New online course! | 21st Century Skills Training

     

“The most important thing about a technology is how it changes people.” 

 Jaron Lanier

        Hello everyone. Welcome back. I've been quite busy for a couple of weeks now since my school started. I've been working part-time, continuing my education at university. Now, I have this course that I'm excited to tell you about. This is a course for pre-service teachers on developing 21st skills. In our technology-driven world, we need certain skills like media literacy, critical thinking, information literacy, creativity, etc. Each week (for six weeks), we'll focus on one skill, in the end, we are going to work in groups to create a website based on our experience. Each week we'll read articles on previously chosen topics and answer reflection questions. We'll have additional tasks also. Also, I'll be posting on my progress as I've done for almost 1.5 years here on this blog.

        In the first week, we focused on critical thinking skills and English as a global language. We all had taken The California Critical Thinking Skills Test (CCTST) before the course has started. I've never taken any critical thinking courses. Taking the test and analyzing the features of critical thinking on Zoom sessions was very helpful for me. I realized that I didn't think enough about subjects before acting upon them. Not that I didn't know how to analyze and interpret but I wasn't looking deeper into the subjects I'm trying to prove, understand, and narrate. Collaboration and cooperation skills were also mentioned in the sessions. These skills are vital for our new technology integrated lives. This pandemic showed us that we must grow as an individual. However, we also need to participate in groups. Leaving the work-life aside where there is a hierarchy among workers, students had to learn how to operate, think critically, evaluate, program, analyze, and create in pandemic conditions. Thereby, we've understood that critical thinking done in a cooperative and collaborative environment with qualified individuals is going to show us convenient and positive results.

         We moved on with David Crystal's article called "Why a global language?". We've already answered questions before the session and we discussed them together again. We focused on the power of the English language and how it's formed. Understanding the formation process led us to think about what other languages can be global in the future and what would it take to be. We discussed important issues: dialects, accents, and the owner of the English language. It certainly influenced me to speak about these issues in my classes. What is right? Is English the best? Which English the best? What about the grammatical and phonological rules? Are there any rigid rules in the English language or any other language that people speak? We are still answering these questions every single day. And I wanted to discuss these topics with my students. They were encouraged since they cared about their pronunciation, their grammar while trying to speak. I think we shouldn't force unrealistic and thus unnecessary standards for our students. And funny to say this topic opened up a new one: "What is standard English and do we need a standard English?" We agreed on a need for Standard English in education to set a common ground. However, differences are highly respected and wanted in learning and using English which creates a term called World Englishes. 

        There is a video that we've watched before starting the course. I remember watching it before. David Crystal is giving a speech on the English language and global languages. You can check it if you want.

    I'll post more about critical thinking and the idea of global language in future posts. For now, I'll say goodbye to you. Take care of yourself and don't forget to wear a mask.