#edmooc Some thoughts on week 3 hangout - E-Learning and Digital Cultures

Today many interesting issues appeared in the hangout: Empathy, where is it located in internet? Is it possible to empathize with others if we don´t know who the other one is? How does anonimity work on internet? Does it make it easier or more difficult to interact?

Teaching English or Using English - I love MOOCs

After many, many years of teaching English, tired of having to get rid of ESL teaching books that change every year, not knowing what to do with my old books and cds (or tapes or VHS, yes, I am quite old and been teaching for a while), I have decided to start to teach how to use English, and not teach English (specially when students are in that intermediate level that never evolves into advanced). What do I mean? Studying English can be compared nowadays to studying BASIC, DOS in order to be able to operate a computer. We do not need to know English tenses to use them correctly, to communicate, to write emails and reports. Our concious mind can understand perfectly well how grammar works, but it is not guarantee that we will write properly. Nor being able to annalyze and classify subject and predicate is a guarantee that we write better in our own language. Many years of repetitive, boring classes are over. Now we can play games, learn an ability, learn about new continents, sciences we have never had the change to learn, everything is available to us for free. Explore, enjoy learning with MOOCs and improve your English skills in the process.