Reflection of Week 7

Woow .... three interesting topics this week. We know the Learner Autonomy concept and models, One-Computer Class activity, and Mobile Devices for Students' Learning Tools and Media.

1) Learner Autonomy

http://schoolsonline.britishcouncil.org/

In my mind, learner autonomy is a learner's way of study that refers to self-study, independent learning or own study that a learner conducts to focus and concentrate on his or her analysis of something. This is accordance with some experts of learner autonomy that said various definitions of 'autonomy', such as 'independence' (Sheerin, 1991, 'language awareness' (Lier, 1996; James & Garret, 1991), and 'self-direction' (Candy, 1991).
This way of study is usually done by adult learners ('andragogy' according to Knowles, 1980) when they want to develop their understandings by reading books more, doing experiments deeply, self-evaluating on someone's works, so finally they will give their opinions and comments or put their criticism on one paper. This activity can build learner's responsibility on their own study, effective contemplation on the study, self-study awareness (http://iteslj.org/Articles/Thanasoulas-Autonomy.html). The learner autonomy activity is very good to do as the alternative study for learners, because sometimes the learners need to study alone, beside they usually study in their groups to discuss their problems and find out the solution. 
Learning autonomously is a natural way of learning. A student sometimes does his or her homework, answering some questions alone by reading a book to find out the answers, does an analysis and experiment in a laboratory. This way is almost done by many students around the world. In relation to this activity, we can encourage our students to do their learning autonomy by facilitating them with technology, for examples, asking them to browse some article through internet, answer the questions provided in the tutor blog, and search some other online references (e-books, etc.) individually. Many activities of learner autonomy that learners can do with technology.

Sometimes, we can encourage our students to do learning autonomy by reading books in the school library (silent reading) and making a written summary after that individually, doing their homework alone, and do their self-laboratory project in their own natural environment, such doing experiment in the garden (for biology students), doing conversational practice with foreigners in the tourism objects (for EFL students).

2) One-Computer Classroom
 

http://www.vforteachers.com/About_NetSupport.htm

Basically the one-computer classroom can be held in every school, especially in the school that has a very limited number of computers. However, nowadays every students almost has a personal computer (laptop, notebook, etc.) in their hand, so it may be not necessary for school to set a one-computer classroom. It is the same situation as in my classes of translation. Almost all of my students have their own laptop or notebook, only one or two of them do not have it, so I do not need to set my classroom with one-computer. However, if we want to try to give one for other students who do not have a computer, we can set or build one-computer room that can be used by the students by turns. We must provide the computer with some lesson materials, information, or test items that the students should keep. Practically one-computer classroom has some advantages to take, for examples, for keeping electronically the teacher's administrative applications (lesson materials, lesson plans, teaching media, handouts, test items, etc), students' applications (products or writing, Video, CD-ROM, internet, etc), online discussion between teachers and students, teacher's monitoring on students' activity, access information, and academic publication (http://eduscapes.com/tap/topic84.htm)


3) Mobile Devices as Learning Tools and Media

http://theeducatorsroom.com/

Modern technology era leads students to be smarter that their previous generation. Nowadays almost every student has a smart mobile phone, computer tablet, and other form of mobile devices. This make teachers easy to deliver their teaching duties. One of them is asking their students to study one lesson material or homework through their smart phone or computer tablet. 

There is a positive interconnection between one-computer classroom and learner autonomy. This case can be an example: One day a teacher asked students to do an online homework. However there were five students who did not have personal computers. This was a problem for them to do their online homework. The teacher initiated to ask the school management to set one computer in one room for the students who did not have computers. The school management provide the computer in the room as the station. Finally by turns each student was able to browse online homework and did it successfully. That's all what I can explain about three main important topics this week.