While talking and discussing the application of new technologies in FL teaching and learning we could not simply leave out NMS Horizon Reports both for K-12 and Higher Education. These reports can be regarded as the world’s longest-running exploration of potential emerging technologies which are likely to have an impact on the educational process for the coming five years. Horizon reports include six key trends, six significant challenges and six important developments in educational technology for each particular context. These reports are technology-planning guides for educators and administrators who makes decisions and improvements about technology implementation in education.
Armenia as a country always prioritizing education has two different pictures of technological developments in the sphere of K-12 education and Higher Education. Some schools and universities are highly competitive through embracing technology-driven learning. Thus, these institutions focus on fostering problem-solving, creativity,
and critical thinking skills which are becoming truly required for the modern reality. On the other hand, the bigger picture reflecting technology integration in a vast number of educational institutions of Armenia is still unconvincing.
Now let’s have a look at what trends, challenges, and developments are relevant to the Armenian K-12 educational institutions who adopt technology into the learning and teaching process.
From the key trends “Redesigning of the Learning Spaces”, Rethinking How Schools Work”, “Collaborative Learning” and “Students as creators” are the most relevant ones. These schools have already shifted from the traditional teacher-centered classrooms to the student-centric pedagogies enabling students to be more independent, creative and motivated to work collaboratively. Accordingly, these trends are already in process and continue developing through the time.
From the challenges, I want to highlight “Rethinking the Roles of Teachers” and “Personalized Learning” as two main problems faced by the majority of Armenian schools.
As for the important developments “Online learning”, “Robotics” and”Artificial Intelligence” are relevant for some K-12 institutions both being in progress and having a great potential to be implemented in the nearest future.
Now let’s discuss trends, challenges, and developments in the Armenian Higher Education.
Here also there are two different sides of the picture: some universities implementing technology-based learning and some others still conducting traditional teaching and learning strategies with just a little or almost no technology interference.
For key trends, I find relevant “Increasing Blended Learning” and “Redesigning Learning Spaces” as two main trends for the higher educational institutions who adopt technologies.
For the challenges “Improving Digital Literacy” and “Personalizing Learning” are two most obvious ones faced by the majority of institutions in the Armenian context. These challenges are driven by the lack of competency to use technology both by learners and instructors. Also, lack of professional development in most cases brings to the fail to personalize learning so that to meet individual learner’s needs.
Important developments may include “Bring Your Own Device (BYOD)”, Flipped Classroom” and “Adaptive Learning Technologies” as having more potential for those universities which already apply technologies, also possible for those who do the first steps.
To sum up, there is a great potential for improvements and the future expectations could really be high once the leaders and educators work jointly and support each other trying to give technological solutions to the existing gaps and problems. This is still a very labor intensive process which requires a lot of time and huge resources.
TEACHING ENGLISH IN ARMENIA 