Pete Sharma Associates

Our next newsletter will be coming out soon. In the meantime, you can take part in our latest competition by going to the competition page and giving us a response to the question there. The page is here.

Pete and I were in Stuttgart on Saturday giving a one-day training day on how to use technology to enhance the use of authentic materials in an in-company teaching environment. It was a challenging day for us, not least because 83 trainers registered for the event! These were all trainers for kmp, based in Sindelfingen, Germany, and there was of course a wide range of skills and experience within the group.

The day appeared to go really well, and it was interesting for us to focus specifically on this aspect of using technology. The event went very smoothly, with a great venue. The organisation by kmp was excellent and reflected very well on them as a company. We are looking forward to following this up with feedback, online information and more.

On Sunday I am making my second appearance at the Virtual Round Table organised by Heike Philp and her excellent team. There were a couple of IT issues last time that meant this is really my third appearance as I ended up repeating the talk last time. I think the technology has become reliable enough now that such virtual conferences have really come of age, and the idea that I can lead a workshop online from my little office in a little village on the edge of the New Forest in Hampshire, England is still quite surreal for me. While I probably still prefer a physical conference, the fact is that many people do not have the opportunity to attend the major conferences, so a virtual conference gives them this opportunity. And I have to say, I find the experience very enjoyable.

My presentation/workshop is an introduction to Moodle, so if you are interested, Google the Virtual Round Table and join in. There are lots of other interesting talks as well.

I seemed to spend most of this Saturday driving around central southern England with a car full of often sleeping passengers. I often do some effective thinking in such situations, and this time my mind turned to smartphone apps. My mobile phone contract runs out in June, and I am looking forward to replacing my current phone with a fully-fledged smartphone, probably with a Windows 7 operating system. Now, don’t get me wrong, I am not an app freak in the way that you can see on Twitter. I personally fail to understand why some educators seem to think that the world wants to hear continuously about iPhone/Pad apps. These devices will never be owned by anything but a minority of students, even in the rich West, and if it works on them, it won’t on the other devices available. I see a big future for such devices, I just don’t want to see a situation where we are only looking at Mac-apps.

To get back to the point of this post, I was wondering what kind of app would be really useful for language teaching. I’m not talking about “I would like to see an app to mark the homework” type of thing, but something really possible and useful. A bit of lateral thinking could even lead to something that makes a real difference to the teaching/learning process. Pretty much all the ideas I have seem much too complex, and even as I write I am desparately trying to think of an idea to kick the process off. Something that assists collaborative learning, perhaps. Or how about linking where you are to a task (“go into Burger King and ask what vegetarian choices they have.”), with an option to record what you plan to say and submit it to your tutor?

I would really like to hear what you think on this topic. Leave a comment here or on LinkedIn at the Learning Technologies for Language Teaching group.

Kevin

As mentioned by Pete 3 days ago, the newsletter is ready and I have just pressed the button to send it out. We hope you like it. There is a report from Pete about BETT, some information about various projects, updates on events, and an invite to join us in our LinkedIn group. We hope you enjoy it and welcome any feedback or comments on what you would like to see in our newsletters in the future.

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All the best,

Kevin

One of the things that fascinates me is the way in which EFL teachers appear to be so divided on the subject of using learning technologies (LT). I’m more than a generation away from being a digital native or whatever term you prefer, but it seems obvious to me that, as a professional teacher, it is my duty to conduct my work using effective approaches and methods, and to continue my professional development throughout my professional life. As there is now no serious objective evidence that using LT is anything other than helpful, how come we still see such polarised views, and still a relatively low level of implementation?

I have just started a series of three articles for CALL Review looking at this subject, and I have made it my goal for 2011 to try and investigate this further. I will also be starting a thread on the LinkedIn group, Learning Technologies for Language Teaching, and would really like to see some professional discussion of this topic. The main questions for me at the moment are:

• Why is there a sometimes very hostile rejection of LT in our profession in some quarters?
• Is the level of implementation as low as I think?
• What are the factors in whether a teacher uses LT?
• How can the situation be improved?
• Should it be improved?
• What is being done by professional bodies in this respect?

Clearly, there are factors such as economic situation, politics, culture, etc. that may be relevant in specific parts of the world, but these are scarcely applicable to most of Europe and North America, for example. So, feel free to comment here, or come on over to the LinkedIn group. I would be very interested in any responses.

Kevin

Pete Sharma Associates has reached another milestone with the public launch of our new web site, sponsored by Macmillan. To celebrate this exciting event for us, and to indicate the start of a new phase in our development, we are running a competition. The details can be found here:

Competition

Starting now, we intend to become more involved in the online community, and will be doing so with this blog, a newsletter, a LinkedIn group and on Twitter. We look forward to a fruitful exchange of ideas!

Kevin