By Nicolás Dantaz Rico, María Cecilia Bonavetti and Ana María Larramendy
Introduction
The English Teaching profession is one where change and innovation have been present all throughout its history. No wonder why we teachers are always looking for new — and better — ways to help our students learn. In this constant quest, we have an all-present ally: technology.
If there is one thing English and technology have in common is this: they bring together people from around the globe. Both of them are means people have to be in touch, to share, to entertain themselves, to learn.
We should take full advantage of the tools technology is offering us. And, what is more, we should take advantage of the very useful tips and suggestions that Russell Stannard has put in one place: TTV.
About the author
Russell Stannard is an EFL teacher with more than 20 years of experience in the field. His main area of interest is ICTs. He is a professor at Warwick University in the UK, where he teaches Information Computer Technology at the MA in ELT with emphasis on ICTs and at the general MA in ELT. He is also an IATEFL member and writer for the Voices newsletter, having his own columns to update IATEFL members on new developments. He is also a regular columnist for the English Teaching Professional, the Modern English Teacher journals and the TESOL Spain quarterly.
An overview of the site
Teachertrainingvideos.com is not only aimed at providing teachers with access to the many gateways available online to facilitate the implementation of ICTs in their classrooms, but also to assist them in the understanding of how to use each and every site linked.
Teachertrainingvideos.com is a very user-friendly website with clean layout, little advertising and information suitably classified in categories such as “Videos for learning ICTs”, “Top 20 videos”, “Videos for other languages”, etc. The listing under each category comes along with a brief but illustrative description of the websites and, as you click on the links, you are immediately faced with the tutorial videos especially made by Stannard himself.
The training videos are very detailed. They are divided in sections such as “Introduction” and then the most important aspects of the sites and a conclusion. The videos include both voice and visual explanations. One of the highlights of these clips is that they are made to cater for different learning styles. As the author explains a certain feature of a website, you can see how it works in his own screen.
Fig. 1: a screen capture of TTV
Other sections in the site are “Russell’s podcasts”, where teachers can find varied interviews and recordings of lectures, “My sources”, the author’s blogroll, or “Russell’s Feedback Research”, which provides a selection of journal papers, interviews, articles and even TV appearances about Video Feedback.
Outstanding features
Apart from the characteristics mentioned above, we also like that the author shows teachers how to make their own videos. This is particularly interesting in case they would like to do some distant teaching and to us such type of resource. Another major feature is that people can be updated on Strannard’s research for free via RSS. Worth mentioning is the section called “Videos to recommend to students”, where useful tools for students’ practice and review are listed.
Conclusion
To put it in a nutshell, it is only fair from us to say that Russell Stannard’s website is a must-see for those teachers who wish to bring change and innovation to their practice. Our recommendation is based on a two-fold reason. On the one hand, Teachertrainingvideos.com fosters professional development for teachers while, on the other hand, it also provides students with the opportunity to work autonomously to grow in their development as language learners due to the careful selection of materials available the author presents.