Welcome to the class! We will be exploring concepts about ed-tech and tools which will enable you to use ed-tech in your EFL classrooms.  

The MoE's "Enlgish Portal"

Please be aware of the English Portal at the MoE, which has important information for Israeli EFL teachers and many good resources. This includes information from the Mafmarit. Please note that this site will probably not be used in this course.

Why "Google Sites"?

One central question at this point is: Why are we using a "Google Site" as a major platform for our course? The answer is that it's a model for your own in-classroom use. Using a Google Site in our course is an exercise in praxis: you will learning it by using it and at the end of the year you will make one. (Don't freak out. It's easy!) 

A Web site is a great place to store content material for students and then present this material (including links and embedded tools) in one place that the students (and their parents) will be easily able to access.  Google, as well as many smaller companies, have offered free Web site construction and hosting services; but given Google's size, its tendency to gobble up competition, and the inter-locking nature of its range of free services; using Google Sites seems to be the most effective and secure decision. Even if your school offers you the use of an LMS (Learning Management System;  like Google Classroom, Moodle, Blackboard, etc.), you are in control of your content in your personal Google Site. You don't have to wait for the IT guy to allow you into your site. In addition, if you change schools, you will be able to take all your content with you (with the exception of material whose copyright contractually belongs to the previous school).

In addition, the skills needed to create a Google Site are similar to those needed for Google Classroom and other LMSs, so future learning curves will be easier. Furthermore, by learning how to use (and create) Google Sites, you will be able to explain to your students how to create their own Google Sites, full of English text, audio, and video. Like almost all the smaller tools we deal with in this course, you can hand Google Sites to the students to motivate them in producing meaningful English for a real audience. 

So here the praxis is potentially multi-levelled. You will learn grad-school content material by using a Google Site and in the process learn how to create your own Google Sites. If you like Google Sites, you can teach your own students content material with this platform. In addition, you can encourage them to create their own Google Sites full of English at their own linguistic level. In theoretical terms, you will become Vygostky's "care-givers," helping your ELLs into their ZPD (Zone of Proximate Development) by providing them with Krashen's i+1 level of English input. 

Supplementary Content Material 

Finally, please note that most of the pages in this Website have optional material and additional sub-pages. You can access these sub-pages by clicking on the arrows on the menu, next to the number of the page. These additional pages have interesting additional content material and occasionally required material for homework. (This additional material may be a good place for thinking about your seminar paper for this course.)

This Homepage has a supplementary page introducing your instructor and a page about alternatives to PowerPoint, something not covered in any of the lessons in the course. 

Enjoy the course! Now click here to go to Lesson 1.

James Backer, Ph. D.

drjamesbacker@yahoo.com  

Click here to learn about Dr. Backer.