My Thought of Instructions with Technologies for Middle School Classrooms

As mobile devices have become more accessible to middle school students, so has their potential to be resources in the classroom.  Mobile devices are small, portable computing devices that usually contain WI-FI, Bluetooth technology, and GPS capabilities.  They can be cell phones, smartphones, portable game consoles, tablets, or small computers. All of the technologies have applications in a middle school classroom.  However, it is not the technological tool that is important, but the instructional approach. However, a change in instructional techniques must change as our students change.  If properly used by excellent teachers, these technologies offer new ways to motivate and fully engage middle school students for life-long learning applied across the curriculum. Another goal for many schools across the curriculum is to become paperless.  Using gadgets, students can use cloud computing to store and turn in work to create a paperless learning environment.  Cloud computing also allows students to continue working at home with an Internet connection without lost papers or forgotten work.  Digital textbooks also help schools become paperless and can be augmented by digital portfolios. In addition, students can take more interactive, annotated notes in class using mobile apps while interactive whiteboards facilitate classwork to be posted online as pdf’s.  Although some applications of these technologies can be for almost any teacher, some benefits of these technologies are content specific.

My Thought Of Online Social Media Applications for Language Teaching & Learning

I think teaching using the internet or computers is a great thing. It's about engaging with people using a medium or platform in which they relate with. I remember reading a while ago about a company that was creating a game modeled around historical events. Students would learn by playing a character in the story. They could be Napoleon, a British soldier or the Queen. This level of interaction is fantastic! I wish I had this type of learning when I was at school. I also think though that the internet is now much more than an information source, it is a vast social network of people communicating and collaborating, so what better place could there be to learn, practice and use language. There are even some dedicated networks set up so that language students can share and exchange both their culture and their language and enjoy communicating with each other.

Blended Learning

Blended courses (also known as hybrid or mixed-mode courses) are classes where a portion of the traditional face-to-face instruction is replaced by web-based online learning. Blended learning as a course where 30%-70% of the instruction is delivered online. While this is a useful guideline, it may not be sufficient to cover every blended learning configuration. Blended learning is also used in professional development and training settings, as it can be used to translate knowledge into a particular skill that is useful and practical for a specific job^. A lack of consensus on a definition of blended learning has led to difficulties in research about its effectiveness in the classroom^.

Blended learning can generally be classified into six models:

• Face-to-face driver – where the teacher drives the instruction and augments with digital tools.
• Rotation – students cycle through a schedule of independent online study and face-to-face classroom time.
• Flex – Most of the curriculum is delivered via a digital platform and teachers are available for face-to-face consultation and support.
• Labs – All of the curriculum is delivered via a digital platform but in a consistent physical location. Students usually take traditional classes in this model as well.
• Self-blend – Students choose to augment their traditional learning with online course work.
• Online driver – Students complete an entire course through an online platform with possible teacher check-ins. All curriculum and teaching is delivered via a digital platform and face-to-face meetings are scheduled or made available if necessary.