Final Reflection!

Yes, time goes by very quickly. However, as Einstein states” time is relative”. Throughout the semester, with lots of assignments and deadlines, I was longing for its end and the holidays and it seemed that the time had stopped and wasn’t moving. However, now it seems like it was yesterday when I wrote my first post as a part of this course assignment. Though, today I am not writing the second one, but the last one.
Every time I use the word “last” I feel sad even when it’s about the assignments. However, in this case I know that it’s just the last post for THIS course, as I am going either to continue using this blog as more personal one or create another one, where I will share my thoughts and ideas not only related to teaching and learning, but also my other interests and worries…
I am really very glad and thankful that I had the chance to take the “New Technologies in TEFL” course because now I feel more informed and updated. Nowadays, it’s difficult to imagine any sphere of our life that doesn’t have anything to do with technologies. And, as I have mentioned several times in my previous posts, technology is developing way fast and we indeed have to be very attentive and cautious so as to be informed, not lack behind, walk by this road along with others and not feel ashamed.
Now, after taking course, I may be surprised to know that someone doesn’t know about Google apps, second life, Digital Media, Blogs and many other technologies yet. However, three months ago I didn’t know much about them myself!
I have indeed learnt many new things. I am not sure whether I will implement all of them in my classes in future however I am sure that I will try to implement more than the half of what I have learnt. And I have already started using myself many of those “new technologies” that this course has introduced to me. The whole course has influenced on the way I live and think now. The articles we read, the in hand practice that we did on each technology we covered influenced my daily routine greatly.
Now, when I open my notebook, besides going to iGoogle, I also go to my Google calendar, I search for new and interesting links, get informed via RSS feeds, think of creating a personal blog and think more creatively, I hope. I would prefer having this course again, but not to learn the same things once more but to learn more technologies, as I believe there are lots of other opportunities that nowadays technology provides us with, however, we, at least I, may not be aware of.

Google Apps and Cloud Technologies

Source: http://www.hongkiat.com/blog/google-apps-for-beginners/

Google has become my best friend during the previous 3-4 years. Every day I wake up, open my computer, press on the home button key and my best friend appears in front of me- iGoogle.

Google has made our life easier, I am not sure whether it’s good or bad because now I don’t overload my memory with different information, as when I want to remember something or learn a new thing, find a definition of a word or whatever it takes me two or so minutes to find it… 

However the amazing thing about Google is not limited to its search engine possibilities it has many apps which make our life even easier. I’ll speak about the ones that I use very often and also the ones that I’ve learnt from this course.

First of all I would like to mention Google scholar. Besides the EBSCO, Eric or Jstor, which are very famous journal article search WebPages, I use Google scholar very often as well. It helps me to find the necessary articles very quickly. The next app that I use quite often is Google map. I use this app whenever I want to find a place in Armenia and around the world as well. It was new for me to learn that this tool can be also used for educational purposes. According to Sarah Ring (2011), the teachers can use Google apps before going to a field trip, or when learning directions in class etc…

Another widely spread Google apps is the Blogger. Blogging has become part of people around the world recently. People from business world, education, engineering, news, fashion, arts, sport, any sphere you can imagine, keep their own blog, where they share their thoughts and ideas. Blogger is also widely implemented for educational purposes. Teachers make this amazing tool part of their syllabus and this way they use it for teaching and learning purposes. I myself started using the blogger as a part of my assignments, however I really want to either create a new one, or continue this one and share my thoughts and ideas other than related to teaching and learning. Because in life there are many situations, problems, funny things and just ideas that you want to share.

I also want to talk about Google docs. I am so happy that I have learnt about this amazing tool and indeed it has already become part of my life. I use it both for my studies and just for sharing information as well. It’s a great place to collaborate with others. The only thing that you need to have is a Google account and internet connection.

The RSS feeds help you to be connected to others’ blogs and be updated about the fields you are interested. Google image search, Google book search enables people to find what they want. Another great app is Google calendar. I wasn’t using this app before but now I have started using it and now I am not afraid to forget any upcoming event, deadline or a meeting.

There are many other apps which Google offers to its’ users and the only thing needed from us is to be informed and take the advantage of having a computer, internet and Google!

However, whatever you do in the internet, whichever page you access or whatever activity you start doing does is not “very private”. Meaning that all you actions, want it or not, is automatically saved somewhere. This somewhere is called “cloud computing”. Without pressing any save buttons all your actions are stored in a place which is not visible. This YouTube clip http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=88ysB-EKA9U helped me to spread light the idea of cloud computing, however it wasn’t very clear to me unless one of my classmates brought an example. She said “ it’s like renting a territory to keep your possessions”. It is not like someone else’s computer, and it’s not like that nobody can see your actions. However it’s safe and easy way to keep your files, logs and information which you may need someday. 

Learning and Academic analytics

Source: http://www.davidmartindesign.com/services/website-statistics-analysis/index.html

 All my previous posts during this term were about the new technologies applied in the education. The new technology that I am going to introduce can neither be seen nor touched (Long&Siemens,2011), It is the Big data and the analytics.

According to the McKinsey Global Institute big data is a “dataset whose size is beyond the ability of typical database software tools to capture, store, manage and analyze.” The data collected is huge and is indeed “Big”. Big data is valuable for governments, corporations and higher educational institutions.

 The analytics, on the other hand, can be divided into two subcategories: learning analytics and academic analytics. The 1st International Conference on Learning Analytics and Knowledge identified learning analytics as a “measurement, collection, analysis and reporting of data about learners and their contexts, for purposes of understanding and optimizing learning and the environments in which it occurs.” Academic analytics refers more to business intelligence in education and emphasizes analytics at institutional, regional, and international levels.

That is to say, the learning analytics reflects the data of a specific learning, whereas the academic analytics presents data analysis at an institutional level.

Although the articles that I read were very clear in explanations of these tools, however it wasn’t enough for me realize its importance both for a learner and the institutional organization. The class discussion spread light on this topic for me. We did an in hand review of the analytics and played with the possibilities that the learner and the organization may have by accessing its analytics. It turns out that once you have access it is very easy to see everything which is done in the web page. For example, in our blogs, we can easily see how many viewers we have from each country. If you have the access to a certain webpage you can see where the visitors click first, where they click next, how long they stay in that specific web page etc. This possibility is very valuable and important as you can organize your page accordingly. Meaning if you see that a certain application or room is very popular among the visitors you can bring it in the front and make it bigger. The ones that are not visited much you can put in the end etc.

So analytics plays a great role in any organization and we, as an ordinary users of the web, should be aware of this tool and use the opportunity to see the actions done in our WebPages.