The document discusses the challenges and opportunities of online learning for teachers and learners, noting that while teachers recognize the importance of digital skills, most only use technology to prepare lessons rather than during class. It also outlines examples of virtual exchange projects connecting classes internationally and the competencies teachers need to successfully implement such projects.
Connecting Learners Online: New Challenges and Opportunities for Teachers
1. Connecting Learners Online: New Challenges and
Opportunities for Teachers and Learners
Robert O'Dowd
Universidad de León, Spain
robert.odowd@unileon.es
@robodowd
2. Teachers are obviously interested in ICT– you’re here
today! But are you actually using ICT in your classes?
• “While 70% of teachers in the EU recognize the importance of training
in digital-supported ways of teaching and learning, only 25% of
students are taught by digitally confident and supportive teachers.
Most teachers use ICT mainly to prepare their teaching, rather than to
work with students during lessons (European Commission: Opening Up
Education, 2013).”
• “Teachers are always trying to keep up. They generally have a great
deal of authority in their classrooms, but may feel vulnerable in
situations with technologies, where they may feel more ignorant than
their students (Hanson-Smith, 2006:308).”
3. Presentation Outline
• Outline what me mean by ‘telecollaboration’ or
‘Virtual Exchange’ – one of the key activities of the iCt
– Improving CLIL through technology project
• Explore some examples from different learning
contexts and different educational levels
• Examine what competences teachers need to set up
and run such projects
3
4. Successful language learning (Jane Willis, 1998)
Conditions for
successful
language learning
Motivation to listen,
read, speak &
write the language
Sufficient exposure
to real but
comprehensible
spoken
& written language
Sufficient opportunities
to use the foreign
Language to do things
Focus on form /
formal study
5. How does CLIL meet these requirements?
• Motivation:
– Can learning content in the FL give students a reason for using the foreign
language?
• Sufficient input/exposure to the foreign language:
– Are learners exposed to much more content in the FL than normal EFL
learners?
• Focus on form/ formal study of language:
– Time to study vocabulary and grammatical forms and use?
• Sufficient opportunities to use the foreign language:
– Do learners get many more opportunities to actually communicate in the FL
and to develop speaking and writing skills?
6. “…in contexts where an L2 is learnt through content, students are not
offered enough chances to speak or initiate a conversation, hindering
their speaking and writing outcomes” (Sonia Casal: “Cooperative
Learning in CLIL contexts”)
Does this sound surprising?
How can we adapt CLIL methodology to give more opportunities to
use the foreign language?
7. This is where Virtual Exchange (and iCt for CLIL)
comes in…
Virtual Exchange involves online
intercultural interaction and
collaboration projects between
classes in geographically distant
locations under the guidance of
educators.
What’s in a name?
•Telecollaboration
•COIL (Collaborative Online
International Learning) -
•OIE (Online Intercultural
Exchange) –
•eTandem, eTwinning, ePals
8. Different set-ups which Virtual Exchange can take
1. A class of learners in Spain carry out collaborative tasks via webcam
with a class of learners in Holland – using English as a lingua franca
(e.g. iCt - improving CLIL through technology)
1. A class of learners in Spain carry out collaborative tasks via webcam
with a class of learners in Holland – using English as a lingua franca
(e.g. iCt - improving CLIL through technology)
3. Before leaving on Erasmus to the UK, university students from
Spain are ‘matched’ and interact online with British students
planning to travel to Spain.
3. Before leaving on Erasmus to the UK, university students from
Spain are ‘matched’ and interact online with British students
planning to travel to Spain.
2. A class of pupils in Spain collaborate online with a class in Ireland via
whatsapp and youtube videos. This is combined with week-long study
visits by both groups to partner schools.
2. A class of pupils in Spain collaborate online with a class in Ireland via
whatsapp and youtube videos. This is combined with week-long study
visits by both groups to partner schools.
9. Why integrate Virtual Exchange into
your classrooms?
• Watch some
telecollaborative teachers
on UNICollaboration.eu
talking about the benefits
of online exchange:
• http://www.uni-collaboration.eu/?
q=node/818
• What benefits do they
mention?
10. Plenty of Support for Virtual Exchange in Primary and Secondary Education
11. Example 1: Primary Exchange through Epals – Noelia
looks for partners on epals
www.epals.com
12. Noelia from León receives contact
from the USA
• Hello Ms. Iglesias,
We are a class of 23 students ages 5-6 years old in Sioux Falls, South
Dakota, United States. My students will finish their first year of school in
just a few weeks and they are eager to share some of their favorite
memories and experiences from this year.
• In addition to sharing their favorite kindergarten memories, we will be
taking a field trip to the zoo next week. I'm sure my students will want to
write about it and send pictures.
• Even though we will only be able to communicate a few times before
the end of our school year, I think it would be a valuable experience for
both sets of students.
Please let me know if you are interested and have a wonderful day.
Sincerely,
Emily Tomkins
14. • HI EMILY!
My pupils are very happy. I told them about the new friends in Dakota and they feel
very excited. We were looking in the map where South Dakota is.
They want to know something about all of you and your school. We were
negotiating the questions in order they can improve their English. Besides this, they
want to "teach" you some Spanish words.
I wrote all the questions on the whiteboard and now you will see all of them below:
What are your names?
What is the name of your school?
What colour is your classroom?
What´s the weather like in Dakota?
How old is your school?
Good bye, kisses
Oscar, Sofia C, Sofia V, Alvaro, Loreto, Fernando, CArmen y Lucía.
Teacher: Noelia
SPANISH WORDS THEY WANT TO TEACH YOU:
HOLA (Hello)
ADIÓS (Good bye)
BESOS (Kisses)
15. • Hello Noelia!
My students were so excited to read your letter last Friday! We loved all
of the good questions your students thought of. My students are going
to have to do some research to find out how old our school is. It was
interesting for them to try to develop a plan for how to find that
information. Some of them are going to ask their parents to help
them find the answer on the computer and others have decided to
interview different staff members at our school.
They loved learning new words. That was a great idea! My kiddos
thought it was very interesting that your students were learning English
in school. They are excited to learn a new language too.
We put a sticker on top of Leon on our world map in the class room as
well as a sticker on top of Sioux Falls. They were amazed to see how
far away you live.
…
• Have a wonderful weekend and adios! Emily
17. • Reflections by Noelia in Spain:
•
• This has been a wonderful experience for me as a teacher, and for my
students.
• Anyway, we could exchange some information and my children could realize
the main purpose of learning English: communicate with people from
other cultures. Learning this language let the children know more about other
children, just like them, who live in other countries and who love to have new
friends and have fun.
• I was surprised how my students were thinking about the questions to ask them
in order to get some information from them, from their school and from their
classroom. The brain storming first and the negotiation next, let me feel so proud
about them because they were doing a very good cognitive
process…...speaking English for a real purpose!!!
• My students were very involved in this experience. Everyday they asked me:
“Teacher, ¿Nos han escrito los amigos de Dakota?”. I girl told me she had told
her mum about the new experience and she did not believe her.
• I could never imagine it was going to be so excited, easy, quick, attractive
and useful . My students and me could be in touch with another culture, another
country, another school, another classroom with twenty three children and a
very kind teacher with out living our school!!
18. Some models suited for secondary education –
1) The Cultura Model
http://cultura.mit.edu/
24. http://www.cisi.unito.it/tandem/etandem/
• Two native speakers of different
languages communicate together with
the aim of learning the other’s
language (e.g. Spanish-English)
• Based on the principles of autonomy
and reciprocity – Responsibility rests
mainly with learner
• Partners provide feedback on content
and foreign language performance
• Teacher’s role is limited – learners
keep a diary and/or portfolio of their
work
25. • [American-Spanish eTandem]
• Hey Pablo!
It was great to receive your letter. I was so happy to see that you responded
to my questions. Thank you. Your responses were very informative and
definitely showed me that family life in Spain was not all I'd expected it to be
(I was surprised, for example, that your family is not religious. I assumed that
most families in Spain are, and I'm sure you have many assumptions about
life in America as well).
Your English is very good. There are only a few suggestions that I have to
correct it. Some of your sentences are too long, and would make more
sense if you separated them into two or three sentences instead. For
example, "My parents are not divorced in Spain there are very few cases of
divorced" could be rewritten as "My parents are not divorced. In Spain there
are very few cases of divorce." Your letter was great and made sense
despite these things. Good work.
Las fiestas en the ciudad de Nueva York son muy locas y emocionantes.
Voy a las discotecas con mis amigas los jueves, los viernes, o los sabados.
Vamos a los bars tambien. Nosotros volvemos a nos salons de dormitorio a
las cuatro de la manana. Queremos bailar a las discotecas. Necesita tener
veintiuno anos por beber el alcohol pero la mayoria de estudiantes en las
universidades tenen los "fake IDs" y ellos beben el alcohol. …
No sabo mucho de Espana. Sabo que hay un museo de Guggenheim en
Bilbao y sabo que hay muchos castillos bonitos. Que sabes de los Estados
Unidos? Como es la fiesta en Espana? Elena
26. The e-Twinning schools model
http://www.etwinning.net/ • “Direct interaction with pupils
in partner schools is still not
frequent. Synchronous work
by pupils in different countries
appears to be unusual,
constrained often by
timetabling, time differences
and lack of appropriately
robust ICT infrastructure, and
in most of the case study
schools, email was the only
form of online communication
between pupils.” [eTwinning
Impact study 2013]
27. Study of Telecollaboration in European Universities
INTENT : Integrating Telecollaborative Networks Into Higher Education
Three surveys:
Experienced teacher telecollaborators (102 responses)
Inexperienced teacher telecollaborators (108 responses)
Experienced student telecollaborators (131 responses)
Qualitative Case studies:
7 representative examples of telecollaboration around
Europe
Aims:
Identify telecollaborative practices undertaken by European
university educators
Explore the barriers to telecollaboration and the strategies
used to overcome these barriers
30. Students’ comments on what they learned…
• I've been practising a lot of English. I know how an email conversation is like in English. I realized I
should be less influenced by cultural stereotypes.
• Cross-cultural dialogue skills -negotiation and facilitation skills
• Patience and cooperation.
• My English skills, both speaking and comprehension and some language teaching techniques.
• I have developed the ability to work in a group.
• I believe I‘ve developed my ability to write in a foreign language and my knowledge regarding the
use of ICT in foreign language teaching. I’ve been able to expand my vocabulary.
• Coordination and group work mainly (I was group leader)
• J`ai developpe la capacite de travailler en groupe.
• Je crois avoir developpé mon expression écrite en LE et mes connaissances par rapport à l'emploi
des TIC dans l'enseignement en LE. J'ai pu enrichir mon vocabulaire.
•
31. So why isn’t everyone doing it?
In your opinion, what are the reasons why telecollaborative
exchange is not more popular in university education?
__________________________________
(Mentioned by 49/ 98 practitioners)
__________________________________
(Mentioned by 28 / 98 practitioners)
__________________________________
(Mentioned by 20/ 98 practitioners)
__________________________________
(Mentioned by 19 / 98 practitioners)
__________________________________
(Mentioned by 9/ 98 practitioners)
32. So why isn’t everyone doing it?
In your opinion, what are the reasons why telecollaborative exchange is not
more popular in university education?
Time necessary to set up and run exchanges
(Mentioned 49/ 98 practitioners)
Difficulties in integration & assessment due to institutional requirements
(Mentioned by 28 / 98 practitioners)
Lack of pedagogical knowledge about how to run and integrate exchanges
(Mentioned by 20/ 98 practitioners)
Teachers lack e-literacies/ required technological knowledge
(Mentioned by 19 / 98 practitioners)
Difficulty in finding appropriate partners
(Mentioned by 9/ 98 practitioners)
33. Educators’ comments:
• “From my perspective, having done 5 different telecollaboration projects, I
feel now that they are not good “on-the-side" projects because there is no
time to really bring students' attention to the communication taking place
and the language being shared. All of my projects felt rushed. It was
frustrating, though I will say there were also good things that came of all of
them.”
• „...weil es sehr schwer ist, Partner zu finden.“
• „...weil solche Projekte extrem aufwendig sind (Zeitaufwand,
technologischer Aufwand, Anwesenheit, technische Infrastruktur vor Ort
bzw. Mangel daran).“
34. Challenges for teachers: Connecting classes in
Spain, UK, Germany and Israel
Koblenz
León
Coventry
Tel Aviv
35. Number of students participating:
Spain: 90-100
Germany: 160
Israel: 60
UK: 100
Timeline: Late October – Mid-December 2012
Tools used:
Moodle platform
Blogger
Tasks:…
A Practical Example: Connecting classes in Spain, UK, Germany
and Israel
36. Task 1: Create a blog to present aspects of your local culture and
provide feedback
37. Task 2: Carrying out group interviews based on cross-cultural themes of interest
38. Task 3: Use online content to create academic essays and presentations
39. The Challenges of Virtual Exchange for Teachers- Critical Incident 1
• E-mail from a coordinating teacher during the blog task…
– Hi Everyone
Task one is going well with my students who are really
getting into it. However just to let you know, for the second
week running we have experienced problems with the
Moodle site which just crashes at the beginning of our
session (at about 12.00 German time). This is a real problem
as we can't continue and the students get frustrated....
39
40. The Challenges of Virtual Exchange for Teachers-
Critical Incident 2
• E-mail from the Israeli teacher when the Israeli-Palestinian conflict broke out…
– Interestingly, yesterday I had to deal with a few upset students in a blog
group who were responding to a comment [from Germany] regarding the
war situation, which they felt was insensitive. .
• The German comment:
– …. I can understand that the rockets are very scary and i'm very glad that we in
Germany don´t have war like you. And i think Israel isn't alone in charge for this
conflict. But can you understand the people in Gaza? Is it ok to keep these
people there like in prison ? And why it isn't possible or why it´s so complicated
to find a solution for all the people in your region? And why the people
especially the young don't do something for the international understanding
between these cultures?
So it´s time so sit together, talk and finish this war. And both parties must grant
facilities. Greetings from Koblenz…
40
43. Critical Incident 5
• E-mail from a coordinating teacher explaining lack of
participation from her students:
– ...some of my colleagues have not been very supportive of
this initiative... I was speaking to XXXX about this earlier
today and she told me it had happened to her as well on
some telecollaboration projects.
43
44. What differentiates Telecollaborative Competence from
‘Traditional’ Online Competence for FL Teachers?
• Telecollaboration is inherently ‘intercultural’ – both in practice and in its underlying
pedagogical principles
• The telecollaborative teacher is not alone – usually two or more teachers working
together from different cultural and institutional contexts - requires of the teacher
keenly refined intercultural skills and attitudes of intercultural competence
• Telecollaboration tends to be a long-term, complex activity which permeates the
whole FL course – themes, tasks, classroom interaction etc.
• In telecollaborative set-ups, teachers need to be able to react quickly to emerging
problems, issues and new learning opportunities.
45. The Telecollaborative Teacher…
• Can negotiate effectively with the partner-teacher the structure and
organisational technicalities of the exchange which take into account both
institutional contexts (calendars etc.) as well as the needs and interests of both
sets of participants
• Has a willingness to look for compromise with the partner-teacher in relation to
task design, exchange structure and other issues
• Can integrate seamlessly and effectively the content and themes of the
telecollaborative exchange into his/her contact classes before, during and after
the exchange itself.
• has knowledge of the common causes of organisational and intercultural
problems in online exchanges and can apply a series of techniques and strategies
to deal with these problems
47. An Add-on or Integrated Approach?
• There is a significant difference in educational outcome depending
on whether a teacher chooses to incorporate online classroom
connections as (1) an ADD-ON process, like one would include a
guest speaker, or (2) an INTEGRATED process, in the way one
would include a new textbook.
The email classroom connection seems sufficiently complex and
time consuming that if there are goals beyond merely having each
student send a letter to a person at a distant school, the ADD-ON
approach can lead to frustration and less-than-expected academic
results...
On the other hand, when the email classroom connection processes
are truly integrated into the ongoing structure of homework and
student classroom interaction, then the results can be
educationally transforming.
(Bruce Roberts in Warschauer, 1995, p. 95)
48. • So put your foot in the water!
• Look for partners
• Learn from others
• …and share your experiences…
49. Some questions for discussion:
How would your students react to participating in an online exchange?
How would your institution react? Would there be support for such an
initiative?
What questions come to your mind about how to plan and set up an online
exchange?
50. Thank you…
• Contact:
– robert.odowd@unileon.es
– Publications: http://unileon.academia.edu/RobertODowd
– See this presentation again: http://www.slideshare.net/dfmro
• Read our Report on Telecollaboration in Europe:
– http://www.scoop.it/t/intent-project-news
– INTENT Project news: http://www.scoop.it/t/intent-project-
news
• The INTENT project has been funded with support from the European Commission. This
project reflects the views only of the authors, and the Commission cannot be held
responsible for any use which may be made of the information contained therein.
51. • Other critical incidents – and learning opportunities
• A German student writes this opening message to her new partner in Ireland:
• Hello, how are you? I study English and history at the University of Essen and I want to
become a teacher. This term we do some cultural studies concerning Ireland and I very
interested in it because I actuallly do not know much about it.
• Now I would like to ask you some questions.
Do you live in Northern or in Southern Ireland?
How many people live in your town? Are you a Catholic or a Protestant?
•
I have heard that regular churchgoing declines more and more in your country-is it true?
What are you doing in your free time? Do you often go to pubs? What do you think about
Germans? Irish people have the reputation of being very indirect and polite in their speaking
style. I have read that there was an enormous economic change in Ireland.
•
How have you or your parents experienced the social and economic change in the past 20
years? That's all for now. I am looking forward to hearing from you!