Below is a great little summary of what QR (Quick Response) codes are and how a teacher can use them in the class. Although our example teacher below is mainly focused on Primary School teaching, the activities and suggestions she has are great ideas for ESL classes (for both children and adults). QR codes were designed in 1994 by the Toyota (Ferré, 2017) and were mainly envisaged to contain data to point to a website or a tracker for stock taking and distribution. They have a wide variety of uses in ESL/EFL classes as a teaching or learning technology. A teacher could record or share audio, video, images, PPoint files, PDFs, and share links to suggested research locations. Other uses include using them to set up interactive learning games and activities in the classroom, setting homework, providing answers and providing students access to reviews and other study projects. You can download a QR scanner as an app for most phones although the latest phones have technology to pick up a barcode straight from camera-mode and then convert the code to the relevant web-link.
The Padlet’s gives the trainee teachers an overview of the entire course with useful links to each of their units. I like to use the idea mapping styled format option called “canvas” on the Padlet a la Tony Buzanwho was the innovator of the “mind map” and utilised the technique as a study and mnemonic facilitator (Buzan, 2019). Although the Padlet is by no means as rigorous as mind mapping, it still allows the student to get an overview of the course with hyperlinks to information and their relevant assessments via a link to their Moodle-Based Learner Management System (Moodle, 2019).
Students can publish their questions/research and benefit from the exchange and/or get involved in the conversation therefore, becoming a community of practice (Lave, 1991). Howell also notes the original description of this form of collaboration, that is a ‘community of practice’ and summarises it as “a process of social learning that occurs when people who have a common interest in a subject or area collaborate over an extended period of time, sharing ideas and strategies, determining solutions and building innovations” (Howell, 2013, pp. 33-34). The advantage of technology is that the TESOL students, who are situated all over Australia and in numerous foreign countries, can use the Padlet as a discussion board as an Online Community of Practice, or virtual community of practice into their learning program.
The following video by Jamie Keet of Teacher’s Tech gives a great overview of how to use Padlet in the virtual class=sroom (Keet, 2016).
Being born in 1978 means our generation went on quite the wild ride of technological discovery as we were growing up!
We fit that generation of people who don’t know if they are Generation X or Generation Y. We’ve rubbed shoulders with the Baby boomers and the Millennials… I guess it has placed us in a unique time-line as far as experimentation with technology is concerned.
For instance, despite growing up in a relatively analogue world, technology soon stormed into our lives.
As Video Cassette Tapes invaded the living rooms of the western world in the late 70s and early 80s, we were the ones who were asked by mum and dad (or the neighbours) to tune the VCRto the TV so they could change channels through the VCR player. These kind of requests likely came after sunset, the universal home-time for kids, as we would play in the yard or street or park until dusk. But technology was creeping in… for one, we lived to see the Video shop industry go from VCR to DVD and then to little kiosks in shopping centres and on street corners.
We saw the populism of the Commodore 64 and later played Amiga 500s with our friends after school. Apple Macintosh Computers followed us into Primary school. We were the ones who played “Where in the World is Carmen Sandiego?” in technology classes and later in High School the Encarta CD-ROMblew our minds… To be honest, when I first fired up the Encarta CD-ROM with my classmates as young 13 or 14 year olds we were very, very impressed with the embedded videos, music, and clickable links… I mean even the intro was something we had never imagined!!! Of course, prior to those years, the pride and joy of a household bookshelf was a recent collection of leather-bound or hard cover Encyclopedia Britannica.
Along the journey we also saw the development of video game consoles as they went from cartridges, to disc and now to online gaming and/or vitual reality and motion-sensitive gaming. Our pre-teen generation coincided with the release of the Atari video games consoles; this means that the Xennials have been in for the entire journey of the “1st to the 8th” generation of consoles; yet we still played classic arcade games like Space Invaders or Pac-manor pinball with our uncles and aunties or older siblings!
If video games weren’t your thing and you were into music, then I’m sure fellow “Xennials” remember making mixed cassette tapes and playing them on Walkmans which later turned to portable CD players (Discman) in high school and then MP3s and I-pods later when we were at university and in adulthood!
The Xennials have been counted by some as a micro-generation. Dan Woodman, an Associate Professor at the University of Melbourne seemed to have some influence on the term’s popularity. His article touches on other aspects of a Xennial’s place in the grand scheme of generational momentum and shift (such as how we think, act and talk) but technology and it’s use (or non-use) appears in his article too i.e. using technology to date, the emergence of mobile phones in our teenage years (Woodman, 2017).
It all makes for a nice little trip down memory lane, yet upon reflection it really was a wild ride of technological discovery wasn’t it? I personally am happy where I came on in in the stream of time.
Are you a Xennial? Do you have any more generational technological changes/memories that come to mind? I would love to hear them?
The site is presented in the form of an interactive and interconnected mind-map where a user can click on links and then gain access to specific information related to learning and teaching technologies.
For example, if you go to the map and then clink on the node entitled “course design” it takes you to an extensive range of technologies compatible with this topic. Suggestions that appear which can be applied for the purpose of academic course design are technologies such as: Black Board, LinkedIn, Padlet, Evernote, Powtoon among many, many others. Clicking on the sub-links will give you access to information about each of these technologies, how to access them, and further links to their support services.
Although I am familiar with some of these resources, I have been inspired to further investigate and see how they can be integrated into my current TESOL practice. In particular, LinkedIn seems to have added many more features since its inception as a professional networking device and has clearly made strides in regards to being used as a teaching and learning tool.
Thank you Griffith University and their Learning Futures team for this treasure trove of information and inspiration!!!
This blog makes up part of my ‘community of practice’ as an Adult and Vocational Education professional (Bates, 2014) and is a lifelong learning reflective practice tool (Rushton & Suter, 2012, p.20)
I have recently completed a Bachelor of Adult and Vocational Education and Training with CSU and have been a TESOL teacher for 20 years. After just under 5 years teaching in South Korea I moved to the Gold Coast and entered the ELICOS industry (ELICOS stands for English Language Intensive Courses for Overseas Students). After a couple of years teaching ELICOS I got into ELICOS management as a Director of Studies/Academic Manager for two different colleges based on the Gold Coast. After that, approximately 7 years ago, I ventured into the Vocational Education and Training Industry as a trainer of TESOL.
These days I train online Certificate IV and Diploma of TESOL as well as teach ELICOS a couple of days a week to maintain my industry currency. I aim to use this blog to record ideas and knowledge I glean in relation to learning and teaching technologies. I aim to use this subject and the ideas of my fellow students to enhance the online learning platforms that we are currently using to train TESOL students as well as to present ideas to my TESOL students for teaching English as Second/Foreign language online.
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