Big+Shift.


 * Nowadays, the world has been changing rapidly. New technologies are coming out every day. Students mainly research internet to get information that they need. Internet has become a powerful learning tool. In ‘Big Shift’, Richardson talked about the change of the educations. Shift #2 Many, Many Teachers, and 24/7 Learning and shift #5 Know “Where” Learning are two shifts that will improve the way of teaching and learning.

Because of the internet, the world has become one small village. People can connect with people from the opposite side in a minute. People can send e-mail to each other. People can play a game with the people from the other country. People can watch same TV shows from all around the world. Availability of contacting people from all over the world will be a great advantage fro education.

If teacher opens an online class, the students from other countries can get an access to the learning material. For example, Calvary church at Chula Vista opened online Christian college. People from twenty eight different states were enrolled in this school. Because people can easily access web-site, people will take online classes from other states or other countries.

In global world, people need to learn foreign language for better jobs and for connection with people from other countries. Even in the United States, some immigrants cannot speak English. Therefore, learning foreign language would be good for American even if English is a global language.

For non-English speaking countries, English is the number one language they want to learn. So they hire teachers form English speaking countries like U.S.A or England and bring them to their countries to learn English. TEFL is an organization that provides international jobs for English teachers. They have more than 18000 employers who need English teachers all around the world. UCSD also has TEFL program at the extension.

If many language teachers teach languages in online class, people from all around world who want to learn a certain language will take a class and will learn a foreign language at their home. This will give a lot of opportunity to students, because native speakers in their countries are limited. This will also be money efficiency because teachers do not have to fly to the countries to teach students. With the help of internet, people can connect with people all around the world in one click. People in different time zone can connect through e-mail and blog. In face to face, the space and time are limited. It also takes time to go to the place for meeting.

I live in Chula Vista. In order to go to my school, University of California San Diego, I had to leave at least 40 minutes before the class starts. If the class stars at morning, I have to leave one hour early because of the traffic jam. Sometime, it is hard to concentrate because hundreds of people are sitting in the same classroom. if I was sick and could not go to the school, I would miss the lecture for that day. Since most of the students are driving, it is hard to find parking space. Most of the time, I have to park outside of the university and have to ride a school shuttle to get into the school. Like theses, going school requires some sacrifice of time and money.

In contrast, online class is not limited to time and space. All students need is a computer and internet connection. They can choose time to study. If the students were not morning person, they can study at evening or night instead of sleeping in the class or skipping the class. They also save some time. in the school, students need to go to the school to attend lecture. It takes time and money for car gas. For online class, all they need to do is to sit in front of their personal desktop or laptop and go to the class website.

Like it is easy for students to attend online class, it is also easy for teacher. The teachers in east coast can teach students in west coast. The teacher can set a meeting time for students who need a lot of help. Students might send a e-mail if they have a question about the lecture. Teachers can take a video of their lecture or make some visual aids like picture for students. Teachers can show them over and over as long as the visual aids are valid and good.

Since teachers can easily teach students, teachers can teach more people or they can devote their time to something else. Also, more people can attend the class, because the space is not limited.

Students can get a help from various teachers because it is much easier to contact, and teachers are more available for students. They can ask a question anytime they need because teachers with various time zones can answer to questions or students can wait until teachers give the answer.

Being able to contact with many teachers is a great advantage because teachers have different types of learning technique. Every student is different. Some students might be good at visualizing. Other students might be good at memorizing. Therefore, the answers for different aspect of teachers will help all students. Having many different types of teachers at anytime will be a great advantage for students. People can access internet anywhere. It is easy to get information they need and it is fast. At school, students memorize textbook materials in order to get good grade in the course. They have to memorize to take a closed book test. However, they would forget what they learn and memorize in one year unless they keep studying in that field of subject. For example, I took a lot of social science classes like world history and geography, but I have not remember anything about history and geography except really basic ones like where Africa is and who discovered the America. Also I took Spanish class for one and a half year for my general education. I got A and B in the class, but all I can say and understand is hola and gracias. Because it is most likely that students will forget what they learn if they did not keep studying, it will be more effective to learn how to get the information they need. Knowing where to find information is likely simpler. Students will not forget these easily because they are simple.**