Day 11: And times they are changin...

How do you envision your teaching changing over the next five years?

     You can't stop progress. There it is. Do I want to? Yes, sometimes. The breakneck speed at which things move in the world today can really scare me. Maybe it's because I am turning 50 and I can't figure out where all those years have gone. Or maybe it's because a new app for a new thing comes our every five minutes (or every minute). Whatever the reason, my teaching has been changing along with everything else.
     And it will continue to change. I had an interesting discussion with a student today, when I asked her whether technology encourages or kills creativity. We went back and forth and ultimately decided that, of course, it depends on how you use technology. Clearly technology will never go away, so in my teaching I should continue to embrace it and find ways in which students can use tech to learn more, be more creative and waste less time.
     Google classroom will have a huge impact on my teaching. I've only been using it for a week and already I can see the positive aspects of it. Less and less paper will have to be used, but I won't be able to go completely paperless, unless the IB does the same.
     I also see myself becoming more and more of a facilitator than a teacher. My experiments with flipping the classroom have shown me that the most useful way for me to spend my time is when I can give each student time for one on one conversation on a regular basis. Setting useful language practice tasks, web-based projects or on-line reading comprehension etc. makes it possible for me to give all the students the oral practice they deserve, while the others are still engaged and learning. 
     With all the material that is now available online, it will be me my students come to when they need guidance. I have to weed out the bad and steer them toward the useful. Ultimately, it's so great to have the world at your fingertips. When I was learning a language in High School I had virtually no access to authentic material. Now it's everywhere. But some of it is nonsense, badly made or just plain wrong. 
    The message for us teachers is that we just need to keep moving. This may be a little harder for us, older folks, but in the worst case scenario, when tech goes magnificently wrong, I, for one, know that I can always rely on the help and support of my digital natives. Or I can just make them read a book...