My reaction towards Mrs. Olena’s Digital Tools in Language Acquisition webinar by David Corrales

Undoubtedly, Mrs. Olena Bilozenova’s extensive list of websites for language teaching and learning will take a while to try and find out which are more suitable for our specific activities, but in the end it will be worth the effort, I know.

However, I’d like to focus on two specific things she said. First, the pencil metaphor; I think I’ve met at least one of each type, and it’s really disappointing to know that some teachers (the eraser and the ferrule kind) actually reject change by giving all kind of excuses like: I’m an English teacher, not a computer engineer or there’s no furniture in my school, much less computers or if I give my students a computer and they break it, then I will have to cover the damage because as usual they don’t have money. But the worst case scenario is when these teachers don’t do anything for change and on top of that, they complain, criticize and underestimate the work of their peers. It’s a shame.

On the other hand, I consider myself being between the wood and the sharp ones. I mean, coping with computers and software is not that challenging, but finding the time to do so is. Just like preparing flashcards, posters and puppets was. Let’s be honest, making a puppet or typing an online quiz is time consuming. Time that many teachers don’t have or are not willing to give for different reasons (because they have a bunch of paperwork to do or just because they want to play with their children when they are home, both valid reasons). But when you are given the right type of motivation (like paying a few tens of thousands for a university course), then you miraculously find a way to do and somehow enjoy this sort of high-tech mediated activities in the classroom.

The second thing that called my attention about Olena’s speech and I quote: "We believe in the value of sharing, sharing in order to connect, multiply and enhance the potential of our members". This basically means that we are not alone. It’s not like we are going into uncharted territory. Others had made efforts, others are making efforts and others will make efforts for the benefit of all the cyber-community. So, let’s share the little we know with the world and take whatever is useful from the world to bring into our classrooms and be the change. Let’s get involved more, what do we have to lose? Instead, we have a lot to learn if we want to survive in this digitally-connected era we are part of. Learn from one another, even from our own mistakes. If we do so, we would eventually evolve; by learning, doing and growing together.