Reloaded Design of EFL Teachers Materials

Web 2.0 is the current state of online technology as it compares to the early days of the Web, characterized by greater user interactivity and collaboration, more pervasive network connectivity and enhanced communication channels (Rouse, 2015, para. 1). As Chirstensson (2008) explains, the term became popular in 2004 and includes new features and functionality that were not available in the past. Web 2.0 does not refer to a specific version of the Web, but rather a series of technological improvements.  Some examples of features considered to be part of Web 2.0 are: Blogs  - also known as Web logs, these allow users to post thoughts and updates about their life on the Web.   Wikis  - sites like Wikipedia and others enable users from around the world to add and update online content. Social networking  - sites like  Facebook  and  MySpace  allow users to build and customize their own profile sand communicate with fri...

Selecting digital materials always results interesting and highly engaging for students. However, digital resour ces not always are well implemented when it comes to teaching. Therefore, in order to use technology as a real tool and with a meaningful purpose, a good idea would be to take the SAMR model as a guide.  Dr. Ruben Puentedura created the SAMR model to let teachers notice the differences between using technology as a substitution of traditional material and the use of it as a real tool with a unique and particular function. The following picture will help us understand better what SAMR is about.  As you can see, Puentedura (n.d) suggests that this model consists of four different levels: Substitution, Augmantation, Modification and Redefinition. John Spencer classifies them into two groups: “the first two layers focus on enhancing the learning task and the next two layers focus on actual transformation ” (2015). The first layer , called substitution...