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I started my NLE blog with my expectations about this interesting course assuming that New Learning Environments referred mainly to the big challenge that modern education and educators face now that learners are getting more and more used to technology in their lives. To my surprise, my assumption was not that far from reality. If we want to keep up with 21st century learners and the way they prefer to learn, we must make important changes in the way we teach and approach our learners so that we succeed in our teaching and we don’t get behind giving way to those teachers who are doing their best to implement new technologies that students enjoy while learning.

Please check "Archivo del blog" on the right to access the different sections of this NLE blog.

Debate on new learning environments

JOSE: The pace of change in the 21st century is increasing and increasing, I think the world is becoming more interconnected and complex than ever. In this environment, I do think it is critical that we as teachers shift our focus from education to life-long learning.

GUEST: But not everybody has a computer. There are millions of people out there who are not interconnected and don’t need to learn all their lives about something which maybe they’re never going to use. Besides, it is a waste of time if you don’t have immediate access to new technologies.

JOSE: At my age, if I chose not to learn anything new after I was through with school, I would not know how to operate a VCR, DVD player, my cell phone, my computer, the CD player, or my home printer, and I am sure the list could be longer. Life is a continuous learning process or the human brain stagnates and everything stops. Fortunately, the increasing availability of learning resources on the internet is coinciding with the growing importance of continuous learning.

GUEST: We are resource constrained, because that availability of learning resources on the internet is only for those who have access to it, the rest has to keep on learning with traditional methods which have proven to educate as well. On the other hand, no opportunities to enhance learning by exploring the edge are presenting themselves.

JOSE: Of course that opportunities to enhance learning by exploring the edge are presenting themselves as well. It is at the edge that most innovation occurs and where we can discern patterns that indicate new kinds of opportunities and challenges. In this context, the edge can mean many things: kids who grow up digital, developments in rapidly changing nations such as China and India, new kinds of institutional frameworks such as open source and Wikipedia, and new media forms.

GUEST: But look at the context we all find ourselves at the moment. First, today’s kids, our students, are not very different from most of us here and they don’t learn in ways that are different from how we learn. Second, education is not more important than ever, because people are less willing to pay for it than ever before. Third, how are we going to educate students for the 21st century, if most students today aren’t going to have a fixed, single career in the future? It’s better that students pick up new skills inside of today’s traditional educational institution since nearly all of the significant problems of tomorrow are likely to be the same we have at the moment.

JOSE: Sorry to contradict you, but first of all, today’s students are different from most of us here. They have a new vernacular, a digital vernacular; and today’s students also learn in ways that are different from how we learn. It’s true that there are many challenges, but the question here is how can we begin to take advantage of those differences? We have to find a way to re-conceptualize parts of our educational system and at the same time find ways to reinforce learning outside of formal schooling so that these challenges can be met. In fact, there are successful models of learning already in place that offer ideas that can be more broadly applied. For example, studio-based learning environments all work-in-progress is always made public. As a result, every student can see what every other student is doing. Moreover, every student witnesses the thinking processes that other students are using to develop what they do. Students start to appreciate and learn from the struggles and the successes of their peers.

GUEST: But what about large classes? They invent and invent new gadgets, and computer programs; wikis, blogs, twitters, and so on, but who says they really work? What’s up? What should I believe?

JOSE: Well, new teaching practices must be invented and experimented with. Clickers, for example. They can be used in large classes as you say. A clicker is a simple inexpensive device that can be distributed to every student in a class, enabling them to respond to questions posed by a teacher and immediately tally results. Full-size screens surrounding most of the classroom is another example; each screen is independently controllable. Any student can grab any screen and can put anything up on that screen. During a seminar, for example, they can Google and instantly project what they find of interest to the overall discussion. All this culminates in a collaborative learning experience where multiple images are being displayed of what students found interesting.

GUEST: But who knows what is going on with kids who are growing up digital? How do they learn? How do they like to learn? How do they problem solve? And most importantly, what creates meaning for them and helps them to construct their own sense of self. Now very little time is spent reading good books. Carrying a laptop does not make you “digital”.

JOSE: The answer is that there are new kinds of social, work and learning practices, as well as forms of entertainment or infotainment that emerge when a generation like this is immersed in a digital world. It’s the modern, intelligent, multimedia mobile internet device that defines being digital. These devices used to be cell phones, but phone calls are a small part of what they are used for today. There is also game-based learning.


GUEST: Learning is not a game and most of the video games are incredibly difficult to master.

JOSE: If you’re not extremely good at pattern recognition, sense-making in confusing environments, and multitasking, then you won’t do well in the game world. Believe it or not, the gaming generation wants to learn, and without measurements they can’t tell if and how much they are learning. So this means that game designers as well as teachers of the 21st century students must know how to design good learning environments; environments that are constantly throwing new challenges at the students, challenges that are neither too difficult nor too simple. Further, as the student improves, the challenges need to be more demanding.

GUEST: In my opinion, this all goes against something very important in education which is the social life of the students. The social environment the traditional classroom offers can’t be replaced.

JOSE: Now we talk about the social life of information. The importance of the social construction of understanding where experience and information are internalized into actionable knowledge through conversations and social negotiations. In the networked age, this approach provides a way to both improve education and to set the stage for a culture of learning. For example, blogging. When handled appropriately, classroom blogs can open multiple ways of knowing and contributing to a class. For those who are too shy to speak out, find speaking in English challenging, or who are more passive, the classroom blog can serve as a way to participate in a class discussion. The classroom itself can create a kind of container for a blog focused on activities in the class and one tied together by the sociality of all members being in the class. It complements, but doesn’t replace, the class and as a container it also allows students to contribute not just their own ideas but also other material they find relevant to the topic of the class.

GUEST: I still think there is a problem with the new learning environments and it is that the passion for learning is not the same as it was in traditional learning.

JOSE: Twenty-first century new learning environments offer the possibility of a hybrid model of learning, where we teachers can combine the power of passion-based participation in communities of practice and co-creation with a limited core curriculum for teaching the rigorous thinking and argumentation specific to that field. It is implicit in this new learning environments that, given the nearly infinite number of communities that exist on the net, nearly every student of any age will find something that he or she is passionate about. In conclusion my dear guest, new learning environments are here to stay.

Are Communities of practice here to stay?

Theoretical background

The theoretical backgound of coPs can be found in social learning. The term communities of practice was first coined by Etienne Wenger and Jean Lave in 1991. These communities are groups of people in organizations that form to share what they know, to learn from one another regarding some aspects of their work and to provide a social context for that work. Such groups have been around ever since people in organizations realized they could benefit from sharing their knowledge, insights, and experiences with others who have similar interests or goals. Richard McDermott defines a community of practice as “a group of people who share knowledge, learn together and create common practices. Communities of practice share information, insight, experience and tools about an area of common interest.” Communities of practice solve their problems through networking and sharing their experiences by means of a voluntary, informal gathering and sharing of expertise. Communities of Practice should not be confused with teams or task forces. A task force ties to a specific assignment. Once that assignment is completed, the task force disbands. A team ties to some specific process or function. A team is structured so as to deal with the interdependencies of different roles in that function or process. In team, roles and tasks often vary; in a CoP they are generally the same. “In their teams, they take care of projects. In their networks, they form relationships. In their CoPs, they develop the knowledge that lets them do these other tasks.” Etienne Wenger, (1998).


Characteristics

Communities of practice have some characteristics that make them different from teams or task forces: The nature of a Community of Practice is dynamic, in that the interests, goals, and members are subject to change; CoP forums are designed to support shifts in focus. CoPs create opportunities for open dialog within and with outside perspectives; they welcome and allow different levels of participation; for example, the core group who participates intensely in the community through discussions and projects, typically taking on leadership roles in guiding the group; the active group who attends and participates regularly, but not to the level of the leaders and the peripheral group who, while they are passive participants in the community, still learn from their level of involvement. Other characteristics of coPs is that they develop both public and private community spaces; while CoPs typically operate in public spaces where all members share, discuss and explore ideas, they also offer private exchanges. Different members of the CoP coordinate relationships among members and resources in an individualized approach based on specific needs. CoPs focus on the value of the community and they create opportunities for participants to explicitly discuss the value and productivity of their participation in the group. They combine familiarity and excitement since they offer the expected learning opportunities as part of their structure, and opportunities for members to shape their learning experience together by brainstorming and examining the conventional and radical wisdom related to their topic. Cops also find and nurture a regular rhythm for the community as they coordinate a thriving cycle of activities and events that allow for the members to regularly meet, reflect, and evolve. In coPs, the rhythm, or pace maintains an anticipated level of engagement to sustain the vibrancy of the community, yet it is not so face-paced that it becomes unwieldy and overwhelming in its intensity. (Wenger, McDermott & Snyder 2002).

Benefits

Regarding the benefits of communities of practice, they encourage people to work more effectively or to understand work more deeply among them focusing on a particular specialty or work group. Education professionals find coPs very useful because in these small groups of teachers who work together over a period of time and share extensive communication, they develop a common sense of purpose and a desire to share teaching, learning, related knowledge and experience which in the end benefits students. The coPs offer professionals a learning environment that provides authentic learning contexts and support both collaboration and interaction which is highly required nowadays. In other words, professonals learn more effectively since they have to deal with real problems and complete authentic tasks (Wenger, 1991). CoPs are also useful because they also include a social interaction with the real practitioners who work with them and assist their learning. Such collaboration leads to an elaboration of strategies that can be discussed and further enhance the interaction through which the members learn something through experiences of interactions (Wenger, McDermott, & Snyder, 2002).

How they Communicate

Communities of Practice communicate mainly through face to face meetings and computer mediated technology. The new communications media, provides new possibilities for collaboration and distributed working supporting the existence of coPs in different environments. With the rapid internationalization of business that can spread the distribution over national boundaries posing problems of cultural and temporal as well as physical distance, Computer Mediated Communications technologies (CMCs) support distributed international Communities of Practice. As a result of the internationalisation of business and the development of enabling technologies, there has emerged the notion of Virtual (online) Communities of Practice (VCoP), where members make use of Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs) to share stories, knowledge and practices. Tools for creating user-generated content (UGC) also provide the basis for communities of practice. Wikis, for example, support active content creation. CoPs update wikis frequently and edit their content to achieve greater accuracy and depth. If coP intranet users read a wiki page and see something that is incorrect or out of date, they can update the information, so the next member to visit the page gets better information. A coP member who uses an intranet, and who is a subject-matter expert who others frequently ask for information, can create a wiki page, making their information public. Forums and blogs are another way in which coPs communicate. Forums let members share information with communities that are interested in specific topics. Participants can either ask questions or contribute answers to questions. Blogs enable coPs to communicate with a wide audience about topics that interest them. Frequent readers of blogs are often highly interested in the bloggers’ topics and, via blog comments, can engage in discussions with the communities viewing the blogs.

My own views

In my context, which is the language learning context, coPs provide a good language learning environment in the sense that CoPs connect so many people. This allows the members to interact with other people who are usually out of their reach, which gives language learners opportunities to find the real audience with whom they can use the target language in a real, natural communication. Using chats, for example, learners learn some language aspects crucial for communication, which sometimes it is difficult to learn in the traditional language class room

(Toyoda & Harrison, 2002). In addition, interaction in the target language provides opportunities for learners to comprehend message meaning, produce modified output, and attend the target language form which helps them develop their linguistic systems. There are now many virtual language communities of practice in which teachers and learners gather in an online space where they communicate and interact with each other. Such virtual space includes real-time forums where they contribute ideas based on their backgrounds and experiences that in turn stimulate responses from other members. The least proficient members learn from the interactions of the more fluent ones. Another extra point gained from learning through coPs is that the language learners also learn other skills such as computer and information skills, communication skills, and organizational skills. By being active in the virtual language activities, they become accustomed to working with computers and Internet. They learn how to start, interrupt, or end a conversation, and the engagement in the virtual discussions gives them exposure to lessons on how to interact with others and manage an organization.

Conclusion

It is important to remember that communities of practice are not a recent invention. Such groups have been around ever since people in organizations realized they could benefit from sharing their knowledge, insights, and experiences with others who have similar interests or goals. CoPs have been playing a key role in sustaining the knowledge of different types of organizations long before we started to focus on them. And as knowledge increases in importance, they will continue to play this critical role whether we pay attention to them or not. Communities of practice are here to stay.

Collaborative English Language Learning

The worldwide need to develop collaborative habits.

Collaborative habits are needed all around the world and there is a variety of educational approaches that involves joint intellectual efforts by students, or students and teachers together. In this era of great developments in communication technologies that facilitates access to resources and people, what students need worldwide is working in groups in order to mutually search for understanding, solutions, or meanings, or creating something together (Beichner & Saul, 2003). Collaborative English language learning activities vary widely, but most center on students’ exploration or application of the language, not simply the teacher’s presentation or explication of it. It represents a significant shift away from the typical teacher-centered or lecture-centered lesson in school or university classrooms. What teachers need in the English language classroom is not only the lecturing, listening and note-taking process, but students’ discussion and active work with the English course material they have. Language teachers worldwide need to use collaborative learning approaches that help them tend to think of themselves less as expert transmitters of knowledge to students, and more as expert designers of intellectual experiences for students coaches of a more emergent learning process (Smith. & MacGregor, 1992).

The benefits collaboration can bring into the language learning class.

Since learning is an active and constructive process, collaboration is a way in which language learning students can benefit learning new information, ideas or language skills workinhg actively with other classmates in purposeful ways. In collaborative learning situations, students are not simply taking in new information or ideas, they are creating something new with the information and ideas. These acts of intellectual processing of constructing meaning or creating something new are crucial to language learning. The language classroom also benefits because collaborative learning activities immerse students in challenging tasks or questions (Dillenbourg, 1999). Rather than beginning with facts and ideas and then moving to applications, collaborative learning activities frequently begin with problems, for which students must marshal pertinent facts and ideas. Instead of being distant observers of questions and answers, or problems and solutions, students become immediate ractitioners. Rich contexts challenge students to practice and develop higher order reasoning and problem solving skills in the second language. Language students bring multiple perspectives to the classroom; diverse backgrounds, learning styles, experiences, and aspirations. As teachers, we can no longer assume a one-size-fits- all approach. When students work together on their learning in the language class, we get a direct and immediate sense of how they are learning, and what experiences and ideas they bring to their classwork (Funaro, 1999). The diverse perspectives that emerge in collaborative activities are clarifying but not just for us. They are illuminating for our students as well. Another benefit that collaboration brings to the language learning class is that it allows for student talk: students who are learning English are supposed to talk with each other, and it is in this talking that much of the learning occurs (Golub, 1988).

The strategies needed from the teacher to promote collaboration.

Collaborative learning covers a broad territory of strategies with wide variability in the amount of in-class or out-of-class time built around group work. Collaborative language activities can range from classroom discussions interspersed with short lectures, through class periods to study the language in teams or carry out projects that can last a whole school term or year. The goals and processes of collaborative startegies also vary widely. Some language teachers design small group work around specific sequential steps, or tightly structured tasks. Others prefer a more spontaneous agenda developing out of student interests or questions. In some collaborative language learning settings, the students’ task is to create a clearly delineated project; in others, the task is not to produce a project, but rather to participate in a process, an exercise of responding to each other’s work or engaging in analysis and meaning-making. The use of cooperative learning is a strategy that encourages language students to work together to maximize their own and each other’s learning” (Johnson, 1990).

Problem-centered instruction is another strategy built around collaborative learning which fosters discussion-based teaching and gives students direct experiential encounters with real-world problems to use the language. Students are immersed in complex problems that they must analyze and work through together. These startegies develop problem-solving abilities, understanding of complex relationships, and decisionmaking in the face of uncertainty. Case studies can also be used by the teacher to pomote collaboration in the classroom (Harding, 1993). A story or narrative of a real life situation sets up a problem or unresolved tension for the students to analyze and resolve using the second language. The use of cases promotes collaborative learning as it frequently asks small groups of students to tackle cases in language class or in study group sessions.

Simulations are among other collaborative strategies that can be used in the language classroom since these structured role-playing situations simúlate real experiences and most of tehm ask students, working individually or in teams, to play different roles in a situation or an unfolding drama that requires collaboration among students. The key aspect of simulations, though, is that of perspective-taking, both during the simulation exercise and afterwards. Following the simulation, there is usually a lengthy discussion where students reflect on the simulation and explore their own actions and those of others. This is where important concepts and lessons emerge.

Writing groups also promote collaborative learning. Peer writing involves students working in small groups at every stage of the writing process. Many writing groups begin as composing groups: they formulate ideas, clarify their positions, test an argument or focus a thesis statement before committing it to paper. This shared composing challenges students to think through their ideas out loud, to hear what they “sound like,” so they will know “what to say” in writing (Mitnik, 2009). Writing groups also serve as peer response groups. Students exchange their written drafts of papers and get feedback on them either orally or in writing. This is a challenging process, one that requires students to read and listen to fellow students’ writing with insight, and to make useful suggestions for improvement. Finally, discussion groups and seminars are collaborative strategies that encourage student dialogue with teachers and with each other. Open-ended discussion or seminars give the opportunity to students to pose questions and build a conversation in the context of the topic at hand using the second language.

The tools that can be used to teach collaborative skills.

When students work together they learn from one another and extend their interaction and language learning outside of the classroom. When properly applied, technology can eliminate barriers to collaboration and provide a comfortable setting for student collaboration and cooperation. ICTs enable convenient collaboration from any place and at any time allowing archive meeting notes and student exchanges. They provide students with experience and support in teamwork and help them learn from each other.

Email and a suite of other tools in this category can help language teachers disseminate information widely and set up alternative forums for language class discussions, extending the opportunity for students to exchange ideas outside the classroom. Students may continue small group discussions through a threaded newsgroup. Language study groups and project teams can also coordinate their efforts online through email and online discussion groups (Lee & Smagorinsky, 2000).

Collaboration often requires a convenient place for documents and other files to be saved that all group members can access. ShareSpaces is a tool that language teachers can use to create a shared space in which to store group files, and give group members access to it. Teachers can allow other teachers and students to view and download the files, or also give the group members permission to update the language file. GoPost is another tool that allows teachers to create a Web-based discussion board where their language students can compare notes, discuss assignments, post attachments, and work together online. Language teachers have control over who has access to the GoPost forum, and they can even allow students to use pseudonyms to make them feel more comfortable.

Wiki is another useful tool to teach collaborative skills. The advantage is that this Web site can be viewed and easily edited by anyone with Internet access and a Web browser (Oblinger, 2004). Wikis can be a very useful tool for student collaboration and cooperation. Not only can students easily collaborate on a project using a wiki, they can also easily make it public and invite experts, teachers or other students in the field to react to their contribution.

Coping with Emerging Technologies

It is important for many reasons that the education sector must remain continually alert to emergent technology developments and possibilities, not least because those developments, and related implications, can be very rapid. This is particularly true in the context of young students’ everyday uses of technology and approaches to using technology in professional and other environments to enhance knowledge development and transfer. It is also important to note the importance of developments in social networking and Web 2.0 to educational uses of technology.

At present, we can observe an increasing range of educational activities which incorporate the use of those technologies. It is essential that we educators can learn from those examples to understand what’s effective and sustainable in supporting our students’ learning. Technology developments touch on some fundamental issues and questions in learning practice. A central issue is the role of both the learner and their community in the development of knowledge and understanding. Many emergent technology tools promote active, participatory and collaborative knowledge building. We need to understand how effective those approaches are in practice and discuss the implications for education and education professionals. We have to stimulate that discussion and debate in our educational institutions, especially in our area departments.

Now we are starting to see more innovation on the consumer internet translated into a new approach to the use of online technology in supporting education, which has huge potential for positive change. This emerging technology affects us and our students as humans in the sense that it is about connecting and socialising our use of computing, and making it more personal. The tools are important, though changing all the time, but the connected networks of people, data and services that are emerging around them are what this is really all about. The culture of internet, access resulting from broadband adoption, combined with the fact that more and more people are now students sharing ideas through blogs, wikis, messaging and other online tools, is creating a critical mass of connectivity that is driving innovation. But we need to encourage students and other teachers to become active participants in their own relationship with technology.

There is a way in which we as teachers can cope with emerging technologies and keep up-to-date and it is by familiarizing ourselves with blogs, wikis, messaging and other emerging online tools. Inappropriately used in the classroom, emergent technology can be used to perpetuate old models of teaching and learning. Students can be only plugged into computers to do drill and practice that is not so different from workbooks. But we teachers can use emergent technologies to give more colorful, stimulating lectures. We must explore how these technologies can be used to stimulate and develop writing skills, collaborate with peers in foreign countries, and do authentic kinds of research that is valuable and meaningful.

For example, Apple ipods can be used for educational purposes. It can be used for podcasting which is a technology that can allow educational institutions and students to deliver multimedia content to an audience on a regular basis with little or no effort on the part of a user. The user can simply subscribe to a Podcast feed and the content is downloaded to the user’s computer when a new Podcast program is available. This Podcast can then be played in a computer media player of the user’s choice, such as iTunes, or synchronised with the users portable music player, such as an iPod. This means that the user does not have to go and look for information and is not tied into accessing media at specified times.

Coping with Emerging Technologies

It is important for many reasons that the education sector must remain continually alert to emergent technology developments and possibilities, not least because those developments, and related implications, can be very rapid. This is particularly true in the context of young students’ everyday uses of technology and approaches to using technology in professional and other environments to enhance knowledge development and transfer. It is also important to note the importance of developments in social networking and Web 2.0 to educational uses of technology.

At present, we can observe an increasing range of educational activities which incorporate the use of those technologies. It is essential that we educators can learn from those examples to understand what’s effective and sustainable in supporting our students’ learning. Technology developments touch on some fundamental issues and questions in learning practice. A central issue is the role of both the learner and their community in the development of knowledge and understanding. Many emergent technology tools promote active, participatory and collaborative knowledge building. We need to understand how effective those approaches are in practice and discuss the implications for education and education professionals. We have to stimulate that discussion and debate in our educational institutions, especially in our area departments.

Now we are starting to see more innovation on the consumer internet translated into a new approach to the use of online technology in supporting education, which has huge potential for positive change. This emerging technology affects us and our students as humans in the sense that it is about connecting and socialising our use of computing, and making it more personal. The tools are important, though changing all the time, but the connected networks of people, data and services that are emerging around them are what this is really all about. The culture of internet, access resulting from broadband adoption, combined with the fact that more and more people are now students sharing ideas through blogs, wikis, messaging and other online tools, is creating a critical mass of connectivity that is driving innovation. But we need to encourage students and other teachers to become active participants in their own relationship with technology.

There is a way in which we as teachers can cope with emerging technologies and keep up-to-date and it is by familiarizing ourselves with blogs, wikis, messaging and other emerging online tools. Inappropriately used in the classroom, emergent technology can be used to perpetuate old models of teaching and learning. Students can be only plugged into computers to do drill and practice that is not so different from workbooks. But we teachers can use emergent technologies to give more colorful, stimulating lectures. We must explore how these technologies can be used to stimulate and develop writing skills, collaborate with peers in foreign countries, and do authentic kinds of research that is valuable and meaningful.

For example, Apple ipods can be used for educational purposes. It can be used for podcasting which is a technology that can allow educational institutions and students to deliver multimedia content to an audience on a regular basis with little or no effort on the part of a user. The user can simply subscribe to a Podcast feed and the content is downloaded to the user’s computer when a new Podcast program is available. This Podcast can then be played in a computer media player of the user’s choice, such as iTunes, or synchronised with the users portable music player, such as an iPod. This means that the user does not have to go and look for information and is not tied into accessing media at specified times.

DGBL for language learning

Digital games are fun, engaging and seductive. They are highly interactive and provide both a challenge and instant, visual feedback within a safe virtual learning environment. In short, digital games engage young people in a way that traditional classroom language activities simply cannot. However, there are language teachers who fear that employing digital games within the classroom may have a negative impact upon learning; they can distract from learning as students concentrate on the objective of completing the game rather than using them as a language learning tool (Buckingham, 2006). Others suggest that the time learners spend in front of a screen could instead be spent, for example engaged in a role-play or mingling social activity.

But aside from providing entertainment, language teachers have to take into account that digital games have been found to serve a range of educational functions. They encourage different ways of learning and thinking and provide the opportunity to teach and practice language skills and encourage imagination, creativity and exploration (Gee, 2003). Digital games help pupils to develop key language and learning skills such as: cognitive processing, logical thinking and independent decision making apart from encouraging interpersonal relationships, thus encouraging cooperative and competitive behaviour since some of them enable players to embody different characters thus helping to breed attitudes of tolerance and understanding.
21st language learners need to be motivated in ways different from what traditional education has offered so far; they enjoy spending time exploring the internet and playing games alone or connected with friends or classmates, so they are used to technology that sometimes their teachers don’t have any idea about. Present language teaching must include digital games to motivate them in a more meaningful and contextualized manner (Prensky, 2009). In my opinion, incorporating digital games within education provides a valuable link between language activities within the classroom and life outside school and such a connection helps to reinforce learning and encourages pupils to continue to develop their language and ICT skills outside the classroom environment.