The adoption of TECW in the foreign language classroom has been inspired in part by the 5 C’s of Literacy and Literary Skills Development, namely: Conversations, Community, Collaboration, Creativity and Connection (Griffith, Simmons, Wong & Smith, 2012). Through this blog, I, as an individual am attempting to start a dialogue with interested parties, my local teaching community, and the wider international teaching community, about alternative, creative ways of teaching. By harnassing digital technology, I am able to connect with teachers far and wide, share my ideas, recieve feedback and suggestions about best teaching practices, and so on. It is this mutual appreciation, mutual learning, essentially, peer learning and assessment, that allows me to thrive and develop in both a personal, and professional manner.

In the same way, I hope to duplicate the success of my own social learning, by establishing a similar environment for my students. Future Learning Landscapes: Transforming Pedagogy through Social Software by McLoughlin and Lee (2008), reminds us that technology is influencing individuals in new and different ways, allowing us to “… contribute, communicate, and collaborate using a variety of tools that empower them to develop and share ideas.” Indeed, this is the very inspiration for this TECW blog. The article goes on to suggest how to harness the power of the internet to match the needs of students. “Tools like blogs, wikis, media-sharing applications, and social networking sites can support and encourage informal conversation, dialogue, collaborative content generation, and knowledge sharing, giving learners access to a wide range of ideas and representations.” In this way, I plan to include such digital tools in these TECW lesson pans.

In terms of ‘personal publishing’ (Downes 2004, 18) I write a personal blog about teaching and learning, whose functions allow me to invite others to follow me and make comments. In this way, I’d like to organise a class blog for my future students and pass on the opportunity of dynamic, peer-to-peer learning. Connectivism, the process of creating a network of personal knoweldge, leads to interdependence, sharing ideas and learning from others. It is “…a world that links minds, communities and ideas while promoting personalization, collaboration, and creativity leading to knowledge creation”. This links back to the 5 C’s mentioned above, and the key activities students should be engaged in, in order to maintain critical thinking skills. All of this I have in mind as I create and share my TECW lesson plans here.

References

Downes, S. (2004). Educational blogging. Educause, 39(5), 14-26. Retrieved 7 June 2015, from http://www.educause.edu/ero/article/educational-blogging

Griffith, M., Simmons, D., Wong, W.L., & Smith, S. (2012) 5 C’s of Literacy and Literary Skills Development: Conversations, Community, Collaboration, Creativity and Connection. In M. Brown, M. Hartnett & T. Stewart (Eds). Future Challenges, Sustainable Futures. Proceedings ascilite Wellington 2012. (p371-375).

McLoughlin, C. and Lee, Mark, J.W., (2008), Future Learning Landscapes: Transforming Pedagogy through Social Software. Innovate: Journal of Online Education: Vol 4, Issue 5, Article 1.