The Big Question: What will you remember most about 2006? What are the biggest challenges for you as you head into 2007?
What are your predictions for 2007?
Three questions.
As the year draws to a close I have time to reflect on the past year and consider the year that is coming. Recently while surfing the web I discovered a blog run by people involved in education and e-learning called The Learning Circuits Blog. At this blog they ask people to answer a ?Big Question? every month. The question for December was What will you remember most about 2006? What are the biggest challenges for you as you head into 2007?
What are your predictions for 2007?
Here is my answer.
What will I remember?
I will remember that in 2006 The Linguist membership increased over 350% and we reached learners in over 25 countries. I remember the personally enriching exchanges I was able to have with our members from all these different cultures, during our online discussions. It is really an extraordinary experience to participate in an active conversation with people in five different countries on all kinds of subjects using Skype.
My biggest disappointment was the continuing delay in launching our new version of The Linguist. The new version will allow people to learn a variety of languages other than English. This will fulfill The Linguist?s vision of becoming a truly international convivial learning community. I know we will get there in the coming year and it promises to be exciting!
What is my greatest challenge in 2007?
Our challenge in 2007 is to position The Linguist as the preferred place of learning for all people interested in languages. Our success will depend not only the ingenuity of our language learning methodology, but on how well we can integrate our system with the rapidly developing world of iTunes, iPod, podcasting and mobile learning.
I think there are many people in the world who want to learn languages. At the same time there are many people who want to help teach their own language to speakers of other languages. The Linguist will become a key place to do this and podcasts will become a major resource for the learning of many languages.
What is my prediction for 2007?
My prediction for 2007 is that there will be an even greater awareness of the power of mobile ubiquitous learning, using the iTunes/iPod paradigm as a new "university" in a truly "universal" sense. This awareness will gain its power from motivated individual learners who will gradually convert the more traditional educators in institutions and corporations. Technology and modern behaviour patterns will continue to favour this development in ways that I cannot predict. The Linguist has to be there as this happens.
