There is no doubt that the use of technology in ESL classrooms does not only facilitate and updates the learning process but makes it more lucrative, beneficial and interesting. The use of technology is so common almost in every career and profession e.g PowerPoint, projector, Internet, cassette player and so on, so in a way it can prepare students to handle the technology in their future professions and serves like a bonus knowledge besides their ESL learning.
The use of technology e.g Internet, in this age when people are studying, working and taking care of their families brings ease and comfort as assignment could be submitted electronically in no time.
On the other hand like any other neutral device, technology could also be misused and cause distraction especially in the use of Internet, as it becomes difficult to resist your curiosity when you have a window open to almost all the universe in front of you and you only focus on one thing. Another problem which I personally experienced when I was doing my masters in Pakistan, where we have severe power shortage and often people are without electricity for twelve to fifteen hours in a day and we were required to type and submit assignments on computer, you can imagine how frustrating the situation was. Same was the case when trying to use cassette player for my students listening practice, Even for this blog sometimes you type a long answer and try to post it vanishes, so I think when using any kind of technology one should always have a plan B, which could be used if technology does not work.
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I really like Zubair's comments on technology in the classroom. In fact, I myself just had an entire paragraph written, pressed "post comment" and realized that I wasn't signed in & lost everything! So, definitely technology can be frustrating to use! I will try to remember everything I just typed as I respond again.
ReplyDeleteI like how he points out that technology can be used for good or bad; it is not the technology itself that is good or bad. I think that technology has the potential to make the good teachers even better and the bad teachers even worse (although the opposite effects are also possible). I think the best teachers always have a Plan B, not just for technology but for multiple situations, such as students finish an activity really quickly, students take a long time on an activity, technology does not cooperate, a catastrophic event occurs, it snows, etc. A Plan B is a must for any of these situations. For technology, I think it is important to think about what you might do if the technology fails on that day when you are making a lesson plan. Maybe make a few notes to yourself about alternative ideas.
As teachers, we must be flexible. That is one of our greatest assets, and I think that the best teachers move seamlessly from attempting to use the technology to the backup plan. In fact, at times students do not even realize that technology has failed, or the alternate activity might end up working better than the originally planned activity. I cannot even imagine how difficult it must have been to submit a paper when there was a 12 hour power outage. I hope your professors were flexible and understanding, but if not, I hope we can learn from their mistakes and aim for flexibility in our planning and implementation.