Distance Teacher Education

This presentation will examine the potential for online and online-supported teacher education in Ukraine.

The teacher education program at Southeast Missouri State University offered 414 class sections in Spring 2010, 16 of which were entirely online, 1 offered as a webinar, 16 were via Interactive Television (ITV), and 14 were blended. Although distance education remains a relatively small subset of the educational experience at Southeast, it is a growing and substantial alternative, especially for non-traditional students, including those who attend part-time or live in outlying areas. Almost all classes, even those that meet entirely face-to-face, rely on the Online Instructional Suite (OIS), a proprietary learning management system, for asynchronous components of resource access, discussion, scheduling, grade reporting, and even electronic testing.

A heavy reliance on technology incurs substantial cost outlays, especially during the initial stages of program implementation, but these costs are shared university-wide for all programs. Some of this investment is gradually recovered through lower delivery costs and a small tuition surcharge.

This approach has many potential benefits for teacher education in Ukraine. Electronic access to course materials reduces printing costs and increases the available range of content. Course materials and schedules are easier to update and maintain. Development of technological infrastructure could compensate for aging and inadequate physical infrastructure in a struggling economy. The flexibility of technology-based distance education allows for more options to individuate instruction, especially for students who cannot access education because of physical disabilities, conflicting word schedules, or distance.

Kuzmina Svitlana

Fulbright Scholar-in-Residence

Southeast Missouri State University (USA)

Sms language for improving the knowledge of English in American students

To provide students with good knowledge of English is one of the main concerns of teachers of English in the United States of America. To achieve good results today’s teachers can use a dazzling array of technological devices: computers; videodisk players; speech and music synthesizers; digital cameras; e-mail and web browsing, etc. These things became an indispensable part of learning, officially recognized and approved to be used in the classroom.

There is one more technological device that may influence the level of knowledge of English. It has got its origin outside classrooms and scholars’ offices. Have you seen an American teenager without a mobile phone? They seem to never part with them. If they are not talking, they are texting. When asked in one of the classrooms how often they used their mobile phones for texting, they answered from forty to hundred times a day. To make it less time and effort consuming they use SMS language, the so-called TXT SPK. It subverts letters and numbers to make ultra-concise words: great – gr8, mate – m8, wait – w8, tomorrow – 2mro, before –b4, therefore – thr4, in my opinion – imo, as soon as possible – ASAP, take care – tc, laughing out loud –lol, got to go- g2g, talk to you later – ttyl, b/c – because, be right back – brb, just kidding – jk, oh my God – omg, by the way – btw, etc.

Some educators say SMS language ruins English, developing ignorance of proper grammar and spelling. However others state texting contributes to reading and spelling abilities. Time will show who is right, but it definitely creates difficulties in understanding for those who come from other cultures and do not belong to the world of US teenagers.

Masako Umegaki

Nagoya University of Foreign Studies (Japan)