BLENDED LEARNING IN

HIGHER EDUCATION

PODCASTS AS A CASE STUDY

ANA OTTO

UNED/UEM

TEACHING WITH TECH AIDS Getting students engaged with learning,

focused on working smarter, and ready for the future

Deepening and enhancing the learning process through:Active engagementGroup participation/collaborationFrequent interactionFeedback

USING PODCASTS IN HIGHER EDUCATION

Using communicative facilitating e-tools – Podcasts- for:

- not only as a platform for effective listening resources but also for

- PRACTICING AND REINFORCING ORAL SKILLS.

WHY?To make the most of students’ autonomy

as life-long learners

MAIN POINTS CALL (Computer-Assisted Language

Learning) AIMS OF THE PROJECT BLENDED LEARNING IN TERTIARY

EDUCATION SOCIAL CONSTRUCTIVISM AND ITS ROLE

IN BLENDED LEARNING DESCRIPTION OF CAMBRIDGE LMS THE PODCASTS OUTCOMES AND POSSIBLE LIMITATIONS CONCLUSIONS

COMPUTER-ASSSISTED LANGUAGE LEARNING as a means of: promoting and facilitating motivation

among learners; allowing open access to teaching/learning

materials that would be inaccessible otherwise either on a physical format or on a temporal basis;

allowing access to a range of materials organized around a method and a program;

assisting and enhancing cognitive diversity so as to meet different learning styles.

AIMS OF THE PROJECT to evaluate the fundamental role of Web 2.0

social software in the Touchstone Pilot Program;

to emphasize the importance of community formation when involved in online learning;

to state that the constructivist principle of collaboration is at the basis of all learning processes;

To demonstrate that community building is recognizable and visible through participants’ discourse behaviors;

To highlight the role of the teacher as an e-educator or e-facilitator.

WHAT IS BLENDED LEARNING? the design of a learning environment from the

viewpoint of how the delivery of learning materials to the students is best accomplished by a variety of means available, be they technological or non-technological in nature. By choosing the appropriate vehicle for the student to access the learning content, a number of different strategies are used to provide hybrid learning environments. Thus, blended Learning is closely related to Distributed Learning and Flexible Learning, both key concepts in higher education in order to promote student-centered form of teaching and learning

LEARNING MANAGEMENT SYSTEMS

Important elements of blended learning platforms allowing teachers to include and create learning content and provide this to our students. With the help of LMS classroom teaching can be supported and enhanced in modern language learning

WHY BLEND IN HIGHER EDUCATION?

Bologna and EEES directions on providing non-traditional students access to higher education (family responsibilities, jobs, etc.)

Reduced face-to-face hours help them manage time more efficiently

online component of a blended course enables students to access the materials any time of the day and review the contents as needed (flexibility to the learning process)

BEST PRACTICES FOR ICT IMPLEMENTATION Integrate multiple media; Facilitate and/or negotiate students’ periodic

outcomes; Provide a channel for feedback and

assessment; Encourage discussion, consultation and

sharing; Allow access to a wide range of information; Be flexible in when and where learning occurs; Question whether the activities required in the

task can be done “without· Information Technologies (IT). (Towndrow and Vallance, 2004)

SOCIAL CONSTRUCTIVISM AND BLENDED LEARNING

CALL as an Integrative discipline emphasizing:- task-based learning- content-based learning- project- based activities/scenarios as to

integrate learners in authentic social contexts and to promote real communication among individuals.

CHANGING TRADITIONAL ROLES Student as creator of learning who is

responsible of his/her own learning in active ways

Teacher as a mediator/facilitator of laguage (not the sole source of language input)

IT tools as a facilitator to the various uses of language

NUNAN’S SOCIAL CONSTRUCTIVISM

Individuals create meaning through social interaction resulting in knowledge being socially and culturally constructed.

COLLABORATIONOne of the most important ways by which learners acquire language with the help of tech aids

- learners working together to achieve a common goal, usually the completion of a task as in real-life situations

- it encourages both social and thinking skills and mirrors the way in which learners often need to work outside the classroom

THROUGH COLLABORATIVE WORK STUDENTS Learn about their own learning process,

and consequently, they learn better; Increase their awareness about the target

language and about themselves; Develop meta-communicative as well as

communicative skills; Confront the conflicts between individual

needs and group needs; Recognize that decision-making tasks are

genuine communicative activities; ABOVE ALL, USING LANGUAGE IN

AUTHENTIC WAYS

IMPLEMENTING TOUCHSTONE Student’s Book Touchstone online (which mirrors the

Student’s Book) Online Student Workbook for extra

practice with the same learning outcomes per unit and a lesson as in the Student’s Book)

Interactive Whiteboard Software USE OF CORPORA providing a model for

teaching in real-life contexts

USING PODCASTS FOR BETTER SPEAKING SKILLS Training students in better speaking

skills as one of the biggest challenges in language teaching

Students not aware of their mistakes while teachers constantly correcting same mistakes

ERROR CORRECTIONDoes not necessarily benefit from teacher

correction or students being constantly exposed to input:

Viswanathan (2009) “any training proves effective only when it provides authentic input and creates an opportunity for the trainer to make use of what is learnt”

SO…only when learners become aware of their

mistakes they can possibly fix them and try to “update” a new version of the corrected form. - productive skills- writing and speaking- students need to confront their own mistakes by listening/reading them if we want them to become fully conscious of their limitations and its possible solution.

MEDIATION ACTIVITIES AND LANGUAGE COMMUNITIES

the building of a language community as one factors that can help students overcome their reticence and initial fear when it comes to speaking the foreign language. Podcasts as one of the tools placed under the category of communicative facilitating e-tools, i.e. software that facilitates output and promote interaction among students and teachers.

VOICE TOOLS IN TOUCHSTONE A useful application which allows you to

record your own voice when you feel ready to answer a question or a homework activity set by the teacher.

  Once students have recorded their answers

they can post them into the LMS system for both students and teacher to see it.

The teacher can listen to the students’ recordings and offer them feedback about their performance during the activity in terms of fluency, accuracy if necessary and the vocabulary they used.

OUTCOMES OF THE STUDY It can integrate video and audio in ways that are not possible in

traditional materials; It has more practice and hyperlinked support available on electronic

devices as well as it offers he possibility to use one’s own mobile phone or smart phone to record one’s voice;

It helps students speak, respond and react and even personalize the language in ways that can be motivating to everyone;

It creates animated presentations to support the Grammar Charts, Conversation Strategies, Speaking Naturally and Vocabulary Notebooks as well as it brings the ‘ In Conversation Corpus ‘ to life;

It enables students to record their voices and compare with model speakers;

It has students do video role-play and creating interactive conversation simulations;

It has students interact and join collaborative projects as they need to listen to their peers, and assess them in qualitative rather than quantitative terms. However, we teachers tried to make them aware of the effort it takes to record a Podcast episode and thus, the need to be respectful and polite while evaluating their fellow students.

PODCASTS REINFORCING Scaffolding

Learner support

Language recycling

Language consolidation

Enhancing student participation and fostering both cognitive and social skills as it addresses affective factors

POSSIBLE LIMITATIONS Despite the ‘Digital Divide’, sometimes students had to

be given very clear orientation on how to register, create a Podcast and/or upload dialogues using the Voice Tools.

Students had to be motivated to respond to the process of recording their audios and to perform without any inhibition;

Sometimes, students complained about Podcasts and other online activities being too long for them to complete at home;

In asynchronous environments, it was sometimes hard to maintain students’ motivation so teacher contact proved essential in order to prevent a lack of interest;

Some teachers commented on the LMS being slow at times which made it difficult to check students’ Podcasts episodes before attending face-to-face lessons.

CONCLUSION students participate more frequently with the use of Podcasts

when compared to the methods in traditional classrooms; It offers different combinations of software and materials to

account for different learning styles as appropriate to different skills;

it fosters both cognitive and social skills as well it addresses affective factors and students’ individual differences;

It promotes active, collaborative construction of knowledge instead of knowledge transfer from individual to individual;

It engages students in contextualized authentic tasks as opposed to abstract instruction;

It creates scenarios appropriate for building hypotheses and fostering critical and strategic thinking;

For more feedback on the students’ comments visit Revista conecta2 UEM http://conecta2.uem.es/numeros/15/articulos/excelencia#207

“Young people learn best when it’s

relevant to them, when there’s social connection tied to it, and when they actually have a personal interest.” (Mimi Ito, cultural anthropologist University of California Irvine)