My first (and last) teaching position at Oxford University

  The view from my classroom at Oxford Uni 
  Originally uploaded by Edublogger.

OK, not quite true. In about an hour I'm speaking to languages teachers at Languages World, run by the Association for Language Learning. It's at the University of Oxford's examination schools, with signs everywhere informing me that I am not to take photos. Well, I did. Maybe they're called disruptive technologies for a reason ;-)

As I wondered down past University College and all these bastions of knowledge (I passed the house of the guy who invented to microscope and therefore saw the first cell) I felt that it was slightly cheeky to be informing people here, of all places, that content was no longer king, but that connectivity and social space were.

I'm hoping to show quite a large crowd that emerging technologies work better than just 'ICT' - because emerging technologies lead to emerging practice, where consumption of the textbook and cassette become less important than the creations of students themselves. It's only when we try things out (and sometimes fail) that we can hope to find a way to build on what we are doing (assuming, of course, that what we're doing in the first place is any good - Shimon Peres might have a word to say on that).

Hopefully this year might lead to a few more teachers take many more risks for better results and happier kids learning languages. Notes to follow along with poor old Shropshire's.

Comments

[Lisa]

One year on from this post, I've rediscovered it as I searched for notes from last year's seminar at Language world for my blog post on this year.
I am one of those teachers you hoped for to take more risks and embrace technology - inspired by your example!! Thank you so much for starting me on this exciting and exhilarating journey. And I'm sure my pupils would thank you too :o)