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“Ways I can use different technology in my lessons.”

What is some of the technology available to you in your teaching situation? Do you have access to computers? Internet? A video camera? Mobile phones? What are some of the ways you can incorporate the available technology in your lessons?

Post your ideas in a reply below and comment on other teachers’ ideas.

 

[Larissa]

What is some of the technology available to you in your teaching situation? Do you have access to computers? Internet? A video camera? Mobile phones? What are some of the ways you can incorporate the available technology in your lessons?

I have internet connection in most classrooms, my own lap top and the class projector, also most students have a smarphone.
I have though about using cell phones in class, either through educational apps or in-class activities that required internet, but I have mostly used slide projection and youtube videos.

[Maria Teresa Continanza]

In reply to: Larissa

Hi Larissa!

Depending in the place you work, it is if you can use technology or not. In most of Argentinian´s school internet connection doesn´t exist so teachers have to plan very carefully the way to teach using technology. You have to download videos or tech resources before hand, bring your own computer because schools don´t provide them to you. So, it is hard work for us but we can do it.

Tere

[Larissa]

In reply to: Maria Teresa Continanza

Hey, I have been reading a lot about blended learning, trying to work out a way to engage students with off-classes materials and activities, but they always have very mixed reception. Some students access them, some totally ignore them unless I ask them to bring results for our next class. Technology requires a different learning culture maybe.

[Larissa]

Do we need classroom technology?Yes, the world relies on technology and it becomes part of one’s professional life just as part of our daily routines. It takes time though to plan and incorporate devices and resources into daily teaching when the institution and the students themselves find that learning and technology are not a good mix.

[Vhanessa Barbosa]

I remember the days when I was exhausted to use technology, I mean I actually had no time to employ the use of technology at all in my class, no videos, no instructional games, just plain reading and answering activities in the book. The students were getting sleepy everytime they do that and when asked to sit erected, all they do was slouching and it made me so frustrated.

I mean yes, we cant avoid to encounter this sometimes but what I basically realized is that, even without technology,we have to be creative in everything we do. We have to be resourceful enough to adapt the materials available around us. But ofcourse, and definitely, we need to utilize technology in our classroom activites. The use of this will help our students get engaged to the topic and they wont find it boring at a certain time. Also because by having instructional videos made by the teacher, instructional games, they will always get excited to look forward for the next lesson to be conducted. They will somehow be motivated to learn everyday.

[Thuy Hang Le]

Classroom technology has played an important role in online teaching and e-learning due to school lockdown when the coronavirus keeps spreading all over the world. However, it is undeniable that technology cannot replace pedagogy.

Therefore,when it comes to online language teaching teachers are supposed to plan their lessons just like their face-to-face lessons with regard to lesson aims, stages of the lesson.materials (links, websites, apps),language analysis ( pronunciation,form,meaning),procedure, possible problems and solutions ( technical issues). In fact, it is all about connecting ( building good rapport), communicating , and challenging students.Some rapport building questions like “What did you like about where you grew up?” or “What places do you most want to travel to?” really work in certain contexts.

To improve communication in class there should be such interactive activities as: role-playing,doing a class survey,guessing the missing words, or asking different types of question with the help of video clips, short films, picture cards,…

Challenging students means varying ,creating  tasks related to functional language.For example, ask students to look at the photo of foods or watch a short video clip about different types of foods , the teacher then asks them to list six fruits they can see (remembering and identifying them in the picture,find something which isn’t a fruit or vegetable ( comparing/contrasting), group the foods ( dividing/classifying),and create a recipe from the food in the picture ( creative thinking).

In short, it can be said that classroom technology can help make teaching and learning more meaningful and integrating technology jn language teaching also helps students stay engaged. Nevertheless, teachers’ activity ideas , teaching techniques and methods are  factors which affect teaching quality.

 

 

[Maria Teresa Continanza]

I believe technology is very important regarding the world we are living now. Our students need to be connected more than ever.

I use technology in the classroom a lot. I have three computers and I divide my students into groups to use them. Sometimes they use their smart phones if they have.

Making videos, watching youtube songs or interacting with students from different parts of the world using English as a bridge are some of the activities we do using technology.

Now, with this quarantine the use of technology has increased a lot  due to online classes. Last week I connected Gaza Strip´s students with mine using a zoom meeting. They could exchange experiences, talk about their lives and their culture! It was amazing and the students were really engaged to do it.

Tere

[Ruben Pignataro]

Look at this in the Lesson of adjectives ending in ING or ED

2. satisfied or satisfying
The students worked hard and learned a lot. They were   (satisfied) / (satisfying ) students.
I guess both answers are possible here – a) They were satisfied (with themselves, for the work they had done and the lot they’d learned); b) They were satisfying students (to their parents/teachers) who may be proud of  their children’s/students’ performances. Am I wrong?

[MONA HAFEZ]

Technology plays an important role in engaging students these days . I love using technology in skills teaching classes  like speaking and reading .

Once I had to teach the story of Jack and Beanstalk and I knew that my students are fond of using Power point app in their school projects ,so I designed the story using effects , motions and my voice to create an energetic version of the story depending on students skills and prior knowledge . After studying new vocab , listening and reading activities , then comes the preferable phase for me and my students, and it was that  each group of five received a lap top or PC with an electronic copy of the story . They had to retell the story from another character point of view . They were able to change the events , background and voices . Each group uploaded their story to class face book page and discuss ed with others about their product

[Ruben Pignataro]

The technology available to us in public schools, the ones that most of our students attend, is that basic one that lets the governments fill pages in the newspapers with words saying what they have done for the “future generations”, all those dreadful things that followers applaud in meetings. Anyway, we, the superteachers come to action and walk into our classrooms with bags full of fantastic gadgets and create there (and in the students’ minds) a world of fantasy that can hardly be imitated.

A bit better is the access to technology in private schools. Internet almost always works and if it does not, all of the students have their smartphones and things can go as planned.

One of the things that help me with those who are shyer, is to ask them to record themselves with their phones in some guided activities such as introducing themselves, introducing an imaginary friend, describing some situations, pretending they are reporters. The truth, it works, but, as with any other activity, there are always students who do not cooperate and I have to look for some other kind of task to engage them.

I also use You tube videos, and, in case internet does not work at school, I always give them the link of the video for them to watch or download at home. They are well aware that the task on that day will be based on the subject matter of the video. Again, as drawbacks always come up, there are those who come to class without having watched it.

As we can see, it is not technology what will decide on the outcome. I think it may be what a piece of chalk was in the past or what a book turned out to be after Gutenberg in the 1400s. The outcome is based on the students’ will. The teachers, the books, the technology in any form are just means to help achieve the desired goal.

 

[Ruben Pignataro]

How do I use technology? An activity I had thought it woult not be rewarding but resulted in something surprisingly worth for creativity and use of language, was the “comic re-creation”. I had the students in pairs looked for old comics in magazines. They scanned two or three pages of the comic and deleted the dialogues in the captions (I guess they used Paintbrush or Photo Shop). Once they had only the images, they had to create a new story. They could use the dictionaries to look for the words they needed but they were asked to use a determined grammar point in any part of the new story. Again, they used editors to complete the captions and printed the stories.

The results surprised me, mainly because both students in the pair worked, not only one of them, and some of the dialogues were those of adults but spoken by Garfield, Bart Simpson or Mafalda (a famous Argentinean character). Higher order thinking was achieved in teenagers. Questioning about important things (at least for them) arose. And satisfaction could be seen when they exhibited their work and read their dialogues using different voices pretending to be the characters.

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