Wednesday, 4 March 2009

Talking e-learning


At a New Tutor training session last week I talked to tutors about the use of e-learning and how some of the tools we have could be used for initial assessment. One of the attendees told me I had a wonderful job - and she was right. Two tutors were very taken with the potential of voice recorders and took them away to use in their Family Learning and ESOL groups. I look forward to hearing how they get on.

One of the most rewarding parts of my job is when people come back to tell me about their successes with the use of e-learning and yesterday I had a very excited Lesly Andrew who had just used an EEE PC with one of her learners. I won't say any more as Lesley has promised to post on this herself.

I look forward to introducing yet more tutors to the equipment as part of the CTLLS course on Saturday.

Please continue to post about your successes here - it's great to hear your stories.

3 comments:

Peak said...

re: voice recorder

I was one of the students that borrowed the voice recorder. Found it very easy to use (without needing to read the manual accompanying it), small, clear and extremely useful. It was my first lesson in the course and they were new students with limited English so I wasn't sure whether they would feel inhibited being recorded. They loved it! Especially the replay for instant feedback. It gave me a good idea and record of their level of spoken English and felt very subtle in the background. Recommended

Anonymous said...

Peak - welcome to the blog and thank you for letting us know how you got on with the voice recorders. I had a request from 2 of your colleagues at CCPA - working in Cheltenham and I think we will shortly need to invest in some more of these really useful tools.

Gill said...

Peak, your comments say it all - I think our concerns that our learners may feel uncomfortable are sometimes unfounded, especially when they can get instant playbaok.

Whereas the benefits to language classes are clear, I'm hoping to see some adventurous tutors working in a different curriculum area having a go with them - there must be great apps for IT tutors, say? Like having your tutor talk through a process of, say, moving a file in My computer, or maybe a reassuring voice to encourage me that it really is ok to delete the Temporary Internet Files from time to time!