Digital Natives
Gavin Dudeney and Nicky Hockly are the people behind the Consultants-E, an online training consultancy. Their "ICT in the Classroom" course, a training course for English teachers in using technology-related tools and skills, has won a British Council Innovation Award. They are also the authors of the new book How to Teach with Technology (Longman, 2007). its-teachers caught up with them to talk technology and teaching.
iT's: Hi, and good to be with you both. Can I get you a coffee or tea?Nicky Hockly: A double espresso for me, please!
Gavin Dudeney: She took the words right out of my mouth.
iT's: Let's talk technology. We're here because your course "ICT in the Classroom" has won a British Council Innovation Award. Can you tell us a little more about the course?
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| Professor Susan Bussnett presents Nicky Hockly and Gavin Dudeney with their ELT Innovation award at the 2007 ceremony in London. Photo: Frank Noon |
N. H.: The first thing to say is that this is a course that runs entirely online. Our participants are practising language teachers from all over the world, who do the course from their own homes, online. The aim of the course is to provide teachers with practical, hands-on experience of how to start using information and communications technology (or ICT) in their own teaching. The course runs over a period of 10 weeks (for a total of 50 hours), and our course participants learn to use current ICT tools, such as social bookmarking, blogs, Webquests, text and audio chat, wikis and podcasting. The course is hands-on and directly related to classroom practice - participants produce and share short plans to use these ICT tools with their own classes, throughout the course.
G. D.: We think this is why it's won the British Council Innovation Award - the form of delivery is innovative (entirely online), as is the content (learning to actually use tools such as wikis, blogs, podcasting, etc., with learners in the classroom). So far we've trained up teachers from 20 different countries on the ICT course!
iT's: You've used the terms digital native and digital immigrant in your presentations and talks. Can you elaborate a little more?
N. H.: These are terms that refer to those who grow up with technology, and those who don't. Those children, for example, who grow up with and use technology as part of their daily lives, are digital natives, and those of us who have come later to technology - many teachers and trainers, for example - are digital immigrants. We particularly like this term as it seems to reflect so well what's happening in our schools, where there is often a wide technology gap between (older) teachers and (younger) learners. Of course, as younger teachers are joining the profession, this will change, but there is still a woeful lack of technology training for teachers in pre- and in-service training courses.
iT's: Do you think language teachers need more training in the use of technology?
G. D.: Definitely. At the moment, in most contexts, it's very ad hoc, and there's not much of it. There are a few exceptions (the Polish government, for example, has a detailed ICT syllabus for including in pre-service teacher training courses run at Polish universities), but overall, technology is still seen as something extra on a course, and not as a fundamental part of teaching and learning. In fact, our "ICT in the Classroom" course, which we mentioned earlier, tries to provide some of this training for teachers. The fact that Trinity College London quality-assures this course and helps us market it shows that at least some training providers are starting to realise that there is a very real need out there for technology training for teachers.
iT's: So, a one-off workshop on how to use the computer room or interactive whiteboard probably isn't enough.
N. H.: No, but it's a good start! The other issue is that school directors and directors of studies are often themselves unaware of the technology that can be brought into the classroom, so are not even sure what training they could (and should) provide for their teachers!
iT's: We hear people talking a lot about Web 2.0. Er ... can you clarify this for us, please?
G.
D.: Web 2.0 basically envisages the Web as a much more user-driven
experience. You can think of Web 1.0 as the static Web pages we started
off looking at, websites where all the content was provided by big,
expert companies or individuals working all hours in their apartments.
Web 2.0 is the social model of the Internet: community websites, share
sites such as YouTube (www.youtube.com)
and del.icio.us, where
the content is created by normal Web users and shared with the user
community. It also suggests that the Web is moving slowly towards being
more of a platform, or operating system, so that you will no longer
need a computer with all your software and data on it, but simply a
connection to the Internet from which you will access your documents,
email, etc., wherever you happen to be at that time. Of course, some
people are already moving beyond Web 2.0 to Web 3.0 with applications
such as Second Life,
but that's another story ....
iT's: What are the possibilities then, with this kind of technology, for language classes?
G. D.: Web 2.0 is all about users and communities, and in a sense it has shared goals with language learning if we consider the concepts of sharing, community, communication, etc. We tend to prefer the blended approach [see below], and what these tools can contribute is access to other speakers and learners around the world, and a sense of shared goals - which can be highly motivating to a language learner. There are, currently, steps to combine virtual learning environments such as Moodle with more social site approaches such as Joomla (www.joomla.org) and Elgg (www.elgg.net) to produce spaces where more traditional learning can be supplemented by social, collaborative areas - and this seems key to us.
N. H.: In terms of technology in the classroom, I'd add that Web 2.0 applications often encourage project work, international collaboration and knowledge sharing, and we don't think anyone would argue that this is not a good thing in our professional context.
iT's: Let's imagine I'm a director of studies with some money to spend on technology for a school or institution. What would you say should be my priority or priorities?
N. H.: There is sometimes the misconception that you need lots of money to use technology in your school. The initial investment is in having good computers and reliable broadband connections, for example in a computer room. But the things that teachers can actually do using computers are free. There are lot of fabulous, easy-to-use and completely free tools out there on the Internet (such as Webquests, chat, blogs, wikis, podcasting, etc.) that teachers could easily use with their learners if they knew how to use them, and what kinds of things to do with them! So we'd say that a director of studies should first invest in some computers, and then in training his or her staff in how to exploit the many great free resources the Internet provides.
iT's: Do you see a future where many teachers will be working online, giving their classes in virtual learning environments or other learning platforms?
G. D.: We don't really think online teaching of languages will replace face-to-face classes. It's not a matter of either/or, as they are entirely different mediums of delivery.
N. H.: Exactly. Even tools like video conferencing can never replace real face-to-face communication, although it can come close. The online option simply provides those who do not have the opportunity to take face-to-face classes with another way of learning a language, and in that sense we do think blended learning (where learners take a course that is part face-to-face, and part online) will definitely increase in the coming years - in fact, it already has. We have increasing numbers of teachers taking our e-moderation skills course, for example, where teachers learn about online teaching; this clearly shows that teachers increasingly need to learn about online teaching to keep up with a changing world and student demand.
iT's: When you're not giving workshops, the majority of your teaching is now online. What's that like?
G. D.: Well, we think sitting around in your pyjamas giving a course online is really quite wonderful!
N. H.: Not only that, but we have no need to sit in rush-hour traffic or take public transport to get to work!
G. D.: Joking aside, people often ask us if working online is not lonely. In fact, it's the opposite, as we are in constant contact with people from all over the world, and get to meet (online) a range of teachers from the most extraordinary backgrounds and contexts, and to work with them closely. One participant who was recently on one of our online courses was a Dutch woman living in Kurdistan in Iraq. She'd had to move to Kurdistan from Baghdad because of death threats to her husband, who worked in an NGO. These are exceptionally brave and talented people, and we get to meet them by doing the work we do. I think we both feel privileged to be able to work as we do.
iT's: Last question: What websites have caught your eye recently and that you think would be good for teachers to take a look at?
N. H.: This is a tricky one as we have been so busy recently that there hasn't been an awful lot of time to surf and browse for fun. However, in the spirit of Web 2.0, we'd like to recommend a service called StumbleUpon (www.stumbleupon.com), which gives you links to random websites in your areas of interest - a great way of finding new things.
G. D.: We'd also recommend taking a look at All Things Web 2.0 (www.allthingsweb2.com) for a general introduction to the kind of thing Web 2.0 has coming up for us.
N. H.: And lastly (and since we're blog addicts), Technorati (www.technorati.com), which allows you to search a growing collection of blogs worldwide. As the tagline says, "71 million blogs… some of them have to be good."
iT's: Thanks a lot, both of you, for joining me. I'm going to run back home and get online now.
N. H. and G. D.: Thanks!
You can find out about "ICT in the Classroom" and other Consultants-E courses at www.theconsultants-e.com/courses/.