Talk given at Share Convention, Buenos Aires, September 2012

1. The English Language Crystal Ball: the Past,
Present and Future of Technology in ELT
Paul Woods Regional English Language Advisor,
The British Council, Argentina

2. The Past
The evolution of classroom technology
1890 1890
1870
1925 1925

3. 1951 1958 1959
9
1980 1985 1999

4. Pace of change….
• We are living in exponential times
• In 2 years time there will be early adopters using
devices for teaching and learning that we don’t
even know about yet
• In 10 years time handheld devices will largely have
replaced books
Clip 1 wmv
Clip 2 Google
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PHmwZ96_Gos

5. Making lessons fun by 2090
“Teachers will not be replaced by technology, but
teachers who don’t use technology will be replaced by
those who do”
~Sheryl Nussbaum-Beach~
The students in this generation and especially future
generations will demand teachers who can teach them with
methods they know and understand. That inevitably involves
teaching with technology.
Clip 3 Robots in 2090
http://www.xtimeline.com/evt/view.aspx?id=457939

6. The Classroom of the Future
The teacher will use a portable work station that can move
around the room.
Students will also have portable work stations.
The classroom walls will be covered in large screens giving
access to visuals. The walls will also provide magnetic, writing
surfaces for learning activities.
Each student will have a digital device such as an ipod touch or
laptop computer for responding to and asking questions about
presented visuals.
All schools will have high band width internet connection. The
rooms will be energy efficient and make the best use of natural
resources.
http://www.xtimeline.com/evt/view.aspx?id=457946
Classroom
of future

7. By 2025 Digital Media Will Replace Print
and Analog Media
Newspapers are not as popular as they once were. They are
being replaced by online newspapers. This trend is
happening to books as well. This trend will continue and
classrooms of the future may not have traditional textbooks.
Media in future

8. The shoal effect
“The shoal effect comes from
observing nature: the path of
each fish is tied to the
movement of the next fish, they
all move at the same time and in
the same direction. Just like
social networks.
Communication takes place
between friends”
Juan Carlos Ortiz, President of DDB Latina

9. The shoal effect
Consumers analyse the
experiences and opinions of
others and obtain information
through their digital social
networks; in other words
consumers are deciding as a
group to go toward or move
away from specific content.

10. Current Trends
and Innovations

11. Eight Innovative Trends
(1) Rise in learning platforms
Publishers
Authentic
Teacher-produced

12. (2) Publisher-produced software
• Your Text here
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13. (3) Apps & M-learning

14. M-learning

16. British Council Apps
LearnEnglish
Sports World

17. LearnEnglish Sports World

18. (4) The flipped classroom

19. (4) The flipped classroom
• teacher-created vodcasts
• more time interacting
• classroom/homework paradigm is flipped
• students take responsibility
• teacher is not the "sage on the stage", but the "guide on
the side"
• absent students don't get left behind
• content archived for review / revision
• students are engaged
• personalized learning
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2H4RkudFzlc

20. (5) Interactive whiteboards
Upside Downside
• Memorable presentations
• Better review – flipcharts
• ‘Saveability’
• Range of digital materials
• ‘Always on internet’ – JIT
teaching
• ‘cost’
• need to calibrate
• ‘interactivity’
• Promote teacher-centred
approach
• Pedagogical value?

21. (6) Exam Speak IELTS
Clip http://www.examspeak.com/# Examspeak

22. (7) Blogs
Upside Downside
• Easy to set up / free
• Encourage global
audience for learner work
• Wash-back on accuracy
• Does everyone
contribute?
• Does the teacher correct
student work?

23. (8) Wikis
Upside Downside
• collaborative
• process writing
• ‘history’ to see changes
• not intuitive
• not everyone wishes for
peer correction

24. Teacher Networking

25. Teacher Networking

26. Teacher Networking

27. Teacher Networking

28. Teacher Networking

29. Teacher Networking

30. Teacher Networking

31. Teacher Networking

32. Teacher Networking

33. Six degrees of separation
Frigyes Karinthy (1930) “Chains”. It’s a small world.
Every human is connected to every other through a chain
of six or fewer known elements.
Adrian Underhill - connectedness as a way to make sense
of “mess”
In a world with 7 billion inhabitants, all the signs seem to
indicate that we are all still connected at only 6 degrees of
separation.
• This means individuals take ownership,
• Students are participants in their own learning
• They share information and learning activities with others in their
networks.

34. The Not-So-Distant Future
The Universal Translator Communicator™ provide instant
spoken translation in a pocketsize
system.
Simply speak, type, write or
use Communicator’s touchscreen to
select the words or phrases you
want to translate.
WithCommunicator you both see
and hear the translation. It’s that
simple, instant spoken translation.

35. • Your Text here
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adipiscing elit, sed diam nonummy nibh
euismod tincidunt ut laoreet dolore magna
aliquam erat volutpat. Ut wisi enim ad
minim veniam, quis nostrud exerci tation
ullamcorper suscipit lobortis nisl ut aliquip
ex ea commodo consequat.

36. The Not-So-Distant Future
Speechgear
…..as you speak to the system, it repeats what
you are saying in a different language and
generates a transcript of the conversation..
No interpreter, dictionaries, or being constrained
to a limited number of phrases. No "click a button,
say a phrase, click another button, wait for the
translation", with Interact you just speak and as
you are talking you will hear the translation being
spoken
Translator in China
http://www.youtube.com/user/speechgear#p/a

37. The Not-So-Distant Future
58 different languages.
Translates words, sentences
and web pages between any
combination of supported
languages.
Goole says it hopes to make
information universally
accessible and useful,
regardless of the language in
which its written
Google translate

38. Robot Teacher
http://mindshift.kqed.org/2011/
04/my-teacher-is-an-avatar/ Robot teacher clip

39. Name of presentation
• Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetuer adipiscing
elit, sed diam nonummy nibh euismod tincidunt ut
laoreet dolore magna aliquam erat volutpat. Ut wisi
enim ad minim veniam, quis nostrud exerci tation
ullamcorper suscipit lobortis nisl ut aliquip ex ea
commodo consequat.
• Duis autem vel eum iriure dolor in hendrerit in
vulputate velit esse molestie consequat, vel illum
dolore eu feugiat nulla facilisis at vero eros et
accumsan et iusto odio dignissim qui blandit praesent
luptatum zzril delenit augue duis dolore te feugait
nulla facilisi.

40. Jarod Lanier
• You are not a machine, you are a person; even
the coolest machine imagineable is not human,
even if—maybe especially if—it is designed to
make you think that it is; representations are not
the same thing as that which is being
represented; consciousness and relationships
with each other set us apart
• The Turing test is a test of a machine's ability to
exhibit intelligent behavior. A human judge
engages in a natural language conversation with
one human and one machine, each emulating
human responses. All participants are separated
from one another. If the judge cannot reliably tell
the machine from the human, the machine is said
to have passed the test

41. The Bouba Kiki Effect
Which of these shapes is Bouba, and which is Kiki?

42. Mapping the Internet
In some ways the
growth of the internet,
by a factor of a million in
just a few years, is like
the big bang that
created the cosmos.
The big bang expanded
creating its own space
and time in which it
could move into.
Likewise cyberspace is
exploding into
cyberspace and creating
cyberspace as it
expands. (BBC)

43. Uruguay – Plan Ceibal
• Every child in government schools has an OLPC laptop
• Videoconferencing tele-presence technology is being used
by the British Council to teach children in primary schools
using remote teachers based in Colombia, Mexico,
Argentina and The Philippines
• High quality teaching by specialist English teachers – for an
hour per week, supported by classroom teachers with little
or no knowledge of English who give practice lessons for 45
minutes twice a week.
Claudia Brovetto

44. Uruguay – Remote Teaching using OLPC Laptops
Local classroom:
• TV screen showing
remote teacher
• Lesson materials shown
via Webex
2-way video & audio
Remote teacher
using video-phone
Joint lesson
planning
Students with
Classroom
laptops
Local class
teacher
managing activity
Remote
teacher

45. Inside and outside classrooms in Uruguay
• A typical English classroom
• A video made by a class teacher in
Uruguay after the first three remote
lessons
• Using the language communicatively

46. The Uruguay project is like a journey…..
Clip paul.woods@britishcouncil.org.ar