Blog: Evaluation of Software Resources List

"Bringing the Gun to a Knife Fight"  - Electronic Communication and Politeness We are in an age of great innovation and bounding evolution of societal vulgarity. Yes, that may be a debatable point, but we’ve all likely had some discussions about how mobile devices have created a whole new world of less-than-desirable social niceties. Need we mention the tens of thousands of zit-popping Youtube videos? Shall we harken the sloppiness of spelling and grammar our texting troupes have degenerated their writing into? Would we even want to mention the fact that many good folks out there are now choosing to direct their romantic energies into “Camgirls” in some far-off country rather than their soul mate sitting in the room next to them? In Carrie James book, Disconnected: youth, new media and the ethics gap she takes aim at such topics, pointing to those most affected, the youth. She refers to the lack of couth as a kind of “ethical and moral blindness”. That just because t...

Teens, Technology, & Education: Parallels throughout the ages   After reading through some chapters in  It's Complicated,   Boyd's seminal work concerning teens and their relationship with technology, I naturally thought back to my own Gen Y teenage years in high school. I drew personal parallels and anecdotes to those used by Boyd to explain and exemplify the trials, successes, counter-cultures, and issues that mixing teens and technology create. While pinging and ponging my own experiences with those in the book, I came across a reference to Pump Up the Volume  (1990) and decided to watch a few clips. The film, which was about as Gen X as you can get, is about as early 90s as you can get, too... and there is no question, that even though only 0.001% of teens had mobile phones and/or internet during the time of this movie, they were doing the same things teens do today - They were hacking, chatting, flirting, protesting, gaming, cheating, socializ...

Electronic Screen Syndrome - Concerns from an Educational Technologist With each generation, according to a 2017  CBC Marketplace episode, the daily use of mobile devices increases. With Canadian adults ranging from two or three hours a day and rising, their childrens' screen-time is significantly more. When school is in, their use is in the three to four hour range, but when its a day off or a summer break, this number can reach into the double digits. A shocking calculation coming out of this study was that the youngest in the family, who was elementary-school aged, was projected to spend 15 years of his life locked in to his screen, After the numbers hit me, I couldn't help wonder why this was happening, and what the future consequences might look be. As an Education Technologist, the thought of this was worrying to me. Was my push to design, instruct, and manage Ed-tech only adding to this overuse of screens? If screentime is a problem, is the flipped classroom we...

"The Collapse of the Physical World" - Developing a Lexical Resource to Understand Ed Tech  Book Scanner - digitizing the physical world. The collapse of the physical world . When I read this phrase in Boyd's It's Complicated   it struck me. This simple turn of phrase explained so much of what is going on with technology these days. Being an instructor to first year university students and an Educational technologist, it explained so much of what is going on. To give just one example of probably thousands, I'd like to point to the high-speed, page-flipping book scanner. This device literally collapses the physical world. You pop a book in and it flips the pages while scanning them. The scanned file zaps into your memory storage.  Brianstorming more applications of phrase in the world of Education Technology, I can quickly think of quite a few other instances.  "A student's shoulders are hunched over, head hung limp, only the thumb move...

I was just reading Tony Bates' Technology in the Digital Age (2015), one of the seminal coursebooks in the field of Educational Technology. Throughout the book Bates often zooms out and looks at the big picture that technology plays in teaching and learning. One way he does this is to refer to significant moments in Educational Technology throughout history, going so far as to posture Moses' stone tablets as a form of technology.  During his musings on the above, Bates mentions that in 1990, a sea change went into effect with the introduction of a program called Powerpoint. This innovation was replacing the longstanding overhead projector as a fixture in the modern classrooms of the day. I was agape upon the realization that this presentation software was nearing its 30th birthday and wondered just how many major updates and innovations have been implemented into it to make it still hold its position at the top of the list for classroom tools. Indeed, another paralle...

According to Techopedia , a backchannel is  the use of networked computer and instant messaging software in a learning or team-based work environment to provide private or one-to-one communication between the student/listener and the teacher/speaker. The backchannel tool is very useful in my field of work -- teaching English as a second language to international university students in Canada.  The classes I deliver, help plan, and run occasional technology workshops with commonly focus around using technology as a collaborative and communicative tool. At Dalhousie, my current school, as with most university classrooms across Canada, we are equipped with projectors and a desktop in every classroom. Considering the above then, you might see how useful backchannel network can be. Basically, what a good backchannel app can do is provide quick, hassle-free, access for students to post text on a common page. This page is projected on the board in the center of the class...

As an ESL teacher at the post-secondary level, myself and my colleges are constantly looking for ways to increase motivation for students to produce meaningful language. In this day in age, it's also important for us, as teachers, to diversify, digitize, and professionalize our profession. These two thoughts, great classroom tool & how to be sharper professionally, were the two things that came to mind after doing a trial run with the graphic design tool known as Canva. To sum the latter up, I would quote Tony Bates, well-known Educational Technologist, and say that this tool scores very high in the category of 'media richness'. So what is Cava? Canva is a graphic design tool that has the ability to create such things as logos, menus, and weather news infographics. It is very user friendly, offers a top-notch Freemium membership, and produces very attractive, high-quality images. Although there are multitudes of other apps out there that can do such things, Canva...

As a language learning enthusiast and a language teaching academic, I was quite interested in exploring the buzz around the newer language learning software named FluentU. In both Bing and Google searches, it has managed to hold top spots in SEO (Search Engine Optimization) and is also something I've seen promoted frequently in such places as language learning conferences and language learning technology publications. So is this the next Pimsleur, a 1980s audio-cassette language program? Or will it rival the still popular Rosetta Stone, which is now categorized in the fast growing "Brain-Training" software market? Will we all be self-taught and fluent in any major world language we set our aims for? Will this be a program which language teachers can exploit and have at their fingertips for any lesson? I've allegorical evidence for this type of program. We often have the best intentions when taking them on. However, within a few weeks, the reality is, most of...

The International English Language Testing System, known commonly as IELTS , is the largest language proficiency exam in the world. The proficiency scores are namely used for three reasons, immigration, academic acceptance, and work-related criteria such a s pay-scale and professional requirements. To give you some more background to the gravity of this test, I'd like to just outline a few big numbers: In 2017, 3 000 000+ tests were delivered in over 140 countries Over 3000 academic institutions worldwide use IELTS There are more than 1200 test centres worldwide Now that you know what IELTS is, I'll tell you what I do. I am an expert and have had multiple roles with the organization. All my positions have to do with the grading and preparation for the exam. With my experience, management offered me a job blogging with IELTS. It turns out that I really like it. And from the feedback MGMT has given me and the rest of the team, it is a very successful part of the websit...

Blog #3 Youtube? Hidden opportunities for productive flipped classrooms in ESL What might seem as the old warhorse of websites, Youtube can sometimes seem as dated as landlines and Napster. However, unlike those long gone programs, Youtube still has an almost ubiquitous existence in our technology ecosystems. Youtube is often ignored as an educational tool beyond it’s simple function as a massive video archive. For this, we use the video hosting site to find almost anything we could ever dream of to supplement our lessons. We ask students to watch a video at home on Youtube, then quiz them on it the next day. We find a video to match our target lesson, then show it in class. We ask students to use Youtube as a source for research assignments. We even divert the teachers job of delivering a lesson to a lesson that has been uploaded onto this website. Now if you haven’t noticed, all of the activities I have just mentioned are receptive. That is, the video is played and the s...

Being an English for Academic Purposes instructor at Dalhousie, I often am required to include in my lessons statistical analysis, statistical data collection, statistical imaging, and finally statistical summarizing. If approached in the wrong way, such topics can really bore and frustrate students. Some common pitfalls include dealing with complex statistical imaging tools, attempting to graph data without the aid of tools, software incompatibility, complicated program sign-up applications, and getting mired in moot. After trudging through app after app after app, I finally found a really simple graphing tool that students can learn how to use quickly and also one that students can produce and save images of to show the class on the smartboard. It is easy to sign-up, doesn't require any payment, is very user friendly, produces quick results, and doesn't try and corner you into any 'gold' programs. So in terms of quick set-up and easy-to-learn matters, I give it hig...

Duolingo - Complimenting Beginner Language Classes https://www.duolingo.com/ As a language teacher I'm always tuned-in to how people are learning languages. I love to hear what's hot, what's working, and what the pros and cons are. People outside of my teacher/ teaching circles often mention Duolingo. If they are travelling to Mexico, they gamify their trip prep using Duolingo Spanish. If they are taking a beginner Italian class at Dalhousie University, they fill in the the gaps and get their practice playing Duolingo on the bus. As I, myself did some travelling in recent years, I also spent time waiting for flights and falling asleep at hotels playing a few rounds. Now as a language-teaching expert, I know how to deconstruct and evaluate the effectiveness of a language lesson. I have to admit, Duolingo was great. The gamification of language learning provides high levels of motivation. It is simple to use and doesn't clutter your experience with passwords, paym...