New Blended Learning: a case for online blended
Breaking the compromise between individualization and convenience

Brief Intro to Traditional learning:

In the past, the most trusted way to learn was by going to a school, or have a teacher come to the location of the student. That is what we call the traditional learning. The main advantages are that the classes are individualized and built around the students’ needs, level, speed of progress and more. However, this requires students and teachers to be present in the same place at the same time, with the disadvantage of commuting for both the teacher and student, physical space management (which is often a very large expense for schools) and location constraints since a student can only choose what is offered nearby and you can only study during times close to business hours. Also, students are restricted to a limited selection of teachers or schools within a reasonable distance from their homes / workplaces.

On the other side, we have asynchronous learning: which could be the book bought at the airport, audio lessons, text books, audio or multimedia and more. This is learning which can be done anytime, anywhere, at the student’s own pace.  One of the largest problems with the asynchronous learning though is that it’s not individualized or personalized, as it’s built to suit a large mass of students. It lacks therefore the critical interaction between students and teachers

To solve this trade-off between individualization and convenience, educators have tried to combine both: offering students face-to-face lessons and using one of the asynchronous learning resources for self-study.

The downside of this kind of blended learning is that they are not built together. Therefore combining them ad hoc often requires the compromise between the interest of the asynchronous content provider and that of the synchronous school or educator. The result is a learning experience with good base resources, but one that does not reach the full potential of the publisher and the educator.

We have all learned this way, by going to schools, universities and always having at least one textbook for every class. The new generations now are even lucky to have e-books and avoid those memories of back pains and huge backpacks…

The new blended learning:

As broadband and VOIP penetration keep increasing, the internet brings new solutions that were previously not possible in the area of education and e-learning, fully integrating the traditional and asynchronous learning into a New Blended Learning.

To explain more on how it works, we will use the real case example of Myngle and Instituto Cervantes.

Myngle is Europe’s leading multi-language online school, offering 45 languages with 200 highly selected and trained teachers out of a pool of more than 6.000 applicants. 95% of students rate their classes as excellent, which proves that live online learning works.

Instituto Cervantes is backed by the Spanish foreign ministry and provides extensive Spanish online learning courses with officially recognized certificates. With over 20 years of experience developing courses, Instituto Cervantes has proven to be an excellent asynchronous learning material.

The combination of two very different education companies is what makes it interesting:

1 – Myngle, provides individualized online lessons, with 100% flexibility, since students can choose their teacher and time to learn. But, as a language school, it is not a content publisher.

2 – Instituto Cervantes provides proven high quality content and officially recognized certificates, but this content lacks the personalization to really fit to the specific student’s needs.

By Myngle joining forces with Instituto Cervantes, the student can have the best of both: individualized lessons and live practice through Myngle built on the content from Instituto Cervantes, and with diplomas recognized worldwide.

To make this learning truly blended, Myngle teachers went through a special training made by Instituto Cervantes based on its content. With that, the publisher and educator work hand-in-hand to ensure that the content is used in its fullest potential and the student has maximum learning results. The goal is to achieve high effectiveness and efficiency.

The results:

Feedback from students and teachers that took part in this pilot is very positive.
Students feel more comfortable and confident learning and speaking, as they see that they are progressing in their Spanish fast, and are therefore continuing to the next levels.

Some teachers see that they can offer not only a successful foreign language learning solution to their students, but also use their own experience to create the best possible learning experience. This achieved through  personalized live lessons and through creating additional content adapted for the lessons.

The Future ahead

If we look at the future of the New Blended Learning, we see that there are some short term issues and questions which still needs to be addressed for an efficient use of this new solution.

•    From the educators’ perspective:

Teachers will have to find their role, as this new learning solution requires a different approach than the traditional methods. The main question is whether teachers will take an active role, bringing their expertise and helping shaping the new courses, or they will simply follow, and use what’s offered to them.
Publishers will also have to adapt their role as content developers. So far, the content provided by publishers focuses only on either synchronous or asynchronous. Publishers’ main contribution usually stops once the content is produced and distributed, giving the teachers and schools the responsibility to become familiar with their content.

•    From the students’ perspective:

Main issues here are related to the use of technology and adoption of new technology solutions.
Computer phobia – many students don’t feel comfortable enough using the technology in such an intensive way, and may take some time to get used to it.
Minimum infrastructure requirements – students taking live online classes will require a fast broadband connection with hardware capable of handling voice and video (optional) communication.
Set-up learning curve – going inside a school and taking face-to-face classes is quite familiar to everyone; however having the same experience through a web service where the student must navigate to book his/her own classes (and reschedule) can be complex for some.

Looking at the longer term future, some strategic questions for all educators will need to be tackled in order to make it a lasting success and a new standard in education

o    What is the role of the teacher in online blended?
o    Does asynchronous format need to be rethought?
o    What is the role of the traditional school in a fully
online environment?

We welcome the input from all educators here regarding these issues and what they see as the real ’future’ of language education.

Dear Mynglers,

I would like to invite you all to participate to the Virtual Round Table conference.

It is a 3-day live online conference which takes place on 25-27 March (Fri/Sat/Sun) 2011. It is all about “language learning with technology” and it is a completely green conference since no-one has to travel to attend.

Myngle being the leading online school in language education, we will be making a presentation about The New Blended, you may join us here.

For a complete program see the following link.

Some of the highlights are:

5 plenaries/ panel discussions on ELTons, EVO Session, aPLaNET and m-Learning
an Adobe ConnectPro and a Second Life strand
18 presentations (30min)
16 workshops (1h)
a Pecha Kucha Night
an Open Mic session with song, poetry and other fun stuff
a live online auction and fund raising for Japan relief efforts, poster exhibition, SL exhibition and tours and much more, all taking place in virtual classrooms and Second Life. The Opening Panel  discussion “The best way to predict the future is to invent it“ will take place Thursday 12 November 2009, 1pm GMT.
It’s a unique opportunity for teachers to connect and network with other teachers and meet some of the biggest names in the language industry! Read more about the conference.

How to participate?
Please sign up for free on the Virtual Round Table Conference site
http://virtual-round-table.ning.com.
If you have any questions, feel free to contact us at [email protected] .

We look forward to seeing you all in our presentation!

Best regards,

Hala Elkhawanky

Hi Mynglers,

For the second time Myngle was invited to present in Berlin. Luckily, the -15 degrees and snow that had not stopped for 2 days, did not keep people from coming and seeing us at Online Educa Berlin. We had a  high attendance of 140%, people where sitting on the floor and leaning against the walls.

This year our presentation was about online blended learning, which turned out to be a hot topic at the fair.

Online blended learning is ” bringing the best of both worlds, the offline learning, where you can get complete individualized lessons with a teacher, built around and for the exact needs of the student, and the asynchronous where you get more flexibility, as you can choose where and when to study, at your own pace”  in our perspective. We explained our case study of Myngle teachers together with the Instituto Cervantes asynchronous AVE material.  Blended learning was one of the major themes discussed and everyone talked about it in different ways. Our presentation had Bouncy Castles the answers to many of the questions and worries that other presentors and visitors had discussed in the previous presentations.

One of the very interesting questions was about the material teachers use during the blended lessons; can they make use of their own material or simply work with the material provided for them? Another question was about the concept of “offline” learning and how we were able to define the meeting a teacher online as offline, for many people live online teaching is still something very new.

If you are interested in the presentation, or have any more questions please feel free to contact hala at [email protected].
We believe that that was a great event  to end 2010 and motivate us more toward more improvement and  success for 2011.

Hala

Hello Mynglers,

We should have announced it earlier so you would be able to book your flight ticket ;), but I think there is a chance for those who are around. Myngle is going to give a presentation in Educa Berlin conference on the 2nd of December.

ONLINE EDUCA BERLIN is the largest global e-learning conference for the corporate, education and public service sectors, it is the key annual networking event for the international e-learning and technology-supported learning and training industry, attracting and bringing together experts in the vanguard of technology-enhanced learning from around the world. Hala will be our presenter and she is going to give a presentation about “Blended Online Learning”.

Let her know if you will be around!

Thanks,
Soaad

Hello everyone!

We are proud to announce our new partnership with Randstad.

Randstad and Myngle have joined forces.

The Randstad-Myngle offer is in line with Randstad’s ambition to be a leader in shaping the world of work.

Language proficiency is extremely important in today’s global workplace, and understanding and communicating with people in different countries is essential to people’s professional development. The benefits of language training through Myngle are therefore essential for Randstad.

About Randstad:

Randstad specializes in solutions in the field of flexible work and human resources services. Their services range from regular temporary staffing and permanent placement to inhouse, professionals, search & selection, and HR Solutions. Since acquiring Vedior in 2008, the Randstad Group is the second largest HR services provider in the world with top three positions in Argentina, Belgium & Luxembourg, Canada, Chile, France, Germany, Greece, India, Mexico, the Netherlands, Poland, Portugal, Spain, Switzerland and the UK, as well as major positions in Australia and the United States.

We hope this is the beginning of a long and fruitful partnership.

Aenn

Hi everyone.

The following is a re-make of a blog post by Heike Philp.  In the blog she posted the responses from a lively discussion in  Kirsten Winkler‘s ETCon conference of 2009.  The initial list contained 17 reasons, then in the comments, 3 more reasons were added.  The reason for re-posting this topic is that, in the routine of things, the opportunity for improvement and engagement that can be achieved wit the technology at hand are often forgotten.  Often it’s just a matter of training, in learning how to best use a certain virtual classroom.  Other times, it’s a matter of style and goals to be achieved.  I hope that together we can continue to enhance the overall quality of the live language training offered though the web.

Here is the list.  Tell us what do you think…

1) Annotations help visualization
Images are great teaching aids and annotating them in real-time on a whiteboard can really drive the learning experience. (Comment by Harman of WizIQ)

2) More control
For better or for worse, in a virtual classroom the teacher has more control over what students look at and sees how they interact with their peers, the chat and with the learning material.
(Stephen Jones)

3) Professionalism
Using Skype seems to mix business with personal use, hence using a virtual classroom lifts the professional image.
(AmericanTeacher)

4) Greater availability
Some countries ban Skype (i.e. UAE), some learners prefer MSN or Yahoo and many companies do not allow Skype for security reasons.
(Giselle Santos, AmericanTeacher, Heike Philp)

5) Conferences
Conference like the ETCon would not have been possible on Skype.
(unknown)

6) Plan B as in ‘back-up’
Internet communication technology is fragile and it is advised to always have two of everything. So, it is good to use MSN AND Skype or Skype AND Virtual Classroom. If one fails, one can use the other.
(Heike Philp)

7) Skype is like using a hammer
‘If all you can use is a hammer, everything looks like a nail.’ Many like Skype because they don’t know about virtual classrooms or do not know how to use it.
(MissShonah)

8′) Course structure
Slides communicate to the learners a course structure whereas Skype lessons may end up to be mere conversation lessons.
(Elisa Delaini of Myngle)

9) Multi-Modality
Speaking and listening, reading and writing and all of it all at once, this engages all of the learners’ senses. For example: some take notes of what others are discussing in a dialogue, this dialogue may be prompted by visuals or text which maybe annotated by others, and so on.
(Heike Philp)

10) Full contact rich media environment and it is sociable too
(Kevin of DimDim)

11) Teachers are leaders
If we do not master the technology, how will our students? Many of our learners use webconferencing on a regular basis and they are glad to learn this technology with us.
(Heike Philp)

12) Personal and professional development
Virtual classroom provide a challenge to grow professionally. We are advancing from one-to-one Skype lessons to group tuition in a virtual classroom. After virtual classroom, there will be virtual worlds, after virtual worlds ….
(Heike Philp)

13) Language teaching is by-an-large text-based
Language teaching requires a measure of text and the whiteboard is ideal for this.
Unfortunately most of the teaching material teachers have is in Word format. Word however uses the ‘old’ portrait format of books or pages in a folder. PowerPoint came about because of the typical shape of a computer screen. Why the Computer screens are in landscape format nobody knows but this happens to be the dominant format in a virtual classroom. This is the reason why we need slides. Many teachers have never used PowerPoint and now feel as if they have to redo all of their teaching material.
Did you know that you can convert a Word document into PowerPoint with a single click? Next time, in Word, look under the File menu and try ‘Send to MS PowerPoint’. It might look a little messy, but it is there.
(Heike Philp)

14) Virtual Classrooms will be with us a loooooong time
They already have been around for a long time (WebEx was founded in 1995) and they will be around for a long time to come. This is why it is worth investing time and effort into mastering them.
(Heike Philp)

15) A virtual classroom opens a world of learning
Just imagine virtual classrooms will become standard and from the comfort of your home you can now learn any course you wish. You as a teacher, what kind of course would you want to take? Would you perhaps take a Master program at a University? Would DELTA be your goal? Maybe a course in NLP, a programming language, a course at Harvard or a course in music or film production? Whatever your dream course looks like, the mere thought of these courses being conducted in a virtual classroom spells choice, right? Would we not also wish for this to be the case? Would we not wish for this University to be so ‘modern’ and offer their courses live online? Maybe this viewpoint helps us to understand the great potential of virtual classrooms for us and for our learners.
(Heike Philp)

16) Virtual classrooms are sociable
They can connect learners with learners and learners with experts across continents during rich learning conversations.

17) Virtual classrooms can enrich a local event
A simulcast can add richness to a local conference or a local classroom (in schools or universities).

18) Virtual classrooms allow for drop-ins
The virtual classroom provides a permalink and anybody who just wants to pop-in can do so. With Skype you always have to add people as a contact.

19) Virtual classrooms run multiple webcams
And multiple webcams create a proximity that is unmatched. Whilst we do not like to look into the mirror (see our own cam), do we not all love to see the others?

20) Record Option
Easier to record a lesson and have to show students what kind of teacher you are as well as the institutions looking to hire teachers with technology experience. Moreover, the video can be referenced later by students who did not catch everything within the lesson.  (Shelly Terrell)

Clearly, both Myngle’s technology and many of Myngle’s teachers can see from this list the potential for further improvements.

May this be extra motivation for all of us to do better and bring a level of professionalism and skill unmatched on the web.

Stefan

Hello Mynglers,

Get ready for the 2nd Virtual Round Table conference on language learning with new technologies.

Myngle is among the sponsors of the event organized by our partner Lancelot School and Shelly Terrell.  The Virtual Round Table conference is a 2-day online conference  on 22-23 of April 2010, dedicated to language learning with technology. Four 90-minute panels, more than 10 workshops, more than 10 presentations and many more surprises are planned out.

Sign up and participate for free!

It’s a unique opportunity for teachers to connect and network with other teachers and meet some of the biggest names in the language industry! Read more about the conference and how to participate.
Last year’s first VIRTUAL ROUND TABLE conference saw a total of 27 sessions with 49 guest speakers and 450 members and received a ‘silver’ EduBlog award as the “Best educational use of a virtual world”. This time the conference is set to become a greater success.

Come and join us for two days to discuss and exchange ideas on the future of education and how technology changes the way we learn.

Panos

Hello Mynglers!

How much do you actually know about MYNGLE ?

Here are some interesting facts that you maybe didn’t know east inflatables blogyet:

Did you know that……..

• Myngle currently offers 1,037 courses ?

• The top 5 courses on Myngle are: CERVANTES Spanish Basic with certified Diploma, French Basic- A1, Spanish Basic- A1, English Basic – A1 and Italian Basic- A1?

• courses are taught by 289 teachers?

• Myngle teachers come from 104 countries?

• you meet your teacher in your own virtual classroom?

• all you need is broadband connection?

• having a skype is usefull but not mandatory?

• because Myngle classroom has audio as well?

• Myngle has an office in the USA as well?

• Myngle won 4 international awards already?

• thousands of lessons take place on Myngle monthly?

• meaning that Myngle is one of the largest online schools in the world?

• Myngle teachers are carefully selected and trained?

• Myngle has an own affiliate program?

• You can also get your own banner from Myngle to put on your blog or website and link to your profile?

• Myngle also offers giftvouchers you can use to surprise someone?

• We have free study tools for you to use as you wish?

• We also have a shop with self study material?

• Myngle offers Aula Virtual Espanol in co-operation with Cervantes? 120 days of self study software for 56 euro only?

• Myngle has partnerships with big organisations such as KLM, NDTV, Aiesec and Lancelot?

• Myngle’s twitter account has over 900 followers?

• Myngle has its own fanpage on facebook?

• Myngle is a pioneer of online language learning through live lessons?

• The name Myngle comes from the English word to mingle which means to mix, to join with others?

• The Myngle logo also represents a teacher teaching two students?

• The myngle team currently includes 12 different nationalities?

• The Myngle headquarter is in Amsterdam?

• Myngle was founded on July 1 2007?

• Myngle now has almost 100.000 users?

Happy myngling to all of you!

Aenn

Hello everyone!

This time I would like to tell you about an interesting article that I read about universal language laws. As the article was in Dutch, I shall translate the main concepts in English:

” Learning a foreign language is a paradox experience. The phonemes and words are different, but at the same time there is a part of the grammar that seems familiar.

For centuries, people have been thinking that languages are constructed according to the same basic grammatical principles. All languages are supposed to have verbs and nouns. All languages are supposed to have a sentence structure using a subject and a predicate. And in all languages you are supposedly able to embed sentences several times in a row into other sentences.

In 1957, Noam Chomsky added another dimension to the discussion about ‘universalia’ ( which is how the universal characteristics are called). According to him, children are already born with the language ‘universalia’ in their brain. The hypothesis has always been contended. Most of the objections originally came from language scientists who were specialized in the original (Indian) languages of North America. They saw things happening there that did not fit into the assumed universalia concept. Nowadays there are also many counter-examples coming from Australia en New Guinea.

Two specialists from the language corner, Nicholas Evans and Stephen Levinson, wrote a provoking article with the title ‘The myth of language universals’ where they try to overturn most of the assumed universals.

For example they mention the Kayardild language that is spoken on a little island near Australia. In this language it is not only possible to put verbs in the future,present or past tense, but this can also be done with nouns. And if you take a noun and turn it into an indirect object by adding a specific ending, it becomes a verb. Moreover, the Kayardild language has a completely free word order. This is contrary to one of the most important assumptions of language universals, the law of constituency: what belongs to each other,stands next to each other in a sentence. That is why we say ‘ He saw a beautiful girl passing by’ and not ‘A beautiful he saw passing by girl. ‘beautiful’ and ‘girl’ must stand next to each other.

Since a number of years we know that there are a bunch of languages spread over the world that have a largely or completely free word order. Generally those languages have a really extensive system of word endings so that it is still understandable which words belong to each other by looking at the endings.

The conclusion of this is that constituency is not a universal characteristic of languages.

Just like that there are many ‘universal attributes’ that have a big question mark behind them.

For example the indirect object. In all languages you can express that someone gives something to someone.Many scientists think that the word give always has 3 complements that go with it e.g. in English ‘the girl gives the boy a kiss’ =girl, boy and kiss (and likewise the word ‘die’ can only have one and ‘kill’ two). But there seem to be languages where one can already see to whom something is given by looking at the form of the verb.In this case the indirect object is not needed and therefore it cannot be called a universal attribute.

Also the subject is not really universal,as there are languages that use a totally different system. Generally there seem to be only two types of words that are universal: nouns and verbs, but even about that there is a discussion. First of all there are the two famous poly synthetic languages from Canada and Greenland that can express things with one verb where other languages need a whole sentence ( e.g. Tusaatsiarunnanngittualuujunga means I cannot hear it very well). Even nouns can be incorporated in the verb, therefore it does not seem appropriate to call it  a verb any longer.In some North American languages a word can become a verb or a noun according to the way it was placed in a sentence, which clearly disproves the idea that words in our heads are already labeled as being verbs or nouns.

The most abstract assumed universal characteristic of languages is the recursive character of embedment. If a language has the structure of the character X then it can be embedded in the structure Y.Especially sentences with other embedded sentences are interesting.E.g. the sentence ‘ John saw Peter drinking coffee.’ Here the sentence Peter is drinking coffee is embedded in the sentence John saw (something). Embedment occurs in all languages. But recursion goes one step further. It is a more radical and therefore also more interesting idea that states that embedment can be repeated,technically as often as you want it to.It is a fascinating way to extend sentences infinitely.Of course in reality it does not really occur very often and in speaking language would make a sentence almost  impossible to understand.( e.g. ‘the floor leader thinks that the state secretary should have said that the opposition leader was wrong when he claimed that the premier did not inform the cabinet early enough.’) But also recursion is not universal because in Kayardild embedment can only take place once.

So if all the previously mentioned characteristics are proven not to be completely universal then what is left of language universalities? Not much! Only some trivial things like: all( written) languages have vowels, consonants, syllables. words and sentences.

Even though it seems difficult to find characteristics that are the same for all languages, there are in deed many phenomenons that occur in  many languages. Simply because some solutions are more practical and efficient than others. By far for most of the languages it seemed wise to have a distinction between verbs and nouns. But also with that one has to be careful, because from the 7000 languages that are currently being spoken only 5000 have been examined.

Moreover, it can easily be possible that in the past millennia much diversity has been lost. At this point 3 main language families( Indo-European, Austronesian and Niger-Congo) make up for 50 % of all languages. In the past many language families have probably been wiped out. According to some estimations the current 7000 languages are only 1,5 percent of all linguistic  possibilities that have evolved throughout human history.

Stephen Levinson, who wrote the article about ‘the myth of language universals’ ,says that especially diversity is a very essential aspect of languages and he, who focuses on the universal things, takes away from one of the most fascinating attributes of human beings.We are the only species that that possesses a communication system that is so mutable. We have an enormous adaptability which has secured our survival and was the reason for our biological success. Language is a unique product of interaction. It is one the one hand maintained and consolidated because there is always a new generation that has to learn the language and replicate it. At the same time the conditions keep changing, ecological and cultural, and the language has to adapt constantly to the changed conditions. That explains the linguistic diversity.

But if languages do indeed differ in such a way, how is it possible that when people learn a new language they constantly have the feeling that they recognize things? Because most of the time the new language is a member of the language family that the person already knows. If a European learns a foreign language its almost all of the time an Indo-European language. But if you start learning a language from a different cultural background, its a whole different story. For example languages with a complete free word order are really hard for Europeans. Or the Papoea language with 90 different phonemes and only irregular verbs…You start to think: Wow! Who ever came up with that?”

All there is left to say:Hats off to all those eager language learners that give it a try!Keep it up!

Aenn

Hi all!

As you might already know, Myngle has a number of strategic partners from various backgrounds. Some are education related, like Collins, offering their top content through us and by this, adding value to our products. Others, like KLM, simply recognize our commitment to excellent quality and trust us to offer their users a unique learning experience. All of our partners have tried and tested our products and believe in us.

Have a peak at Myngle’s current 10 partners.

For the future there are even more important partnerships to come!