learning in the English classrooms. For example, such social networks can be used as a way to set online groups interactive conversations based on a specific project or use hashtags to organise the topics discussed according to the content and so learn organization of information strategies. This way, learners are shown how social networks can be used in order to get the best from it and help them to construct a good use of these tools. Plus, since they are already familiar with them and know many of the learner how they work, it can also enhance their engagement and motivation in learning through this way.
The most important thing is that any teacher should have an open-mindset on trying out new ways of teaching and using different kinds of technological tools in the classroom, but the most important thing is to know how to use them and for what purpose we use them. Hence, it is very important for a teacher to keep updating and trying up new approaches and strategies of teaching in order to keep up learning and forming as teachers, because the real context is also changing and technology is taking hold of our societies, we should try out always new trends in the classroom as they can provide us with more information and input on how children learn best, what does not work and what does. If we don’t try to renovate and innovate, we can never know what we can apply again and what not.
REFERENCES CONSULTED:
https://americanenglish.state.gov/resources/teachers-corner-education-trends-and-issues-world-today
https://www.1776.vc/insights/edtech-trends-learning-education-technology-classroom/
https://www.educationalappstore.com/blog/6-digital-trends-will-soon-influence-classroom/
http://www.gettingsmart.com/2017/07/5-emerging-trends-in-21st-century-education/
