Reflection Papers

I would like to share with you my first reflection paper on tecnology tools for teaching English. Here you are:

Reflection paper # 1

Since technology has changed the world into a global village that demands productive people with sharp thinking skills, we cannot continue forming people the old fashion way, where teachers were the only source of the information and knowledge and students had a passive role. I came to the conclusion that technology has come to change everything and everyone. We all know that technology, used correctly, improves the learning and teaching processes in our classrooms.    It helps us obtain, organize, present and share content and learning activities in asynchronous and dynamic ways. Therefore, we need to understand the importance of keeping up-to-date with all the technology tools that could be applied for educational purposes.

Fortunately, now I know about flipped learning and how to flip my classroom. From the book, Flip Your Classroom: Reach Every Student in Every Class Every Day, by Aaron Sams and Jonathan Bergmann, I have learned that in the flipped learning model students are forced to take a more active role and take advantage of technology to develop collaborative skills, and create their own knowledge without limits. I certainly see the advantage of flipping my class. I would use videos and learning sites were students could be exposed to the content of my lessons from home. This would be great because sometimes, I feel like the scheduled hours of classes with each of my groups is very limited to achieve the learning goals. Besides, some of my students miss a lot of classes. If they could have access to the class material and learning activities from home, they won’t feel so lost when they come back to class, or at least, they won’t have any excuses for not knowing what we are doing in class.

I see the applicability of adding blogs to flip my class. I would like to create a class blog using Blogger, Wix, or WordPress. In this space, I could share with my students the week’s learning material, online articles, online learning exercises, games, videos, and more. I could also have them write their opinions on discussion topics related to the week’s lesson and give them feedback so they can improve their reading and writing skills. This would definitely encourage them to read and write more in the target language (English).

Reflection paper # 2

By reading the booklet, “Language Teaching and Learning Online Digital Games and Gamification” by Graham Stanley I explored the different ways my students could benefit from online games to engage then in learning activities and thus, help them develop  the English communication skills they need.

I have always used games in my classroom during my lesson’s pre-activity or post-activity. However, I wasn’t aware of how online games could be turned into great learning tools, when selected and used appropriately according to our students age, goals, culture, and learning background. Now I know that I can use online games to encourage speaking, develop vocabulary, and practice listening, reading and writing.

Something else that amazed me and I didn't know before was the term “Gamification”. It’s about turning leaning activities into fun games, Stantly (2012). I love the idea of applying typical elements of playing games into my classroom, such as: points scoring, collaborative work, positive competition, rewards or incentives. 

We know that rewards always motivate and encourage learners to engage and behave well in learning activities. Therefore, I’m sure that using online games will enhance my teaching. I can give incentives to the most participative students, for instance: badges, candy, cookies, stickers, extra recess, free time, or extra points in next assessments. It sounds like a lot of fun for my students and for the teacher (me) as well.