Nobody could deny the fact that we are already in an information age, and so it is inevitable that technology is more and more widely used in classroom teaching these days. But to tell the truth, I am not the one that welcomes a variety of technologies in my class. On the one hand, I am not very interested in technology and thus good at it myself. On the other hand, I didn't get a lot of positive results from trying to promote some technology use for my students.
I'd like to say more about the second factor. I've been teaching Advanced Reading to juniors majoring in English in China University of Mining and Technology, Beijing for five years. I originally asked them to give presentations for the reading materials we covered in classes. They did this in groups. What I got from their feedback was that they did get some useful information from searching the internet for background information of the authors and the texts, but they spent too much time for selecting from all the resources. Many of them agreed that the process of preparing for presentations was more like that of learning about ppt. skills. But wait a minute, I'm not the teacher responsible for teaching computer skills, and they were going to have classes on that subject. Besides, as I had observed, they were less capable of thinking deep and critically than I had expected them to become by attending my classes. I actually hoped them to learn to think critically on the reading materials, reflect their own life and thus form their future goals in life. Then, inserting too much technology did not really work well with my intentions of teaching and learning.
I did not drop all the technologies, though. I still give the presentation assignments. But now I don't emphasize on technologies. I try to activate my students' background information on a particular text first and then encourage them to linger in the pieces of reading and give the class their own understandings during the presentation period. PPT is not required as a necessary part any more.
In a word, I do think there is no way to escape the technologies in classroom teaching, but we should be very cautious not to get obssessed in and overuse it.
I agree that escaping technology in today's society is next to impossible. However, I think you are wise to critically evaluate the use of a particular technology for a particular task. In the advanced reading example you mentioned, it seems that the students’ unfamiliarity with PPT caused the use of this technology to become a distraction from learning in some cases. Perhaps after the students have completed courses that better familiarize them with PPT and searching for information on the internet, they will be able to use it more effectively in projects similar to the one you mentioned.
ReplyDeleteI think you did the right thing. If using technology is a distraction, then it's best not to use it. However, learning how to use technology in general must be a part of the total student's education.
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