Date: 10th/May

Dear Professor Mahmoud Al Shraa,

With the rapid development in the educational tools which are based on
technology, the needs for using such modern tools in our university
become a persistent need. In order to improve the quality of education,
we need to keep pace with development in education strategies and
learning tools. Teaching is not effective without the appropriate use of
information and communication technologies (ICT) resources to facilitate
student learning. (Ottenbreit-Leftwich, Anne T & Ertmer, Peggy A, 2014).
Using the technological tools offers effective educational means that help
students to learn and show their creative abilities. These tools do not hide
the teacher role or under-estimate their values, it functions as a
supporting tool to connect the teacher with the students in addition to be
an assistant appliance to understand the information and apply it.

In discussing such topic, it is necessary to point out to the practical

courses that are unfortunately taught in the style of indoctrination, which
does not add anything new to the students and leads to lose the
usefulness of the material. Let us take the public speaking course as an
example. This course aims to teach the students the essential speaking
skills, using the language efficiently and how to make an effective
presentation following the successful presenters techniques. So the
student must be well prepared in the practical site more than memorizing
the concepts and the steps. So I am going to suggest a tool that can help
students and teacher to make the aim of this course easy to obtain. First I
would like to highlight the importance of the application of the flipped
classrooms in such courses. Flipped classrooms create an interesting,
effective and real educational environment using free and easy
technological tools. This help students and the teacher get rid of the
boredom and frustration that comes from the traditional learning and
teaching methods. So for deepen this concept to be applied in our
classroom I suggest using Edpuzzel tool which I found suitable for many of
the course goals. Edpuzzel offers the opportunity to the teachers to create
their own videos on the subject they choose and share it with the
students. Teachers can upload videos that are related to the speaking
skills from YouTube, Tedtalk, Khan Academy and National Geographic.

Videos edition allow the teacher to crop the video to a certain time and to
add voice notes to a specific minute which help the student to understand
the idea in this part of the video. Teachers can create quizzes on the
content of the videos. The questions are varied; there are multiple choice,
true or false and essay questions. The teacher can follow the students
progress by the statics which provide the teacher with the frequent wrong
answers to focus on it or explain it more in the class. To make the process
more controlled; the teacher can view how long each students spent
watching certain video and that makes the evaluation process easy. The
teachers' role is like a facilitator and guide; they can create their own video including the
points they want to talk about and the students watch them and then dicuss the material in the
classroom. Students will come to the class with a previous knowledge about the lesson.
Edpuzzel is easy to use and accessible. As teachers of English as a Second Language, we
use EdPuzzle for a variety of purposes, as it supports students individual learning styles.
Students are motivated and engaged to learn, consequently, they assume responsibility for
their learning. Students also appreciate the flexibility and autonomy provided by EdPuzzle as
they are able to work independently. Teachers appreciate EdPuzzles ease of use and the
systems data analysis, tracking and quiz correction component. (Daniela Coelho & Ellen
Dougherty, 2016)

This tool will keep the students in touch with the latest updated materials and
announcements. The learning process -for the students will be more controlled as they can
easily ho to the materials that have been discussed and study them again. Edpuzzel allocates a
feature to comment in any video, ask questions and recieve feedbacks feom the teacher
instantly, and that encourage students to the group working as they can answer other's
questions.
So for that I think it is time to say goodbye for the traditional and indoctrination learning and
teaching styles. This is the suitable time to apply the concepts instead of memorize it.
Inserting technology to our courses will offer flexiblity, creativity and motivation for the
students. I do hope for your positive response on this matter.

Many Thanks,

Reem Al Emyan

References:
Daniela Coelho & Ellen Dougherty. (2016, may 1). Mobile apps for ELLs:
Supporting language learning with engaging. Argentinian Journal of
Applied Linguistics, 4(1), 43-58.

Ottenbreit-Leftwich, Anne T & Ertmer, Peggy A. (2014). Teacher Technology

Change. Journal of research on Technology in Education, 255-284.