Hi everyone! Today's topic is, as you saw in the title, teaching
with technology. First, let me explain why we will be talking about this today.
This is my homework for my
Instructional Technologies and Material Design course, and is very important
for me, for a 21st century teacher candidate. Before going into details, I will
define the key words first, which are teaching and technology.
According to INFED, teaching is "the process of attending to people’s
needs, experiences and feelings, and intervening so that they learn particular
things, and go beyond the given". On the other hand, technology is defined as about
taking action to meet a human need rather than merely understanding the
workings of the natural world, which is the goal of science", by OpenLearn. When
the two meets each other, it makes technology much more useful and teaching
much easier.
Today's
children are born to the arms of technology. They know how to use it far better
than adults. Besides, as they have always been familiar with technology since
they were born, anything that doesn't include technology bores them. So, when we
are studying with , mostly, young ones, we may need to use technology more.
You may ask, why? Why are you telling us all of
these? Doesn’t it have a reason? Of course it does. When technology and
teaching are together, the outcome is
unbelievably successful as both students and teachers spend less energy when
they use computers or telephones. They have access to information anywhere. They
don’t have to write many papers on hand, they just print the texts. These are
some of the the positive outcomes that mostly concern students when technology
and teaching meet. There are also many more when we look at them from the
teachers’ perspective.
When teachers use technological materials during classes,
they have the videos that may help them. If students get bored during class, they
can open the videos and attrack their
attention. Also, there are online classes, in which teachers can leave notes or
homework for the students so that they cannot say “I forgot we had homework”
or such.
However, we cannot say there aren't any disadvantages of technology at all. Some examples are as followed: if students bring their own technological gadgets such as mobile phones, tablets or computers, they may be distracted easily as they may get a text from a friend or they may say "I'm searching for some information" and they may surf on the Internet. The teacher may not be able to control all of the students.
So, when technology is used correctly, the benefits
of it cannot be counted as there are so many.
If you ask me if I will use technology in my classes, I will definitely use it. Because why not! A teacher must not ignore all the help the technology provides. If they do, they will be very tired at the end of each class, believe me... And if they take the precautions that may prevent the students from surfing on the Internet, they will surely enjoy the class.
I will close the post with a question, do you think every student would want to mix learning with technology? Why?
Thank you for reading ! see you on my next
post!
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