I have a dream! Blog task 6

Here it is, the 6th and final blog task. I am supposed to write about a “dream project”, making use of New Media, with the only restriction being that it has to be in English. Well, there is indeed a dream project, I would like to see realized, however, I am not sure if I am not a little too late. Whatever… I tried to keep this as realistic as it can be, because a school with unlimited resources, both in funds and time, is science fiction; I really mean it!
My dream project would be a teaching unit that involves
direct language contact with native English speakers. Apart from an exchange year, an English learner would rarely have direct language contact with a native speaker (and profit from it). This is where the New Media come in handy. There are numerous (freeware) chat programs such as Skype that allow users to directly communicate with each other via headset or webcam. That way the pupils could get the most direct language contact, without even travelling to an English speaking country. The language environment of second language learners is by nature very artificial, but with such a project, the pupils would have a perfect opportunity to put their theoretical knowledge and proficiency of the English language into practice.
Obviously, for this to work, you would need more advanced learners. I would suggest English classes from 11th grade upwards. Taking all this into account you would need the following “ingredients” to make this “dream project” possible:

- advanced learners of English
- computer room with internet-access
- PCs equipped with headsets or webcams
- chat program (Skype)
- willing native English speakers

Now, the last part is where this project gets difficult. At best, the imagenary school, where the project takes place, has a partner school in an English speaking country, otherwise our school will have to find one by itself (but that should not be of my concern). The class conducting the project will need a native English speaking class of at least equal size, so that each pupil has their own assigned native English speaker.
In the actual lesson, the pupils would be given instructions to research certain topics which are related to Cultural Studies or Linguistics. However, instead of researching these topics the usual way, i.e. googling for a solution or looking it up in a dictionary/encyclopedia, they will have to research them by talking to their English speaking colleagues. In order to prevent this cut short research, these topics need to be very marginal and special.
Apparently, a project like this cannot be done in just a couple of lessons. The strengthening of the pupils’ proficiency in English can only be achieved by repeated training, so this whole idea would have to be realized on a long-term basis, but I could imagine this project to be very rewarding for secong language learners of English.

Blog task 5

In this blog task I will answer two questions that I have thought of for the field trip to the Alfred-Wegener-Schule (AWS) in Kirchhain, which was awarded the title ‘Media School of the Month January’. With that title in the back of my mind, my questions were of a more general sort:

1. Which new media devices has the AWS available?
2. How and to what extend do the pupils and teachers use these devices?

To answer question number one, I have to say that the AWS has an overwhelming amount of new media at its disposal. There is a total of three PC rooms, each one equipped with a beamer. One room is equipped with a smartboard and a so-called mobile presentation unit (it consists of a beamer, a laptop and speakers). The highlight was the so-called ‘learning workshop’, basically a hall that consisted of one computer room, capable of multimedia (all PCs were equipped with headphones), the school library and several small rooms for group work. The school also has a system administrator who takes care of the school network and fixes broken computers. Finally the school has screening room (5.1 Dolby Surround of course!) which does resemble a private cinema.
For the future, there are plans to further advance the new media equipment. Through the economic stimulus package, the AWS will get 80 new PCS and several DVD/Beamer-combi-devices.

The second question was how and how much are the new media utilized. Looking at the sheer amount of new media available in this school, one would assume that the new media are widely used by both pupils and teachers. This is true for the pupils. There is a wide range of courses that teach the handling of basic EDV such as Word, Excel or
Powerpoint; internet research is also taught and one key element of the so called information- and communication-lessons. Especially concerning the learning workshop, the pupils are motivated and focused on their tasks, as the learning workshop creates a pleasant work climate. Regarding the teacher side, the use of new media is a
double-edged sword. Younger colleagues are of course more proficient in using new media than the older colleagues, however, there is still a decent amount of older teachers that cloister themselves from the new media.

All in all, I have to say that I am still impressed by the great amount of new media equipment in the AWS. This school truly has earned the title ‘Media School of the Month January’.

Comment on Poster 6, Group 1

In my second blog task I will be discussing the poster that deals with task 6. Even if everyone is probably going to discuss this particular poster in their blog, too, I think that the poster is just too special to be skipped over. Those who cannot remember how it looks like from class (although I doubt that anyone would forget such a quite extraordinary approach) can have a look at it, before I continue its discussion.

It was created in response to the following quote from The Atlantic Monthly, July 1997:

A 1996 poll of US teachers found that they ranked computer skills and media technology as more ‘essential’ than the study of European history, biology, chemistry, and physics; than dealing with social problems such as drugs and family breakdown; than learning practical job skills; and than reading modern American writers such as Steinbeck and Hemmingway or classic ones such as Plato and Shakespeare.

The poster is a very creative and fun realization of the quote and captures the whole issue nice and simple. First and foremost I have to highlight its artistic qualities. Both characters – the professor who seems to be inexperienced in new media and the ‘hardcore geek’ who seems to have no clue about the real world – are comical caricatures of two extreme opposites. Although they are drawn in a simplistic manner, the character’s portrayal works out their function as avatars of two partially unreasonable lifestyles regarding nowadays education appropriately.

Next on the list are the statements in the center of the poster. The boldness of both statements translates the provocativeness of the original quote, but simplifies it further which makes it a lot easier and more comfortable to read. The statement itself carries a bit of a pessimistic undertone towards new media. The claim that “[…] there is no way around [sic]” sounds like new media are a neccesary evil which one unfortunately has to accept to keep up with technology. Furthermore the simplicity which is represented by the two futurephobiac and unworldly characters suggests a narrowed black-and-white-world view of “either this or that”. Although both statements are positioned in the center as kind of balanced solution to the problem, it should have been made more obvious, maybe even with another drawing.

Overall, this sounds more negative than it is actually the case. I do love the approach that was chosen to handle the issue and, again, the drawings are hilarious (especially the geek). From all posters I definitely like this one the best. It sets the bar a little higher for new posters that may come in future classes.

Uses of New Media in (Foreign Language) Education

There are four aspects of advantages and disadvantages of new media in education that shall be discussed in this post.

One can assume that most if not all young people possess knowledge about computers today, as it becomes more and more important in everyday life (internet, text processing, data storage, etc.); however, there ought to be some households that do not have a computer, too. The use of computers in education can help those pupils that are not familiar with or have limited knowledge about computers by enhancing their computer skills, be it the handling of an OS, text processing or research in the www. For these basic computer skills (and advanced applications such as Photoshop also), new media are a necessity, as these contents cannot be taught properly without a computer.

Another advantage of new media in school is its practical nature. Learning-by-doing is essential to the successful conveyance of e-contents and one of the main goals should be to provide pupils with confidence in handling new media.

The internet holds an exceptional position in new media education. Its uses for educational purposes can be diverse, however, there are two major aspects that are most likely to be used for education: research and e-learning.

Gathering information is fundamental and the internet hoards multitudes of information. The access to such information in the internet is also much more comfortable and faster than going to a library, which is quite an important aspect in the motivation of pupils. The downside is that there is no quality control over most information that can be found in the www; especially community-based sources like Wikipedia can easily provide incorrect information.

E-learning has the advantage that pupils can choose when and where to learn to a certain degree. It grants pupils a certain amount of autonomy which can be regarded as positive since pupils can learn how to take responsibility. This autonomy can be subject abuse. When in class, pupils can distract themselves e.g. by watching online videos or chatting with their friends, as I sometimes did it in school. Teachers can also abuse education with new media, as it did one of my English teachers from time to time. At the beginning of a lesson, she would give us a research task for the whole lesson (the task was taking ten minutes at max), while relaxing and making small talk with some fellow pupils. She exploited these lessons to the point, where the headmaster temporarily banned her from the computer room.

Depending on the place where pupils conduct e-learning, there can be another issue. If the e-learning happens in class, the pupils can approach a teacher, in case of a problem that might occur. If they are at home, however, they will have to write an email or wait till the next time they will meet.

There are many more aspects of new media in education that can be discussed of course, but due to reasons of space, they will not be dealt with here.

Welcome post, yo!

YAY, my first blog entry… and my first blog too! I finally arrived at Web 2.0!!!

Hi, by the way!

The existence of this blog is due to the “New Media in Foreign Language Teaching”-course taught at the University of Marburg, but since I have a blog now, why not use it for other stuff? I am not certain about the future content yet, though. It’ll have something to do with nerdy things, I guess.

The appearance of the blog will surely change too, but I’m too lazy to think about that now…

So long!

GoHned