Education for the 21st Century

How we need to re-think pedagogy

Heidi Hayes-Jacobs is an American educator, who in this clip maintains that we are still teaching within 19th century conditions, using low-tech materials (pen and paper) in a standards-driven climate that cannot prepare students for jobs in the 21st century and beyond.  Curriculum design is currently based on the assumption that learning is taking place and assessment serves to validate this by measuring achievement.  An upgraded curriculum should be mission-driven, reflecting the new literacies (digital, global and media-related) and be immediate and authentic in order to respond in real time to any gaps or repetitions.  Jacobs is an inspiring speaker and I particularly like her comment "people do dumb things with smartboards". The most important thing with digital tools is knowing how to use them in a way that adds value to the learning experience.   If I'm being honest, I currently only use technology to enhance presentation: a PowerPoint is more vivid than a whiteboard, and YouTube provides entertaining clips to give students an experience upon which they can reflect and subsequently work with and build on.  I use these resources to introduce new vocabulary, model pronunciation and demonstrate intonation and stress - but these are all forms of presentation.  Entertained they might well be, but are the students are still just passive recipients?   The new generation of learners live in a world where social networking prevails and they are comfortable with this form of communication and able to make immediate use of new, innovative technology and web-based applications.  The challenge for the language teacher is to align new technologies with theories of language learning. This blog will evaluate different tools, considering both the practical aspects and the benefits they offer to the language learning experience.