Job Discussion Forums

[LongShiKong]

Here's the first of this 24-slide presentation that might lead to discussion here
by Kurt Kohn, University of Tübingen (DE)
TESOL Arabia, 14 March 2013*

Robo-teacher?

The threat of the 1990s: Teachers will soon be replaced by the multimedia PC

The comforting message: Teachers will NOT be replaced by computers – however, teachers who are not able to use computers for pedagogical purposes will be replaced by those who can

What are teachers afraid of today? That they might not be able to keep up with the speed and diversification of technological development? - YES

Since the mid-1990s, the technological options and challenges have changed and multiplied with dazzling acceleration: from multimedia (texts, images, podcasts) to communication and interaction with social media and in social communities [> Nik Peachy, Russell Stannard]

Does knowing all the educational gadgets make you a successful technology- enhanced language teacher?  NO, it doesn’t

What is the magic ingredient?

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*While some here might agree 2013 is ancient history in online ed tech practices, what I've read from Kurt pedagogically feels like 22nd century given the Audio Lingualists and Direct Methodists still preaching their practices. This summer I came across Lynn Lundquist who had me fooled she was leading edge with her rhetoric about proprioception in ELL until I verified what Amazon.com reviewers were alleging were her real motives and method.

[papuadn]

If anyone has information about more recent platforms/integration (but as significant) than found in this presentation, I would appreciate it. In other words, I don't believe it's ancient history; it's a sufficient survey from where I sit, but I am not actively reviewing the state of the art.

The modes of any CMS are a substantial convention. Moodle has done well (robust in some parlance) or better than most, versus, say, the enormous potential of Second Life. A "flipped" classroom has value, but is limited to more advanced study, or rather, learning beyond developmental stages.

Language proficiency is greatly developmental in character, which is one reason I bristle at expectations of one-to-one video interaction as particularly useful or advantageous as it's often touted. I feel the same way about tutoring. What I can achieve with 15 students is qualitatively different than one. Not that one-to-one is without its own set of advantages, but of a narrower scope.

Observing educational technology evolve through means that largely enhanced a teacher's presentation tools to coordinated appliances assigned to individuals with the web as reference is a profound experience. The promise of enhanced and augmented learning is "baked into" transmission protocols. What the web "is" has been possessed by a frame of tensions from the very beginning, e.g., Ted Nelson's theories versus Douglas Englebert's implementation. And the cultural adaptation of technology is far more complex and slow than quarterly-based enterprise can ever concede. The primer for me about how gradual that adaptation is was David F. Nobles' America by Design.

A very broad overview I maintain (that I probably owe in part to Marshall McLuhan) is by what proportions the web is used to disseminate versus interact. There is a see-saw character in play by which interaction demonstrates potentials that are rapidly commodified to deliver products. Which is inevitable and necessary, but interaction has a quality of discovery and expansion where products and appliances are a set of limits. Seeking standards is a tricky business and its regulation even more so.

[currentaffairs]

I am glad that I don't have to use Moodle any more..

[papuadn]