Applying Technology in Our Lessons
Once we get
to know how technology works or what kind of software and hardware we can use
to support our lessons, we must learn how to utilize this tools inside and
outside the classroom. After reading the articles Blending technologies in ESL
courses: A reflexive enquiry by Paul Gruba, Cameron Clark, Kellyn Ng, and
Marisa Wells and Integrating CALL into the classroom: the Role of Podcasting in
an ESL Listening Strategies Course I can say that I have learned significant
things that I will consider in my future career as a teacher.
From these articles I learned that there are some devices that can be used to teach and practice some specific skills. Both articles mentioned podcasts as an example, with podcasts students can discuss topics, share their ideas, or learn new content and at the same time they practice their listening skill.
I would like
to share my personal experience, I am currently taking an online course in
which we use podcasts to discuss and comment weekly, and it is surprising to
know how simple devices that I used to use only for entertainment have become my
main tools for that course. Every week, I use my cellphone and my earphones to record
my comments, and then I post them using my personal computer.
One of the
things that I liked from these articles is that they are booth very realistic,
they study the pros and cons of using technological devices as a tool for teaching
languages. I appreciate the fact that the articles state certain disadvantages
of using technology to teach because it is evident that not everybody has access
to technological devices, or feel comfortable using them. Therefore, it will be
our responsibility to find a way to overcome those barriers.
I agree with you Stanley because we as future teacher we have to learn first the different uses, advantages and disadvantages of the technology before to integrate it at our classes. in that way we can know if that tool is going to be or not useful to develop students skill or if they can have access to it. also i have learn too with the different uses that our teachers give at the technology to increase our knowledge and that is helping me to in the future to do the same with my students.
ReplyDeleteThank you for reading and commenting Gloria :)
DeleteHi Bryan! I have to say that I agree with you when you say that we as future teachers, we have to leran how to use it and how to apply it to our classes. I share with you the same feeling about the online course, it is incredible the things that we learn every week in that class. And, we learned how common devices like cellphones, can be useful in our learning process. I got a question for you, In what way, you overcome the barriers that you mentioned in the last paragraph?
ReplyDeleteThank you for reading and commenting Adonay. Answering your question, I think that we as teachers must be creative when it comes to overcome the barriers mentioned above. To mention some examples, if the situation is that a student does not have access to technological resources, we could assign them a partner who has acces to such devices and ask them to work in pairs. On the other hand, if the scenario is the lack of interest from students towards technology, we could look for educational games that they find interesting and entertaining or ask them what kind of topics they are interested in and try to apply them in our lessons.
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