Growing availability and use of the Internet has brought new possibilities and challenges for teachers. Face-to-face, classroom-based courses increasingly incorporate Internet components to create “hybrid” or “blended” courses. More language learners are looking for the anytime, anywhere learning that a fully online course can provide. This session will draw upon the presenter’s extensive experience with hybrid and online courses and international TESOL’s Technology Standards to offer some guidance to teachers who are incorporating technology in their courses.

Considerations for teachers who are interested in including or enhancing Internet components in their courses include the following:

• Role of the instructor – technology needs to fit into course objectives, not the other way around. The Internet provides a wealth of information, perhaps too much. Teachers who know more about technology can make better choices about what to use and how to use it. Ongoing professional development is a must to keep up with the pace of change in technology.
• "Teaching Naked: Why Removing Technology from your Classroom will Improve Student Learning” by José Antonio Bowen, https:// www.ntlf.com/html/ti/naked.htm
  
• Technology support – the more technology is used in a course, the more support is needed – and the more critical it is to have a Plan B. Teachers and students will not have patience with technology that is promised but that doesn’t work.
  
• Student expectations and expertise – the current generation of students is likely to have experience with email, browsing the web, gaming, and social media. Despite the media’s depiction of these students as “digital natives,” they have little experience or expertise with learning through technology. They like technology and are familiar with it, so they want to see it used – but they aren’t experts in educational technology.
• A Vision of K-12 Students Today by BJ Nesbitt (4-minute video) at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_A-ZVCjfWf8
  
• Blended and/or fully online learning - a range of possibilities and tools.
• Handouts , rubrics or other assessment tools online for students
• Assignments turned in online
• Email Q&A before, during, and after class
• Online text-based discussion: course management systems such as Blackboard and Moodle; Nicenet (free): https://www.nicenet.org; Google Groups, https://groups.google.com
• Voiceboards - voice-based discussions: Voxopop, https://www.voxopop.com
• Podcasts: https://www.podomatic.com
• Class to class projects: IEARN: https://www.iearn.org and more
• Skype - up to four people works well: https://www.skype.com
• Instant messaging
• Real-time video - you'll need a video server to use this regularly
  
• Web 2.0 and other new technologies – communicative language learning is possible in more ways than ever before, but teachers need to have a good grasp of the possibilities in order to make informed decisions.