UNIT 5: Collaboration in Language Learning

“Collaborative English Language Learning”

Retrieved from http://tinyurl.com/25t347e

Due to the overwhelming but still positive advances concerning technology and global communication, collaboration is needed to cope with the huge amount of information at hand, but that is necessary to manage, according to each human’s talents. At the same time, intellectual property has turned to be shared due to technology; planning common projects and sharing ideas for solving problems through peer work have become a must. This is what ‘wikinomics’ and collaboration are about.

In general terms, “Wikinomics is a new force or movement that is bringing people together on the net to create a giant brain (mass collaboration)” (Frank, 2009). All around the world there is a large number of sophisticated software development communities, which do not need to hire employees to be physically present in an office, neither to offer supplies, nor use campuses to carry out their jobs. The possibility of having these people connected and giving their knowledge in favor of others without waiting for a reward, seems to be achievable, enriching and of course, motivating towards learning.

“The Internet has been evolving into a global, living, computer that anyone can program.” (Frank, 2009). Collaboration spaces sites like forums, blogs, wikis, mashups, help to do such a challenging task. Let us give a closer look at the principles of wikinomics: openness, peering, sharing, and acting globally to better understand the phenomena involved.

Openness refers for companies or individuals to be and feel free for offering upcoming people, which are mostly young with innovative ideas, the opportunity to show their talents. On the other hand, this same openness refers to be conscious enough and understanding as to let talented people go and look for other horizons, in which they feel more engaged and comfortable. This capacity of exchanging talents, at times in own benefit, and at other times against will, is the openness needed to survive and succeed in the global world.

Concerning the second principle, “peering is a new form of horizontal organization (as opposed to hierarchical organization).” (Frank, 2009). This statement is the evidence of the need to gather the best contributions to make a qualified product at the end. No single efforts have sufficient meaning if they are not linked and enriched with others’.

Sharing, as the third wikinomics’ principle, deals with intellectual property. The vision of copyrights, patents, trademarks is no longer taken as mandatory by law. Of course I think that owners of ideas, projects, innovations, or key businesses have the right to be recognized and mentioned for the audience to know about their efforts, but they have to offer this knowledge to the entire world, for being even more acknowledged, and to contribute to the creation of other types of products.

Acting globally then, becomes the best option. Old-fashioned manners to create, propose, and end up with a restricted product belong to the past. Collaboration in co-creation crosses boundaries that affect all human domains: affective, social, political, economical, and of course educational. In this case, as a language teacher, I will state the benefits of such collaborative attitudes and actions that may make learning rich, well-supported and integral for students.

The benefits that collaboration can bring into the language learning class entail, and taking technology as the basis ground, the easiness with which writing online for others to see, participate, give their opinions, add information, in one phrase, ‘construct knowledge’, is available. Web 2.0 tools are here to serve this purpose: through wikis, for example, people around the world can build a site as interesting and complete as they want by just creating a collaborative network. As wikis allow users to edit, modify or delete information, they are great sources for reading and organizational skills to be developed. If someone does not know how to participate in a wiki, then, he/she will feel challenged to discover on his/her own by reading the content, and then, add more information avoiding the repetition of ideas, and placing the information in the right place. Wikis are clue tools for teamwork and project work. Wikis can even widen spaces for discussion, as they can be shared with people with different background but compatible knowledge. Blogs are other tools that perform a similar role, but these are more personalized and especially designed for individual reflections (e.g. journals on projects, research, etc). However, blogs can be followed and given feedback once people have signed up. This is where collaboration and transformative learning appear.

Consequently, strategies from teachers to promote collaboration in the English language learning environment are needed. In first place, setting a comfortable and safe learning atmosphere for learners would break barriers, and lead to positive relationships. Once this is gained, participation will flow. I find planning in second place, and planning with clear objectives, explanatory instructions that are sufficient for students to follow and achieve. In third place, -and the most difficult task for me- it comes the follow-up process. Maintaining students focused will assure their accurate use of critical thinking and problem-solving skills, capacity of self-reflection, quality of contributions, and openness to receive feedback. In fourth place, but requiring the teachers to embed the other three strategies here, there is ‘empowerment’ meaning that teachers must be updated with both: technological resources and educational trends.

As a final remark, I would like to point out the teacher’s role as promoter of projects and activities that engage learners in ‘English Language Collaborative Knowledge Construction.’ It is a challenge but because of the natural like of students to learn while playing, discovering, exploring and actively participating in discussions, forums, etc., enhancing different language skills, positive results could easily emerge. Let’s take the risk…

References
Frank, D. (2009). Wikinomics.The Canadian Veterinarian Journal. June; 50(6): 563–566. Retrieved May 1st, 2010 from http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2684043/

Palloff, Rena and Pratt, K. (2007). Promoting Collaborative Learning. Building Online Learning Communities. San Francisco: Wiley.

Tapscott D, & Williams. AD. (2008). Wikinomics: How Mass Collaboration Changes Everything. Toronto: Penguin Group (Canada).

UNIT 4: Humanizing Learning Environments

After watching this video, I started to reflect about the things that parents and teachers must do for our children and young people before it is too late... We need to continue being human...

I would like to start with a statement that summarizes the shift which we as educators must face in the current globalized context we are living, concerning online learning environments:

“As our classes become increasingly computer-mediated, as our students become increasingly computer-literate and willing to take courses online, the dislocations caused by these sea-changes must concern us as teachers.” (Haefner, 2000).

Such dislocations require actions to be arranged by us, to meet students’ needs while allowing them feel we are affectively near, supporting and truly exchanging factual information for their benefit, and acting as if we were face to face (F2F). Either in a synchronous way (e.g. through chats, using skype, twitter, exchanging information with a database, Wiziq sessions/tutorials, video-conferences), or in an asynchronous way (e.g. e-mailing, newsgroups, forums, video-taped classes/ conferences), it is our duty to offer students a sensible and warm atmosphere for learning to take place. It is clear, at least for me, that no machine or external artifact will replace the teacher in a classroom. Humankind needs others’ presence to really interact, enrich and empower themselves. And how to make this presence be tangible, motivating, and balanced in an online learning environment is what follows…

One basic element to keep in mind when humanizing an online learning environment is planning with creativity and flexibility. Giving the students various options and opportunities to interact with the teacher and classmates will surely make the tasks more appealing and enriching. However, the flexible feature must be carefully explained to students: they have to exercise their autonomy in order to manage times and schedules. This refers to the constant ‘presence’ (attendance in a physical sense), and also participation they have to show in their course(s). Otherwise, the connection among students and tutor(s) will be lost, and consequently, the online program or course will not succeed. It is certain that flexibility benefits students’ own work pace, and also, elicits shy students to participate more actively, but again, it is an issue of commitment, responsibility and real involvement.

A second element, derived from the above, is follow-up and feedback. Actually, they are two different processes but they are so closely inter-related that I will refer to them as only one. During and after participating in the tasks proposed, there must be a place for advising each other: student-student, teacher-student, or why not, student-teacher. Through the exchanges of information, thoughts, opinions, ideas, innovations, knowledge starts to be built, in a collaborative way. Collaboration is indeed a key term that I best understand as stated by Agostinho (1997):

“Collaboration is an essential ingredient in the recipe to create an "effective learning environment" as it provides learners with the opportunity to discuss, argue, negotiate and reflect upon existing beliefs and knowledge. The learner is "involved in constructing knowledge through a process of discussion and interaction with learning peers and experts." (Harasim, 1989, p.51, cited by Agostinho, 1997).

Collaboration would then be the third element that arises when participants have had the opportunity to engage in a topic, develop it, reflect upon it, propose other ways to deal with it or to solve it –in case the topic is a problem-, to finally reach consensus about the best options to address it and implement it. This process can be done through synchronous and asynchronous ways, as explained at the beginning of this paper. The clue is maintaining the environment stable, solid, reliable and ‘alive’, at the same time, offering constant support and guidance.

Once the three mentioned elements are clear, then, it comes the most difficult part: making teachers and students aware of the relevance of making the online environment a means of assertive communication, respecting some rules and norms to belong to a community, as it has to be in any human group safe interaction, favoring life-long learning as a value added. Knowledge constructed together will hopefully remain in each person’s life. To make this happen, changes of roles started to be evident and, as a result, the need for adapting already in-use strategies and create new ones became an urgent requirement.

Concerning the changes of roles from the teachers’ side, they essentially needed to empower their students instead of being the ones who controlled everything: the information, the means of instruction, the discourse. Now, students require teachers to be promoters of how to get information, facilitators, presenters of critical questioning, and moderators of various learning styles. Having this in mind, strategies for teachers to create the awareness discussed above could be:

Establish policies of use, rules and norms concerning interaction, supporting openness and honest attitudes.
Support the implementation of the online course by being a model, which guides, trains, and monitors students in the use of the required tools.
Include meaningful and practical contents and goals in the planning, as well as a well-structured agenda/schedule, with the possibility of being flexible whenever it is required.
Assign roles for each individual, according to his/her talents and preferences.
Engage students to be active participants in oral tasks, by listening and seeing each other (e.g. synchronously, through Wiziq sessions, video-conferences).
Encourage learners to explore beyond the given materials in order to appropriate them for their own enrichment and benefit.
Promote spaces for reflection and self-assessment (e.g. asynchronously, to make them deeper).

Turning to the students’ side, they passed from being information gatherers, passive vessels, receivers, outside observers to be active learners, and protagonists of their own learning process: Students act as problem solvers/questioners/researchers; they are contributors, constructors, builders…They are independent learning managers but equally, they are collaborative participants as members of a community. Based on these statements, strategies for students to become aware on how to take part on a human online learning environment would be:

Participate actively in all tasks proposed, although they do not match their learning styles. This could be an opportunity to explore hidden likes and talents.
Manage motivation (intrinsic/extrinsic).
Be aware of responsibility with own work and others’.
Be autonomous.
Encourage partners, tutor and other participants’ discussions.
Be open-minded.
Be sincere (express what you feel –questions, doubts, queries, whenever necessary. No one will blame you or laugh at you; all people are always in a learning process).
Be team-oriented.
Be inquisitive, critical, and reflective.

As a conclusion, humanizing online learning environments entails keeping track of an ongoing process that people involved experience, including constant interaction, peer review for feedback, guidance from tutors, management of tools, that to maintain it alive, it calls for our nature: being human.


REFERENCES
Agostinho, S. (1997). Online Collaboration for Learning: A Case Study of a Post Graduate University Course. Third Australian World Wide Web Conference. etrieved April 16th, 2010 from http://ausweb.scu.edu.au/proceedings/agostinho/paper.html

Haefner, J. (2000). The Importance of Being Synchronous. Academic Writing. Retrieved from http://wac.colostate.edu/aw/teaching/haefner2000.htm

LaBonte, R., Crichton, S, & Allison, D. (2003). Moderating Tips for Synchronous Learning Using Virtual Classroom Technologies. Odyssey Learning Systems Inc. Retrieved from
http://odysseylearn.com/Resrce/text/e-moderating%20tips.pdf

UNIT 1: The 21st Century Curriculum: background concepts and theories

My Wordle Unit 1 - www.wordle.net

The overwhelming technological changes we have been facing in the last decades imply for us teachers to have a great responsibility in raising a cultural sense in our students, to take care of one another since they are beginning their school lives. Nowadays, the prefix ‘inter’ is really showing its powerful meaning: inter-action, inter-national, inter-cultural, inter-net…

Developing critical thinking is definitely a good starting point if learners are meant to interact successfully in a future unknown society and world. Also, promoting the emotional, conversational/communicative, and physical skills –among others- that are already embedded in most educational contexts, combined with new technological trends that risky pioneers have just started to apply and use effectively and creatively, would serve as a solid basis for the upcoming worldwide citizens.

It is our duty to take part in this huge mission. We have to ‘empower’ ourselves before trying to make our students aware of the great technological resources available around them. Besides, we cannot leave emotional factors aside, such as eagerness, motivation, and self-confidence, among others. Therefore, developing our students’ natural curiosity to discover their own talents and strengths, promoting their capacity of adaptation to sudden changes, and building autonomy step by step, are basic processes learners have to go through.

According to Ianni (2005), ICT and TPD (Teacher professional development) are parallel processes. Our teaching must be based on “learner-centered instructional methods, such as project-oriented learning, problem-based learning, inquiry-based learning and collaborative learning, since the idea is to offer each student the possibility of covering his/her needs as a multi-tasker” (Ianni, 2005).

“The Eight Net Gen Norms”
“The Eight Net Generation Norms” imply great changes in our minds, capacity of understanding, interacting, and reflecting upon the real needs students have nowadays, and new ways of meeting them.

Sometimes, we blame technology because it facilitates students’ lives by providing them with the information, tools, ideas, every single detail at hand, that no effort seems to be needed. The challenge, then, is for us as teachers to train this generation, and make learners skillful in order to classify the huge amount of information they can freely access thanks to the social networking they are immersed in. Besides, students should be committed to be tolerant, collaborative, since it is their own sense of community that has empowered them with affective and academic skills gained through technology.

At last, the capacity of innovation, self-organization and collaboration these Net Geners do have enables them to cope with an ongoing world that will hopefully set a brighter horizon… And communicating in a language that is global only demonstrates that learning it is a must.

I truly believe that this challenge involves all of us as educators in general, but especially -of course-, as responsible for our own students' language learning process. We are here looking forward to meeting their needs, every day with a deeper sense of making our labor productive, reflective, collaborative, assertive… Letting students play the role of actors/actresses in such process is the goal. In sum, we must give our students opportunities to live an enriching life-long learning experience, which in fact, they have already started on their own.

“The relevance of multiliteracies”
The following is a sequence of processes to develop in our learners, which I believe are key in this complex but achievable duty as teachers. Besides, these processes embed the concepts and necessary inter-actions of the different literacies (visual, media, digital, critical literacies), aimed to develop skills and abilities for students to learn:

Identifying --> recognizing --> exploring --> interpreting --> connecting
--> contextualizing --> understanding --> analyzing --> critical thinking
(questioning/reasoning) -->interacting --> sharing --> communicating
--> negotiating --> reflecting --> evaluating --> criticizing --> proposing
-->creating
-->CONSTRUCTING KNOWLEDGE

This task is not easy as I said before. However, through another complementary basic process, we could be ready to comply with this mission: Empowerment. I will cite a description and a real example from the USC Rossier School of Education, which despite its 100 years since its foundation, has always been in the cutting edge concerning meeting students’ needs and forming committed citizens ‘to strengthen urban education locally, nationally and globally.’ This information is given in the document The New Media Consortium (2005, p.6):

“This program prepares educators not only to become fully multimedia literate, but also to integrate these abilities with their instructional visions, objectives, strategies, and classroom practices.”
This means that the direct responsibility relies on us, as teachers of this digital generation, and we must embrace it with no fear, but with eagerness and positivism.

References
Bamford, A. (2003). The Visual Literacy White Paper. Adobe Systems. Retrieved from http://www.adobe.com/uk/education/pdf/adobe_visual_literacy_paper.pdf

Daley, E. (2003). Expanding the Concept of Literacy. Educause Review. Retrieved from http://net.educause.edu/ir/library/pdf/erm0322.pdf

Lima, C. (2006). A Brief Introduction to Critical Literacy in English Language Education. British Council Brazil. Retrieved from http://www.criticalliteracy.org.uk/images/cleltbooklet.pdf

Tapscott, D (2009) Grown Up Digital. How the Net Generation is Changing your World. MacGraw Hill.

The New Media Consortium (2005). A Global Imperative: The Report of the 21st Century Literacy Summit. Retrieved from http://www.nmc.org/pdf/Global_Imperative.pdf

Unit 3: The Psychology of Learning Environments

Retrieved from http://tinyurl.com/2b9rpkz

Mobility in Learning Spaces for the 21st Century

Thinking about an ideal place where learning can take place nowadays, is not as easy as it seems… It implies taking into account so many factors such as special features and values: culture, needs, interests, capacity of investment, responsibility, autonomy, and mainly, risk-taker people with real sense of community and critical thinking. This means that the setting of those virtual spaces must be ‘multipurpose’ (Reynards, 2009). Assuring this characteristic may make educational institutions to really get involved and participate in their construction.

The urgent need to have this type of virtual spaces for learning has its basis on how to meet the new generations’ desire for mobility. ‘Fixed’ classrooms are not appealing anymore, although sometimes F2F sessions bring about impact in the students if teachers/tutors know how to lead them towards the expected goals. Flexibility, capacity of interacting by exchanging ideas and negotiating, promotion of collaborative work, networking among the group members, are some of the gains that can also be achieved through the setting of a ‘virtual learning space,’ not necessarily physical. “With new technology, students can be connected anytime and anywhere, and any space can become a learning environment. So a formal structure is unnecessary, and meeting points, points of input, connection points, and application points become more important.” (Reynards, 2009).

Before trying to set up a virtual space to become the ‘classroom’ for the 21st Century, it is necessary to understand and keep in mind that there is a concept that brings out basic elements to make this task possible: “The Psychology of learning environments.” Through activating attention, analyzing and understanding how the brain works, and choosing the most appropriate tech tools to apply in class, teachers would be finally empowered to design their lessons effectively (Obringer, 2001). Therefore, some tips for successful e-learning are (Obringer, 2001, combined with Kaplan & Kaplan’s 4 Cognitive determinants of environmental preference, n.d. cited by Oblinger & Oblinger, 2006): setting clear and organized objectives, providing an appropriate delivery method that includes ease of navigation and different modes of showing content in chunks such as images, color, design, sound, and various media easy to navigate; allowing games or other similar activities such as the creation of challenging learning objects, explained step by step, demanding the development of higher order thinking skills; promote interactivity (tutor-students and among peers) gaining attention, of course, making closer follow-up of learners’ development through constant feedback; eliciting interaction among students and between them and the tutor (by means of forums, discussion boards; respecting own work pace; updating in the current trends, by providing real examples that evidence the great amount of possibilities they have to explore their own capacity for creation. Again, all these aspects are covered under the tem ‘mobility,’ term chosen to represent the way classrooms have to be today.

Turning now to informal and formal settings, the former spaces (outside the classrooms) are solid ground in which new teaching and learning practices can be grow. These spaces are suitable for academic tasks that surely meet most of the students’ needs and learning styles. On the other hand, there are some ‘distractors’ that affect the dynamics in this moveable learning environment, especially in the formal settings. Instant messaging, for example, makes learners be absent-minded while communicating with their peers, friends, etc, deviating their attention. Although they are net geners and are characterized to be ‘multi-taskers,’ it is advisable to be aware of this obstacle. In this sense, developing autonomous critical thinkers is a must, to change perspectives and set priorities through the creation of more collaborative environments that increase interaction within the learning space. In this way, learners will have to wait or even stop at distracting, but better concentrate in the tasks assigned.

In sum, an ideal classroom for the 21st century would be the one that offers technology to foster learning by building community, as well as creating and sharing knowledge within the group while allowing interaction to take place in and outside the formal classroom setting (Brown 2005). Students must feel engaged and challenged in our classes, at schools, universities, etc., but the investment to be made, both economical and motivational is great. However, it will not be a waste of time, energy and money. This task could be carried out with the support from very well-trained staff, who can be students’ partners, tutors, consultants, and other people with critical perspectives, deeply committed with the effective use the great amount of technological resources, for the benefit of the global community.

Then, these learning spaces will provide more opportunities for knowledge, culture, global cooperation, and for different skills’ development (self- assessment, teamwork, critical thinking, problem-solving, decision-making) to arise… In only one concept, or better, in only one learning theory, designing appropriate modern learning spaces and environments will surely develop ‘active learning.’ Brown, M. (2005). And this active learning is definitely ‘mobile.’

References
Brown, M. (2005). Learning Spaces. In Educating the Net Generation, Chapter 12. Educause. Retrieved on March 2nd, 2010 from www.educause.edu/educatingthenet gen/

Oblinger, D., & Oblinger, J. (Eds.) (2006). Learning Spaces. Chapter 6. Educause. Retrieved on March 13th, 2010 from http://www.educause.edu/learningspaces

Obringer, L. (2001) "The Psychology of Learning." Retrieved from http://communication.howstuffworks.com/elearning2.htm

Obringer, L. (2001) "Interactive and Motivating E-learning." Retrieved from http://communication.howstuffworks.com/elearning3.htm

Reynard, R. (2009). Designing Learning Spaces for Instruction, not control. Campus Technology. Retrieved from http://www.campustechnology.com/Article/2009/04/29/Designing-Learning-Spaces-for-Instruction-not-Control.aspx

Unit 2: Community and ICT in Language Learning

Retrieved from http://tinyurl.com/2bck6k9

Modern Learning Spaces

Offering students the best options to carry out their learning processes, that include coping their needs and interests, involves ‘creating’ and ‘designing’ proper spaces with all the facilities possible, according to the context, institutions’ vision and mission, and a deep sense of team collaboration.

Nowadays, learners are the owners and ‘managers’ of their goals. They are exposed to an ongoing transformation that demands quick moves, adaptability, cooperation, teamwork skills, and most importantly, enough criteria for self-assessment and decision-making. These learners do need even more learning spaces than the physical ones.

However, this task could not be carried out without support from very well-trained staff, who can be their own partners, tutors, consultants, and other people with critical perspectives, deeply committed with the effective use the great amount of technological resources, for the benefit of the global community.

Providing such ‘learning spaces,’ either formal or informal, would make a big difference. If we really want students to be engaged and challenged in our classes, at schools, universities, etc., the investment to be made, both economical and motivational, will not be a waste of time and money. These learning spaces will provide more opportunities for knowledge, culture, global cooperation, and for different skills’ development (self- assessment, teamwork, critical thinking, problem-solving, decision-making) to arise… In only one concept, or better, in only one learning theory, designing appropriate modern learning spaces and environments will surely develop ‘active learning.’

The Role of Community

Based on the readings, and taking into account my personal experience throughout the Masters Course, I believe that in order to form a solid community there must be…
• A real commitment to get involved and to actively participate in its collaborative construction.
• Capacity of listening and communicating assertively, showing interest and abilities for team working, as well as for trusting in the community members.
• Understand others’ ideas with respect and tolerance helped by a well-directed guidance, in charge of an instructor who manages both social and cognitive skills.

I think that definitely NLE is based on collaborative work. By means of the forums, WIZIQ sessions, wiki, collaborative glossary, mindmapping, etc., we are actually building a community. We interact to share points of view and doubts, achieve agreements, which allow us to clarify concepts, and expand what we now. In NLE we are reaching long-life learning, due to its socio-affective and cognitive components. As Shaffer and Amundsen(1993) state “creating a community is a mutually empowering act.” The NLE tutor is enabling us to grow our knowledge and think of the necessary changes we have to go through in order to improve our teaching practices, and updating ourselves with the global technological advances and tools. Besides, being reflective and flexible concerning students’ schedules and tasks have also been positive attitudes the NLE tutor has shown. This is the balance an online class should offer and promote.

One of the strengths gained in NLE is the development of “social presence” we are able to show now, after having being through some other virtual classes before, during the Masters Course, as I said above. I remember, for example, the concept of ‘Netiquette’ which was one of the first things we learned in the second semester. These guidelines were fundamental for making communication flow in a respectful and effective way.

Finally, I think that NLE is a learner-centered designed course, that promotes autonomy at all times. Besides, it also serves to deepen our sense of belonging to a group of committed teachers who share more than knowledge: we also share values and as a consequence, I would say, an identity as a group already characterizes us.

References
Brown, M. (2005). Learning Spaces. In Educating the Net Generation, Chapter 12. Educause. Retrieved on March 2nd, 2010 from www.educause.edu/educatingthenet gen/

Reynard, R. (2009). Designing Learning Spaces for Instruction, not control. Campus Technology. Retrieved from http://www.campustechnology.com/Article/2009/04/29/Designing-Learning-Spaces-for-Instruction-not-Control.aspx