Improving Education by Incorporating Technology: the Universal
Challenge
Teachers writing their essays on Nuclear Proliferation;
(right to left) John Seckel, Oksana Rodionova from UG (The Teachers’ Gazette), Dmitri
Klimentyev, Nina Koptyug.
When John Seckel, coordinator of teacher programs for the American
Councils in Russia, phoned me in Novosibirsk to ask if I would agree to have a seminar for
Russian teachers organized “around me”, I immediately said “Yes”. True, it was an
offer which made me shake inwardly. To lecture and instruct my colleagues, all of them TEA
(Teacher Excellence Award) finalists; to conduct a two-day intensive course on the
premises of the Russian Federation of Internet Education (FIO); to speak about
“Improving Education by Incorporating Technology: the Universal Challenge” while using
that same technology is a great responsibility. It is also a challenge, and a chance to
share information which is perhaps the most valuable commodity today. So, while John was
busy with the organization of the event, I began to compose my lectures, or sessions. We
corresponded with Dmitri Klimentyev, who was also invited to this seminar to do an
intensive instruction course on Web resources, and to present his wonderful multimedia
interactive teaching aid based on the Voice of America Special English programs.
On April 17-18, a group of 27 teachers got together at FIO in Moscow,
and we started our course. Since I know from experience that it is better to begin with
general information and then gradually go on to the practical part, I devoted the first
session to the international organizations which are there in virtual reality hyper space
for us. IEARN, International Education and Resource Network (www.iearn.org) has been in existence since the early
1990’s. In 1993, representatives of five countries, among them the USA and Russia,
attended the first annual IEARN conference. In the year 2000, there were 64 countries.
Today, IEARN is the biggest global organization of teachers, which involves educators from
all over the world. A conference on using Internet in education is held annually in a
different country. This coming July, it will be held in the Netherlands. As a dedicated
IEARNer of long standing, I fully support the main principle on which this global
organization is founded: Making a Difference in This World Through Education.
We traveled all over the site, I spoke about some major projects, which
can be seen at IEARN Web pages. I also showed the way I arranged most projects in which
Lyceum # 130 in Novosibirsk, where I work, participates, at Lyceum # 130 home page www-eng.sch130.nsc.ru, Projects. Laws of Life,
student essay project; Learning Circles; Kindred; The Local History; Lewin; The Sense of
Caring… These are all old friends to me. The main aim of my talk was to show my
colleagues how to make any project an integral part of the school curriculum, of one’s
own academic plan. Teachers are overloaded as is. I believe that in the 21st century,
Internet and technology in general should not be used, or regarded, as something
“extracurricular”. They can and do become an intrinsic element of EFL teaching and
learning, something which we should learn to use automatically, like we use tape
recorders, VCRs, visual aids.
When I was finished with the history and illustrations, my listeners
asked if I could conduct a master-class on any project. Indeed, this was a surprise which
I had ready for them: Jennifer Geist, a US teacher, was doing her Nuclear Proliferation on
Earth online discussion that week. I told my audience about it, and asked them to perform
a small home-task for the next day, that is to write a short essay on the theme. Next
morning, we opened up the relevant IEARN forum, I showed everybody how to take part in
such an event, and we posted our group essay. Needless to say, we adults are worried about
nuclear proliferation, and we expressed our views on how to control the spreading of
nuclear weapons.
John Seckel took lots of pictures during our sessions, and I e-mailed
some of them to Jennifer. This kind of online work shows the possibilities of technology
in a classroom better than any lectures and explanations. I believe that now, after our
seminar, any of the attending teacher knows how to go to IEARN Web pages, how to choose a
project which is congenial to them, and how to make it a part of their own plan.
If one encounters problems, there is the Teachers Lounge, where any
teacher can post questions or discuss their difficulties. IEARn News Flashes regularly
publish the information about all the new and ongoing projects, as well as contact
information for project coordinators. In addition to that, one can send all the questions
to IEARN support group. As a project coordinator and facilitator, I get many questions and
requests for help, it is all in a day’s work. When my listeners asked how and where I
managed to find the time to answer all the e-mails, I gave them a very succinct answer
which elicited understanding smiles. “Just use Copy – Paste”. What I mean is, most
beginners encounter the same difficulties, so I keep a file with answers to FAQs in my
work computer. What happens when I have problems myself? Well, I just step out into
virtual reality and holler. Someone is sure to hear me and come to my aid.
Another organization which offers a lot of opportunities for teachers
who are interested in making technology part of their life is the European Schoolnet, EUN
(www.eun.org). It was created at the very end of the
1990’s and has expanded rapidly. Russia is not a very active participant in EUN programs
and projects, in fact, Lyceum # 130 is about the only school registered there. Still,
there are lots of projects and contests which may be interesting for a Russian teacher, in
addition to resources and news.
Naturally, I spoke about several sites which are oriented specifically
towards solving teacher problems, those which offer methodological help, and which offer
various ready-to-use resources. I would like to emphasize that every teacher today may
find plenty of useful sites on the Web. The important thing is, not to drown in the ocean
of information. One should be able to choose whatever sites seem comprehensible and easy
to use – and use them! For me, Teaching English, supported by BBC (British Broadcasting
Corporation) and BC (British Council) (www.teachingenglish.org.uk/)
has been a good friend since the time it appeared a few years ago. If you feel in need of
methodological help, go to THINK pages. There are articles on any and every aspect of our
work, from How to Measure Advanced Students Success to Discipline Problems. Teachers from
all over the world post questions and receive answers to them; if you are the one who
comes up with a difficulty today, you could be the one who helps others tomorrow! If you
feel that your textbook and other resources are not enough, you may wish to use TRY pages.
There are lesson plans, work sheets, Quizzes on any topic. If you feel that you would like
to have more contacts, click on Contact Us.
English To Go, ETG www.english-to-go.com
is another useful site which was created in 1998. You may subscribe to ETG and obtain
access to the whole database of ready-to-use lessons based on Reuters articles, as well as
Grammar and Vocabulary resource pages. Or you may prefer to subscribe to a free lesson a
month, and just to check the site for news. For example, every year, ETG conducts WLL, the
World’s Largest Lesson of English. You may see the past lessons even now, just go to the
site and click on the icon on your right, download the lesson, read about its sponsor Sir
Paul McCartney. After that, do not forget to register for the annual World’s Largest
Lesson to be held in November, 2006. Every participating teacher and students will get a
Certificate of participation. If you write a review, take some pictures and e-mail them to
the editors, you will see yourself and your team on the WLL pages! I have been using ETG
since day 1 of its existence; many times, a lesson which I could either print out or
simply download and use at a lesson in the computer lab, has saved my day.
All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy, and it makes Jane a dull
girl, too. For the second session of day 2, I prepared a short lesson which helped
everyone relax and have some fun. We went to one of my favorite sites, www.123greetings.com. It offers e-cards for any
occasion. Even when the current day is not a holiday, there may be unexpected treats, like
Cheeseball Day, which we discovered waiting for us on April 18. When one clicks on the
e-card offered, it simply suggests that we say “Cheese!”… and e-mail it to anyone we
wish. My group had fun creating cards and e-mailing them to friends. I explained how I use
this site as a teaching aid for such topics as Family, Pets, Holidays, Customs and
Traditions, as well as Technology Today.
As a kind of bridge to the main topic of Dmitri Klimentyev’s
sessions, I showed my own multimedia interactive presentation based on my lesson “The
Man Known to Everybody”, published by “1 September”, English supplement, # 6, 2006.
Since this is a relatively new medium, we agreed that one of the main difficulties is
inventing ways of sharing this type of lesson with colleagues worldwide. It is possible to
teach educators how to create such teaching aids. Spreading out our experience is another
matter. I sincerely hope that some ideas will develop if I manage to attend the upcoming
educational conferences, since a conference on Internet in Education is a wonderful place
to share ideas and problems with colleagues.
Dmitri Klimentyev from Kursk State Pedagogical University, Russia,
began his afternoon sessions with information about various resources. He explained how to
find pictures, essays, audio and video pages, how to download them and how to use them in
the classroom. When I first listened to him talking at the seminar in Pokrovskoe in
January (see “1 September”, English, # 6, 2006) and saw his CD presentation of lessons
based on Voice of America programs, I was impressed by the innovative use of technology
shown. Dmitri downloads audios from Special English programs (voa.specialenglish.com),
finds pictures to accompany his own lesson plans on sites like (altavista.com). These
sites offer a lot of materials to be used for free, as long as one gives them credit for
those. Then Dmitri explained how, together with his students, he puts together various
materials and turns them into a ready-to-use lesson. When watching his presentation again,
and working with his lessons, I could not help thinking how wonderful it would be if every
teacher of English who wants to, and can use technology in the classroom, could have such
a teaching aid. Imagine that you have just one manual which offers you texts, grammar
exercises, pictures, audios, videos, which is interactive and more exciting than a
computer game, all of that on one CD, ready to be inserted into a computer and used. All
of the things you need at your lesson, just a click away! Just by using the CD at my
lessons and studying it at home, I taught myself some of the technical tricks which I did
not know before, or maybe did not think about previously. This is a very important and a
very rare quality of a teaching aid: it makes the teacher learn. Naturally it requires,
first, a very good and enthusiastic instructor, whom we were fortunate to have in Dmitri.
Second, it requires that the instructees, in our case a group of very experienced
teachers, should be open to new ideas, and sufficiently savvy in using English and
technology as instruments of teaching and learning. We were privileged to teach such a
talented group, and then to share ideas and thoughts.
When our seminar came to an end, everybody present received gifts from
the American Councils and the English Language Office. Many teachers expressed their
sadness at the news that TEA program is now closed, which means that American Councils
will not sponsor such events in the foreseeable future. All of us felt that we would like
the Russian Ministry of Education to organize such seminars and conferences for teachers
regularly.
By Nina Koptyug
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