Better 'the Five Ws' than 'Because it's there'

I commented on Scott Thornbury's recent blog post 'T for Technology' that I was "happy to see the ‘edutech/no edutech’ debate has at least moved on, shifting away from the ‘should we use it?’ to the ‘We should be careful when and for what reasons we use it."


During the debate in the comment section on Scott's blog, it was mentioned that many learning technology (LT) presentations at conferences and blog posts are of the type '20 ways of using Wordle', etc., dealing with the 'how to use tech' but not the 'why it should be used'. I heard this criticism while I was at the IATEFL conference in Brighton too, and have to admit that it's often overlooked by many of us who use LT in our excitement to tell people about a new tool we have found to be of use. Sometimes, it's not that there isn't a good reason for using the technology, just that the reason is not made explicit. And, then, it has to be said that there are other times when the only reason for using this technology that is offered by the person presenting it is similar to the well worn mountaineer's adage, 'because it is there'.


So, we ('we', as in language teachers who use technology) should make sure not to fall into this trap, and also to make it explicit when we present ideas for using technology that our reasons for suggesting it are sound.


Related to this, and as a challenge laid down by Diarmuid Fogarty, Sue Lyon-Jones has produced a very useful check-list for anyone thinking about teaching with technology (reproduced below).

I've also been thinking about this, and after using Sue's checklist, I would like to suggest the use of 'The Five Ws' that is commonly used in journalism, police investigations, and which are considered basic in information gathering.


I've now adapted this for any teacher looking to use language learning technology, (and for any presenter or blogger telling others about it) suggesting that the practitioner should ask the following questions:

• Why use the technology? In other words, don't just use it because it is there. Are you trying to do something with the technology that can be better done in without? As mentioned in Sue's checklist, will the learning be enhanced by using the technology?

• Who is the technology best for? If learners, then what age/level/discipline? If you are suggesting other teachers use the technology, then you should say how much teaching/tech experience/training is required to use it effectively?

• What is the technology best used for?  It is worth considering if there is another technology that can be used instead that may better suit the learning objectives.

• Where should it be used? Is it more suitable for the classroom / connected classroom (i.e. with one computer and the Internet) / computer room / at home? Think also about classroom management issues here. Where in the classroom is the tech to be used (i.e. if you are filming with a camera) and, if appropriate, what will the other learners be doing when one or some are using the technology (i.e. will they also be engaged?)

• When should the technology be used? Not only when is the best moment during the class to use the technology (at the beginning/end/etc.), but also when in the term/syllabus (it is best if used to enhance and complement what you are already doing with the learners, rather than be used as an added extra).

• How should the technology be used? This shouldn't just be about what to do, but also how best to incorporate the technology into your class.

It's interesting to note that the 'How' comes last in this information-gathering concept, and that makes sense. It is the last piece of information you need to know, as it deals with details of use.

Hope this makes sense and that you find it useful.

Teaching Large Classes - Can technology help?

One of the great things about attending international conferences like IATEFL is that you can come across educators with experience and views so far removed from your own experience that your own deeply held views can be called into question.

I didn't get to attend the session on Investigating Large Classes - Are we making progess?, but it was one of the first sessions I decided to watch thanks to the wonderful recordings provided by the British Council's IATEFL Online site. I've been interested in this ever subject since reading David Graddol's English Next (PDF), and have made it part of a talk I've done on Innovations in Language Learning Spaces, which I'm updating for the keynotes I've been invited to give in the Autumn, at the IATEFL Poland and IATEFL Hungary conferences.



I didn't get very far into the session before my curiosity was aroused. Nigussie Negash from Ethiopia mentioned 'plasma teaching' in his overview of the situation in Ethiopia. Plasma teaching? What was that?

Here is an extract from Nigussie's report:

In primary schools and secondary schools, we can have 55-100 in one class...on top of this we have lots of changes...in the country. One we have for example is plasma teaching, where you have secondary school students sitting and listening to plasma transmission of lessons recorded in South Africa. The only duty the teacher has is switching on and off this TV; maybe 5 minutes introduction before the lesson, and maybe 10 minutes at the end. It's just mind-boggling, what's happening there.

As Nigussie continued, it was obvious that the problems that education in Ethiopia faces are grave and difficult to solve:

Now we're talking about a new curriculum in Ethiopia...there is a big gap between pre-service teacher training and what actually happens in an everyday teacher's life...the curriculum seems to be led by theory first and application later...teachers say they are unprepared for teaching large classes. Some of them say they don't even know how to use the blackboard...the teachers themselves do not have enough English language proficiency to conduct lessons.

With so many basic issues (shortage of teachers, lack of teacher education, teachers' low level of English), I wondered at the thinking behind introducing plasma TVs into classrooms as a solution. What did the government hope to achieve by this? And surely, this was throwing money down the drain rather than investing it wisely into teacher training? I decided to try and find out more.

One of the first things I came across was a report into plasma teaching:

Assessing the impact of plasma television by Kassahun Meless & Zelalem Teshome

Although it deals with Mathematics rather than English, the report has some general information and conclusions that are relevant to Ethiopian education and to plasma teaching as a whole:

On the reasons for adoption of the programme:

The standard of education in Ethiopia has been declining both in terms of quality and quantity for some decades...the system is unable to produce competent educated human power due to impoverishment of facilities, shortage of instructional materials, shortage of teachers and qualified teachers...New technologies offer opportunities to innovate on course content and teaching methods and to widen access to learning.

The plasma teaching programme was introduced by the Ministry of Education of Ethiopia in government secondary schools with the following rationale:

on the assumption that the system of education must be changed to active learning by using modern technology which brings us close to advanced world bringing every corner of Ethiopia where high schools coming together at equivalent better standard.

In theory, the idea of adopting plasma teaching to fill the gap that cannot yet be addressed in Ethiopia does seem like a good idea for the short term, so long as there is also investment being made into teacher education as a long term solution.

The conclusions of the report, which surveyed students opinions of this new method were that

introducing TV lessons in high schools created several new implementation problems like lack of coordination with the teacher, fast to understand, inappropriate planning of the lessons, inefficient utilization of the technology, misunderstanding as if the plasma TV present the lessons independently by it self with out the involvement of the teacher and the like which need adjustment some how. 

Clearly, the idea of plasma teaching only works if the teacher does more than switch the TV on and off (as Nigussie Negash said was the case in many schools). If it is used as the basis of an active discussion, then both students and teacher can benefit.

Then on Facebook, a friend and ex-colleague of mine, Lucy Mardel wrote a little about her experience of visiting Ethiopia for a teacher training programme (that's one of her photos to the left, taken from English for Ethiopia, grade 2). Although I knew she was involved in the education of the blind, I saw she'd visited mainstream schools too, and so asked her if she'd seen any evidence of plasma training. This is what she said:

Graham, do you mean a programme of learning in High Schools via TV from South Africa? We were told about it on our last visit - but saw no evidence apart from some very knackered TVs locked in cupboards! There isn't a regular enough electricity supply where we were for this to be reliable.

I also found a survey on Facebook about the subject, where a teacher at Debremarkus high school asked the question:
What was your experience learning with plasma tv compared to learning face to face with your teacher? 


The responses were mixed, but it was obvious that it did work for some students:

We had two teachers for one subject, one actual teacher and one plasma's teacher. actual teacher revises today's lessen, and if the school support some equipment, we do labs with our hands. every plasma's teachers are the best because they are highly educated. the plasma's teachers also are the same all over Ethiopia (Merkebu Amrach).

I was always glad by the plasma teaching especially because there is no time wastage; whether the class teacher has come or not is not my business. I just attend my class.And most of the plasma teachers were good (Abera Chanie).

So, I guess my point here is that the idea of leap-frogging and trying to stay up-to-date is great in theory, and I think using technology in this way could work well, but only if there is necessary support, infrastructure and training for it to happen. Otherwise, thinking that just supplying the technology is enough (sadly the case in many countries, not just in developing ones such as Ethiopia) is probably the best way of wasting money in education that exists in the 21st century.

I'd love to hear other people's views on this, and would be particularly interested to hear from people who know more about the plasma teaching initiative in Ethiopia or any other similar schemes to use technology to make up for a shortfall in teacher education or linguistic competence.

The IATEFL afterglow

There is only one IATEFL conference, and this year's event, held in Brighton was a highly enjoyable if exhausting experience. The best thing about the IATEFL conference experience, and one thing that makes it so special, though, has got to be that although it's now over, you can catch up on what you missed out on in so many different ways. This IATEFL afterglow seems to last so much longer than it does with other events. There are several reasons for this.

Petra Pointer , Nik Peachey & Andi White

One of the most important reasons is the amazing work done by the British Council with IATEFL Online - now in its fifth year, the team have streamlined the experience and have developed a formula that works wonderfully. Alongside the live channel, which pipes out the plenaries as they are being delivered, and a succession of interviews with some of the presenters (the photo shows Petra Pointer being interviewed by Nik Peachey and Andi White) and then there are the sessions that are recorded by the team and made available for viewing after the event. Not only does this mean it's possible to catch up on some of the sessions you missed if you were there, it means you can get a flavour of the event even if you aren't able to attend.

Then, there's Twitter - even though the last tweet from the conference was sent over a week ago now, there's still a buzz about the conference that can be experienced by searching the hashtag #iatefl - it's still one of the best places to go to keep track of what people are saying and to find links to presenter's sessions and accounts of their IATEFL experience. Twitter was definitely flavour of the month at the 2010 Harrogate IATEFL conference, and it was interesting to note that it hardly featured in any of the sessions this year. However, this doesn't mean its effect hasn't been noted. Apart from its role pre- and post- conference (Twitter is the great virtual ice-breaker for conference goers and allows you to come to a conference already knowing much about many of the participants), you can see the effect it has had on the dynamics of the conference when you visit the forums at IATEFL online. In previous years, this was a hotbed of debate and discussion, but now the real party is all happening on Twitter and in the edublogosphere.

Speaking of the edublogosphere, post-conference reports and reflections have now been written by many participants, and I'm sure many more will follow. You can read what some others have said about the IATEFL conference below:

• Janet Abruzzo
• Mark Andrews
• Tara Benwell
• Phil Bird
• Maureen Boon
• Paul Braddock
• British Council SE Asia
• Duygu Candarli
• Willy Cardoso
• Marisa Constantinides
• Gavin Dudeney
• Diarmuid Fogarty
• Sharon Hartle
• Vladimira Michalkova
• Gary Motteram
• Brad Patterson
• Eva Simkesyan
• Paul Sweeney 
• James Taylor
• Elisabete Thess
• Karin Tirasin
• David Warr
• Richard Whiteside
• Shaun Wilden

Being more involved with the IATEFL LTSIG this year, I feel I missed out on some of the many social occasions in Brighton. It's been a lot of fun catching up with what people were up to through Facebook and Flickr though, which are other places the IATEFL afterglow can be felt. 

I plan to write a few posts about my IATEFL experience as I want to reflect on some of the thought-provoking sessions I saw, but this will do for starters. What about you? How was your experience? Are you now experiencing the IATEFL afterglow?

Mobile Apps & Language Learning #1 Foursquare

Inspired by the recent short course at SEETA on Mobile Learning (m-learning) for language educators run by Nicky Hockly, I've decided to start posting about some of the apps that I've come across that I think can be used by language educators or learners.

The first of these is Foursquare, which is a mobile social networking tool that is also a game. Basically, it allows you to tell the people you are connected to where you are and what you think of the place you are at. So you 'check in' to a place (it works well with restaurants, cafes, etc.) and you can leave tips or your opinions for other people. This is helpful for other people who are in an area they do not know and are looking for a place to eat, have coffee, etc. As Foursquare gets more popular, some places have started recognising the marketing potential of this app. and offer discounts or freebies to customers who 'check in' to their establishment.

Apart from this, the gaming element works in this way:

• You can unlock achievement badges - this appeals to gamers who like to collect awards, etc. 
• You compete to be the Foursquare mayor of a place - this is the competitive gaming aspect to Foursquare.

How can this be used for language learning? Apart from the incidental language practice that you can get by using Foursquare, there are ways that teachers can exploit Foursqare by creating specific venues and leaving questions at these venues. I'll leave this for a separate blog post, because it deserves to be illustrated with an example, and I haven't done this yet.

The video below is my first attempt at trying to explain a little about Foursquare, more of a trial to see if filming my mobile in this way works. I actually say very little about how Foursquare can be used for language learning. Once I've set up an activity for some of my learners and tried it out, I'm sure I'll try doing this again soon. Watch this space.

The Merging of the Second Life Grids - Teen and Main

Last Friday, the Second Life Teen Grid (TG) merged with the Main Grid (MG) (you can see the area below in the bottom right of the map), putting a definitive end to a long-standing separation of teens in this virtual world, that caused more problems than it solved.

The original idea of separating the13-17 year-olds was to protect them from some of the more unsavoury aspects of (second) life, but the over-strict regulations that existed to keep non-teens out of the TG meant that a lot of teenagers simply lied about their age in order to get an account in Second Life.

The original decision taken by Linden Labs was to close the Teen Grid, but they reversed this decision and plumped for a merger because of pressure from educators.

Now, everyone aged 16+ can join Second Life, but those under 18 have restricted access to certain areas. Some of the other teens (aged 13-15) still have access to certain islands, which have been moved, but which are not open to the public. However, most of the Teen population under 16 has been left without access to this virtual world.

As far as the British Council Isle project is concerned, our MG island was a duplicate of one of our TG Isles (it was principally used as a show-case for the TG project) and so we will be closing this, and we have now opened our former Teen Grid to the public.

So come and visit us! You can reach us here: http://maps.secondlife.com/secondlife/BritishCouncil%20Isle/232/125/40

How many online learners of English are there?

As part of my role as social media consultant for the British Council's English Innovation team, I've just been involved in an interesting discussion about how many learners of English it's possible for the British Council to reach online.

I thought it would be interesting to share my thoughts about this with people here, as I'm be particularly interested in finding out from people if my thinking about this is completely off, or if I'm making a reasonable guestimate. 

So, here it is:

David Graddol estimated the figure of 1 billion 'learners' of English in English Next (2006), saying it would increase to 2 billion in 10-15 years.

The figure of 1,000,000,000 is interesting. The total population of the world is currently 6,894,200,000 (US Census Bureau). So that means an estimated 14.5% of the world is learning English.

When you look for estimated figures for 'speakers' of English, you find the following figures:

• 371,000,000 people 'native speakers' of English
• 760,000,000 people are 'speakers' (native or second language speakers), which is 11% world population (via Wolfram Alpha), so there are more people learning English than there are who speak it. 

As a side-note this makes me wonder...

• When does a 'learner' of English become a 'speaker' of English? 
• At what point do these learners of English stop? When they become a 'speaker' of English?

Then there is the question of how many of these learners of English use the Internet. There are 1,571,000,000 Internet users in the world (again via Wolfram Alpha), so that's 22.7% of the world's population.

How many of these speakers is it possible to reach online? Taking into account all of this, perhaps we can assume it's only possible to reach a maximum of 22.7% of the world's language learners, which means 220,000,000 people.

If we assume this, then the British Council currently reaches around 14,000,000 learners a year with its websites,  which is 6.4% of maximum possible audience. 

One of the ways that this guesstimate falls down, perhaps, is in the % calculation of language learners who use the Internet. My educated guess is that the % of learners who have access to the Internet is much lower than this- perhaps half the figure above (so, 110,000,000 people).

If this is so, then the websites reach an estimated 12.7% of  total possible online audience, which sounds like a more reasonable number.

As I'm no statistician, and Maths is one of my weak points, I'd love to hear if I'm completely off-track here . What do you think? Is this fuzzy thinking?

Edublog Awards 2010

The Edublog Awards 2010 are now open for nomination!

As the site says, "This is our chance to nominate and celebrate "the achievements of edubloggers, twitterers, podcasters, video makers, online communities, wiki hosts and other web based users of educational technology."

Here are my nominations (I have decided just to nominate in categories that were very clear for me) and some of the reasons why I chose them:

Best individual blog : http://kalinago.blogspot.com/ I think there are few people who do so much to encourage blogging in ELT (indeed in education itself) more than Karenne Sylvester. Her posts are often provocative, always thoughtful, and never boring. She deserves to win this award for services above and beyond the call of duty to educational blogging.

Best individual tweeter : http://twitter.com/ShellTerrell Shelly is a dynamo of positivity who energises everything she gets involved with. She's very generous with her time and does so much to promote the idea of using Twitter and establishing a PLN for teacher development. I can think of nobody more worthy of this award.

Best group blog : http://www.tefl.net/ I'm nominating this site, which is more than a blog, but contains at least two very influential blogs (Alex Case's TEFLtastic http://www.tefl.net/alexcase/ and TEFL guest with Tara Benwell http://edition.tefl.net/category/guest/), which I think makes it viable for this category. The site has become essential reading for teachers of English and a great source of information as well as being a thought-provoking blog.

Best new blog : http://bcnpaul1.blogspot.com/ I work with Paul in Barcelona, at the British Council Young Learner Centre. This year I saw an amazing transformation take place in his online activity after he attended the IATEFL conference in Harrogate. He returned transformed and convinced about the power and value of connecting to people online, and plunged into Twitter, started wikis with his classes and set up this blog. His blog is fast becoming a testimony to his passion for teacher development through reflective practice and his faith in the learner-centred classroom. It deserves wider recognition. 

Best resource sharing blog : http://quickshout.blogspot.com/ I am always amazed at the resources that Nik finds and his enthusiasm for sharing his findings and helping teachers with ideas on how they can be used in the classroom is admirable. His blog is a great one-stop-shop for teachers interested in using technology in class, and one of the things that makes it great is that it's never simply a collection of links, but always has well-thought out ideas of how the resources can be used in practice.

Most influential blog post : http://slife.dudeney.com/?p=446 I'm nominating Gavin Dudeney's post 'Second Life: The Long Goodbye' because behind it was a brave and well thought out decision/position and it really did shake the SL educational community that someone as influential as Gavin, who had done so much to promote this virtual world (and created a number of very useful artefacts), had been a spokesperson (sometimes even evangelist) for it, had established a strong reputation, and who was behind the most important event for language educators (SLanguages), would decide to throw in the towel. IT made all of us involved in SL rethink our position and has opened up a reflection on the value of using the platform which is still in progress. A truly influential post.

Most influential series of tweets : http://twitter.com/#eltpics I'm nominating this more for its potential than for the influence it's had, as it is very new, but deserves to be more widely recognised. IT shows how a hash tag can be utilised to engage a community of educators on Twitter and get them to collaborate in helping to build a valuable resource for the educational community (in this case a libnrary of pictures that can be used in ELT) - an initiative (I think) of Victoria, a teacher in Hanoi, who uploads the pics to http://www.flickr.com/photos/eltpics/

Best teacher blog : http://tefltecher.wordpress.com/ This was a difficult decision to make. I've decided to nominate Ian James's excellent blog as I think it is full of very useful, well-thought-out and practical ideas for teachers. I also think that this blog needs wider recognition, as many teachers would benefit from reading it on a regular basis.

Best educational tech support blog :  http://ozgekaraoglu.edublogs.org/ Ozge's blog is a treasure trove of resources and help for anyone interested in educational technology. And not only that, through her posts she makes it easy for other teachers to follow in her footsteps. Particularly interesting for teachers of young learners, and she is one of the few people out there who concentrates on primary level learners and ed-tech too, which means this blog is a highly valuable resource for the ELT community. Ozge is also a wonderful example of how the ELT ed-tech blogging community has been re-energised in recent years by a large group of very dynamic (mostly female) bloggers, who are leading the way and making it easy ofr others to follow in their footsteps.

Best elearning / corporate education blog : http://blogs.onestopenglish.com/ thanks to MacMillan's One Stop English, the ELT community has a great way of discovering new bloggers and existing bloggers are encouraged to do more for the community through the monthly stats overview of Top Bloggers. It's great for blogging motivation and I know the ELT blogging community appreciates their work.

Best educational wiki : http://kylemawer.wikispaces.com/ Kyle's wiki is full of lesson plans for computer games and links to the best ones to use in class. I also work with Kyle in the British Council's Young Learner Centre, and we collaborate on the Digital Play blog together. Before the blog, Kyle enthusiastically started to compile the best ideas for exploiting online games with learners and he's continued to do so here. If there's an online game that is good to use with English learners, you can be sure to find it on this wiki, and it'll probably have a walkthrough and ideas how to use it in class too. A wonderful resource that deserves wider recognition.

Best educational podcast : http://www.britishcouncil.org/learnenglish-podcasts-elementary.htm I know of no better podcast for elementary students. It is a magazine format, and one of the wonderful things about it is that can be enjoyed to in so many different ways. In its entirety, or in sections; with or without transcript/exercises; on the iPod/iPhone using a new app.; online through the computer; through iTunes; on an mp3 player. It's become a very popular podcast and certainly one to recommend to your English language students. 

Best educational webinar series : http://www.virtual-round-table.com/ This totally online conference (twice yearly) is fast-becoming a vital date in the diary for educators. Not only is it an incredibly well-organised event with something for everyone, but the fact that everything is recorded and made available means that the webinars provide a rich resource of artefacts that can be enjoyed by a very large number of people for a very long time  after the event has happened.

Best educational use of a social network : http://eltchat.com/ I usually can't make this, but it's always useful to look back on the transcripts of the Twitter-based chat and to listen to the podcasts. I'm voting for this to be nominated in this category because it's an excellent example of how the dynamism of a social network such as Twitter, which is usually of an ephemeral nature, can be reined in to provide longer lasting value for educators. I think it provides a fabulous model that can be followed by lots of other educational areas. 

Best educational use of a virtual world : http://www.slanguages.net/ When Gavin Dudeney and Howard Vickers announced they were not going to hold another SLanguages conference, there was a virtual wave of disappointment among the ELT community in Second Life. In four years, the conference had grown to become the event of the year for the languages community in Second Life. They had also done such a good job of it, that there were doubts that anyone could take over. However, SLanguages 2010 was a great success. I also think that if SLanguages wins this award, then it is only fair the praise be heaped on Gavin and Howard for the work they started 4 years ago. It is also testimony to their help, support, and encouragement of the new conference organisers that SLanguages 2010 was such a success.

Best use of a PLN : http://twitter.com/barbsaka/starter-pln Twitter has become such an important cornerstone for any educator's PLN, but it is also a difficult place to know where to start. Barbara Sakamoto had the brilliant idea of building a list of newbie-friendly Twitter educators for teachers who wanted to begin with Twitter, but who also need encouragement, could follow. A wonderful idea, which has been used by many teachers and is worth wider recognition.

Lifetime achievement : The Edu blogosphere. I'm not nominating any one person here, but everyone who has a blog and who shares their thoughts, ideas and reflections with other educators all over the world. Taken as a whole, the edu blogosphere makes up the greatest educational force on the Internet. It is also global, multi-lingual, multi-cultural, and probably acts as a strong force in favour of greater communication, understanding and peace worldwide. Long may it last!