Archive for February, 2008

Lesson plan for 28th February

  • We started module 6
  • Homework:
  • Exercises module 5
  • And the following interactive exercises at New Bloggers:

Thank you Maribel!

lesson plan for 25th February

Once at Cajastur


The story is simple, fresh and real. It is about a love that couldn’t be, but above all it is about hope, about hoping against all hope that your dreams will come true and the music is brilliant!

And we don’t know weather Glen Hansard and Markéta Irglová dreamt of getting an Oscar but they have just won the Academy Award to best original song with “Falling Slowly”. Congratulations!

Thank you Ana for suggesting this great “school trip”!

Use of English Test

We’ll have the Use of English test for the second term on March 10th

We’re going to the cinema on Monday!

Next Monday 25th, we’ll meet at Centro Cultural Cajastur,  Jerónimo Ibrán 10, at ten to eight.

Obviously, we won’t have a lesson at 20.00 but we will at  16.00. You can attend the 16.00 lesson even if you’re enroled at 20.00 (you know that already) and of course if you can make it, it would be great that those from the 16.00 group will join us at the cinema!

Once

This is the Irish film Ana told us about:


http://www.cajastur.es/osyc/acultural/actividades/actividad1326.html (it is about the film)
http://www.cajastur.es/osyc/acultural/ciclos/ciclo81.html

The film is next Monday at 8 in Cajastur, Mieres, it is free until the place is full and it is about 90 minutes long. We can discuss the possibility of going tomorrow.

Education and the Internet

Life has changed a lot in the last years. When I was in high school, the Internet was just a baby, so, I used to study using real books, big encyclopaedias, and I used to do school projects by hand. Only at my third university year did I manage to buy a computer. Until this moment, class notes were handwritten. Now, teenagers think that what is not on the Internet doesn’t exist. The most common way to do your homework is the copy-paste system: I search for it on the Internet, I copy the paragraphs I need and I paste it on a word file. It doesn’t matter whether I haven’t read the rest of the article or whether the web site is trustworthy. I have got a pair of sheets to give my teacher and it leaves me time to watch television. School books are revised by teaching specialists, but, who revises the Internet contents?

People have to learn to learn, that is, we must search things by ourselves. One of the biggest pleasures in the world is reading, but nowadays hardly anybody bothers. I think it is a bit sad. Today, I still prefer to read a book or an article on paper rather than on a screen. I work with computers every day, when I arrive home, the last thing I want is to switch on the computer. I prefer to have a break, to read a book, to listen to music, to walk …
On the other hand, the Internet has been a big amazing discovery. It has been a giant step for society. You can communicate with people from all over the world. There is no distance, if you have family or friends far away, you can contact them trough the net. You can obtain all kind of information and entertainment. Also, many things can be managed on the Internet, so as not to waste time or money. Work management has improved too thanks to the Internet. This English class is a marvellous way to learn as well. It has been an immense help to me. I am learning to cope with the blog and all the good resources inside it. This English blog is a wonderful learning system, and it makes learning English easier for all those that don’t have enough time. I suppose that is a new age in education, and, if it is well-used, it can bring education and resources closer to everybody. But, the question is not to lose your own capability to think, we can’t be spoon-fed for ever. We have the obligation to teach the younger generations the “life outside the worldwide web”.

New technologies and education

Nowadays, the Internet is very useful in many ways in our life. And, of course, so it is in the learning aspect too. New technologies and specially the Internet have changed the students and the teachers’ role.

Now, students have the facility to get almost every lesson done in class entering special pages on the internet; that is, in my opinion one of the most important changes in education thanks to computers. However, I don’t think the situation has changed inside the class, because, most of the times, things are told and explained as always.

Everything is on the Internet, so, when a learner has to do a project, this is the most commonly used method. And, very often, when the student has to give it to the teacher, the work is sent by email or uploaded to a web.

In engineering studies, for example, technologies and computers are so important that almost every subject needs knowledge of a computer program.

On the other hand, I think that traditional teaching will never die, because a computer or the Internet can’t explain, for example, a math problem or a grammar question. And, of course, a good teacher and a big blackboard are the best ways to learn.

The development of technology

Nowadays we are constantly in change. Different cultures, a better way of life and the development of technology have had an important role in this change.

Using technology is very common in our days, everybody has a computer, an i-pod, incredible TV’s or mobile phones that can do a lot of things… People think this development of technology is good, but is it ?

The use of computers in our daily life has brought with it a lot of advantages. On the one hand, we can communicate with people we don’t know, we can search information about everything at every moment or in some cases, computers do the same job as a person.

But on the other hand, we can also think in the disadvantages. For example, communicating with someone on the net is a good way to meet people, share opinions or talk about anything, but with the passing of the years we are losing the traditional way of communication: talking with people face to face without being hidden behind a computer.

Moreover, technology has helped us to have more advanced economies or lifestyles, but it is also making poverty more present in the poorest countries.

In these days, learning how to use a computer is very important, if you don’t know how to use one it is as if you were illiterate.

Since their childhood, kids are being taught how to use computers. Computers are part of our educational life. For example, at university most people have a laptop because they can write faster or share information more easily.

I think it is important to use technology but without losing the traditional ways of communication. Technology has been created to improve our life not to destroy it and it is very important to use it properly.

To sum up, I think technology is a proof of human development and all the things we can do with our intelligence and enough resources.


Learning in the 21st century

Communication technologies have improved a lot in a few years. However, I think people nowadays already know how to live and work with all these new computer services. Maybe the next step would be to look for applications in traditional services as it happened so many years ago with the industrial revolution.

It’s not only how to adapt the education, is how to adapt everything including human relations.

But how can we improve the educational system with new technologies? First thing is to have enough infrastructures for that and after that we need to fix what we need to learn and how.

What I’m trying to say is that is a duty of the teaching professionals to find what is better for students, what is more they should be the first ones to learn how they can apply all these new possibilities in class and in education.

In my opinion today it is easier than ever to find information about anything but not for specialist knowledge. Some people say that today we have too much information so it is more important to know how to choose the essential one. Also I want to say that the car doesn’t bring us the path or the road, we have to find it by ourselves.

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