12 Tips for training older teachers to use technology

There is an assumption that persists in the educational community that more mature teachers are much more difficult and reluctant to be trained on the effective use of educational technology. To some degree, I think this assumption has been...

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Thinking Critically through Digital Media

Although the use of internet and digital materials in the language classroom has come a long way over the last 20 years, still the vast majority of web based material that finds its way into the language classroom is used for information input...

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Managing the digital classroom - Using a backchannel

In my first post in this series - Getting students' attention - I mentioned the use of backchannels. This post should give you more information about the use of backchannels within the classroom.If you are working in a classroom where your...

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Managing the digital classroom - Getting students' attention

Competing with a computer or mobile screen for students' attention can be a challenge at best and at worst extremely frustrating. In this posting I will share some techniques and approaches for dealing with these problems.Ban devices Obviously...

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Creating social phrasebooks with Phraseum

I spend a lot of time looking at different web-based tools and apps and thinking about if and how they can be used for learning. Sometimes it takes some thought and at other times it’s really obvious. With Phraseum it was instantly obvious...

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Two Contrasting Views of Educational Technology

I’d like to share a couple of videos with you that I have used recently in the courses I teach. I find these videos particularly interesting because they show such contrasting approaches to learning and in particular - for want of a better word - elearning.This first one is from the early 1950’s and is about something called a ‘teaching machine’ which...

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How I use social media for my professional development

This has been a common theme to many of the presentations, workshops, webinars and seminars that I have been asked to do over the last few years, but however many times I try to present on this subject I never really feel that I get the message...

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A Tick List of 21st Century Digital Skills for Teachers

I've just been brainstorming digital skills that I believe are required by teachers in the 21st Century. So far I've come up with 45 of them.What's striking for me about this is:few of these skills will have been taught to anyone who trained...

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