Month: April 2021

Teaching in Covid-19 Times: Challenges, innovations, solutions, and opportunities

Cummings,J., Sturm,M., Lawrence,G., Avram, A. & McBride, R. (2021).
Teaching in Covid-19 Times: Challenges, innovations, solutions, and opportunities. TESL Contact, 47,1(2021):21-35

This article from TESL Ontario’s Contact Magazine discusses the issues language teachers have faced globally and in Canada because of school closures and lockdowns due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Rather than presenting only challenges, the authors report on innovations, solutions and opportunities that have arisen during this time. A case study of a LINC (Language Instruction for Newcomers to Canada) educator showcases their principled approach to enhance student engagement in an online environment. The article ends with recommendations to leverage the benefits of teaching and learning online, including effective technology-mediated teacher education.

Retrievable from:

http://contact.teslontario.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/03/Cummings-et-al.-2021.pdf

Countering Digital Disinformation

Light, J., Auer, M. WebSafe: Tools for Newcomers to Counter Digital Disinformation. TESL Contact, 47,1(2021):13-20

The March 2021 issue of TESL Ontario Contact Magazine reports on a number of topics of interest to the bibliography. One of them, WebSafe: Tools for Newcomers to Counter Digital Disinformation, describes a set of practical learning resources, one 50 projects funded to counter online disinformation by the Government of Canada since January 2020. The other projects are listed here.

Another of the 50 projects, from United Cultures of Canada Association, is an educational booklet that looks at three kinds of information with examples from COVID-19: Disinformation, Misinformation and True Information.

The topic of digital disinformation is being explored worldwide, including this conceptual paper  that focuses on the context of asylum seekers. It contains a literature review on the information practices of asylum seekers and provides insight into the kinds of misinformation and inadequate information they encounter. The authors propose a Social Information Perception Model to show what people may identify as accurate information, misinformation or disinformation.

Retrievable from:

http://contact.teslontario.org/