Several parties are about to start their election campaign for the Bundestag elections in Germany this autumn. As a matter of principle, education is a matter of the federal Länder. However i was wondering, if there is any party which particularly supports new media education in schools?! How does the current state government (Länderregierung) support new media education? Who am I supposed to vote for..? Just kidding…

2nd Question:

As a matter of fact, new media education fails, not only because of a lack of financial support. Oftentimes, teachers are not qualified enough to use new media tools efficiently. How does the school system support teachers, who want to get involved in new media education and who want to learn how to put new media tools into practice.

I hope the question are not too difficult to answer, because even though questions seem be easy to answer, it may become embarrasing:

One central component of the Masivukeni project is the Island activity. The Island activity is an interactive tool that describes the improvement or decline of a patient’s health by using an animation of a man or a woman on an island surrounded by water. Depending on the health status of the person the water level sinks or rises. In this way, patients are informed about their health status. It may sound cynical to use the metaphor of being “in deep water” to inform people about their health. But just like other African countries, South Africa has had a disastrous AIDS policy; the majority of the South African people have either a bad education or no education at all, which explains why so many people in South Africa do not see HIV as a deadly disease. Therefore, education is necessary and in my opinion simple images can have a major impact, so that people start to think about their health, accept the disease and are able to deal with it, supported by projects in their communities such as Masivekuni.

I chose this project, because I have been to South Africa and Namibia, where I talked to people about the desease and I saw what they do to prevent people from getting infected. HIV is a major problem not only in South Africa, but also in other African countries and as a matter of fact, many people get infected, because they don’t know enough about HIV. Therefore, education projects such as Masivukeni are important, since education is the best preventative measure.

Cheers,

Jakob

Englisch Klasse 5 und 6 and English II are the two programs that were to be analyzed by our group. And I say right off the bat: both programs are disappointing. But to be honest, I did not expect anything else, since they are approximately 8 years old, which means 45 new media years.

The two programs are quite similar in terms of design. Both have a real-life environment as a starter. English II is made up as a virtual library, where the user can click on certain objects, such as books, in order to start with the different tasks. Englisch Klasse 5 und 6 starts with a virtual terrace, where a click on different streets leads the user to different sections of the learning program. As I said earlier on, both programs were quite disappointing, mainly because they are too old and not up-to-date at all. Just like they didn’t match my expectations, they won’t match the expectations of any other student or teacher. Today, students are spoiled by the rapid development of new media technology. Therefore, they won’t be satisfied with a learning software, which is more than 8 years old. I mean, let’s be honest: would you use an 8-year-old computer? Of course you wouldn’t and therefore students would not be attracted by any of the two software programs. I can’t really give a definite to the question, whether I am going to work with learning software later on as a teacher.

I think, the learning software has to have an appropriate content and it has to be up-to-date. Unfortunately, I haven’t worked with brand new learning software yet. But at length, the important question is not, whether I am going to work with learning software later on. The more important question is: Am I going to work at a school that spends money on new media technology and is willing to spend money on updated learning software.

As you can see, three general topics are emphasized on the poster: communication, presentation and research. Each category can improve multicultural and cooperative learning, if it is being used in an appropriate way. By using new media tools, students are able to contact other students from abroad (communication), they can easily gain information from the internet about other countries and cultures (research), and they can keep others on the loop about their experiences and their learning process by using weblogs, pod casts, or homepages (presentation). In my opinion, these ideas are visualized on the poster in a nice way.

I know: Self-praise is no recommendation, but I was actually a member of the group and I think we, as a team, managed the task incredibly well… *Ahem*…

Let’s have a look at the design of the poster. A nice arrangement of different colours makes the poster a true eye catcher. Moreover, the mind map is structured in a lovely way and all the main parts of it are well-arranged. The amount of information is kept to a minimum, so that the poster, as a visual stimulus, contributes perfectly to the explanation given by the presenter.

Furthermore, almost all necessary features are covered. Yes, almost. Due to the lack of space on the small poster, we decided not to mention the aspect of new media being a motivating learning tool. At length, we tried to focus on the aspects, that we considered to be the most important ones. One can argue, that the headline could have been divided into two parts: multicultural learning and cooperative learning, but I think this would have gone beyond the scope of it.

One thing I like about the poster is the design of the headline. Yes, it’s a boomerang. If you think, we were forced to write a warped headline, because we had no space left, than you’re wrong, ok? You’re wrong!!!

As a matter of fact, we did the boomerang design on purpose to emphasize what education has to offer. The boomerang serves as a symbol: what you put in may come back to you. That means, if you make the effort of trying to get to know another culture, you might gain great and important experiences from it. In this respect, we tried to transform Newton’s law (actio = reactio) into…uhm…let’s call it Klafki’s Law: effort = experiences.

Or for as Jasmin Wagner (ex-Blüchen) would say:

I know, the song is in German, but it’s a tune!!!

Cheers,

Jakob

Well, I can’t be asked to talk about why new media is important when it comes to education. Therefore, I just want you to have a look at this video about a project called “The New Media Literacies“. Those fellas tell you why new media education is important! 

That was weird indeed, but I think you got a main impression why new media is important in today’s education. But the question I would like to discuss is: Why new media in foreign language education?

New media technology offers a wide range of opportunities in foreign language education. But what is important when it comes to learning another language? In the following, I am going to focus on four main foreign language competences: speaking, listening, writing, and reading.

When I was young (I know, that makes me sound very old), the new media was barely used in our foreign language classes. Once in a while, my teacher brought a cassette or a CD to show us French or English songs, that we were supposed to work with.  In order to work on my pronunciation, I used a language laboratory at our school. It was actually just a room with three 3 cassette recorders.  Yes, I practiced my pronounciation by using a cassette recorder. A cassette recorder! I am not joking. If you go to a private school in England today and ask a student what a cassette recorder is, he or she would answer: “Uhm… oh yeah! Isn’t it some Mediterranean kind of food..?”

    vs.      
 

 Today, students use the modern version of a language  laboratory  which includes computers, microphones and  headsets. A student  can listen to the voice of a native  speaker and then repeat the same  word or phrase. The  teacher can easily connect with the student’s  computer,  listen to what he or she is saying and can correct the    pronunciation if neccessary.

Whereas the language laboratory focuses on pronunciation, the internet offers many opportunities to practice speaking, reading and listening skills. To improve these competences, instant messengers such as ICQ or Skype can serve as tools. By using these instant messengers, students are able to communicate with native speakers from all over the world, e.g. from partner schools in France or England. They can write, listen, and even talk to each other. 

As we all know, most of the young people like to play video games. If you manage to find a video game which is not only educational, but also popular among teenagers, you can kill two birds with one stone. The Sims 2 is such a game. It is a life-simulation game with a huge number of fans all over the world. It is said to be “the answer to television shows like ‘The Real World’ and ‘Big Brother’” (Herold; New York Times; 2004). If you want to find out more about The Sims, just click on information!

Imagine 10 students living together in a virtual world and interacting together as a group – in a foreign language. Interacting with each other not only reinforces the four competences (reading, writing, listening, speaking). Mostimportently, the entire game is in the target language and students tend to accept it. They avoid translating from foreign language to their mother language. In this way, they start to think in a foreign language making direct neural connections in their memory center. And finally, let’s keep in mind that it’s a game and it’s fun. Students want to win the game; they want their characters to have the best job, the nicest house and the most exiciting life. In this respect, students are motivated to learn. 

However, using the new media in foreign language education is not as easy as it sounds. Teacher’s training needs to focus on an appropriate use of new media technology, because new media in foreign language education is the future.

We, the young generation of future teachers, have to get involved in new media education and we have to have  the courrage to use new media technology in our class room. If we fail, this might be the result:

But this won’t be some wanna-be-Perez-Hilton kind of crap – no, I do this for the good of mankind. From now on, I will hook you up with some random entries and bore the pants off you, with my senseless page filling pseudo intellectual vomit.

You may ask yourself now: Why is he doing this? Isn’t it a waste of time?

I can assure you: It’s not. Maybe I was a bit exaggerating earlier on, when I said this is all for the good of mankind. Let me be frankly honest with you: It’s all for the good of a Schein.

Cheers,

Jakob