One
of the selective courses I have chosen in term one is new technology used in
language teaching. In this course, I am learning a number of great new technologies
which could be used in the classroom.
There are various
beneficial tools such as padlet.com, voki.com, mailvu.com, podcast, prezi.com,
glogster.edu and other useful websites. Those websites used in teaching could
enhance the students’ learning to some extent. I would like to discuss some
pros and cons of some of the technologies used in teaching activities.
Firstly, padlet.com is
a multi-functioned website which could be posted pictures, videos and words on
it and the positions are flexible. What is more, students also can write their
questions or opinions on it, so that teachers and other students could discuss
about the questions. I use this page to play audioes and recordings for students during the class.
Furthermore, they could review what they have learnt and practice the
pronunciation via the website and preview what is going to be taught next
lesson.
However, padlet has its
disadvantages. Though teachers could post as many pictures or videos as they
can, the page would go as long as it could. Therefore, when students try to
find out the updated knowledge, they have to drag the bar to the end of the
page and it costs time which in turns could distract the concentration of
students. The solutions of that problem are two:
- Save
the resources separately from each lesson and put the link of the new
padlet page onto the original webpage;
- Note
the date of each lesson on top of the materials on the page.
The two solutions could
provide a clearer page view for students to locate and search for the resources
they want.
The second technology
tool I want to discuss is the Prezi. It works similar as Power Point, yet it
has a more dynamic view when changing the pages. The design of Prezi is easier
for teachers to insert pictures and videos or other teaching materials onto the
pages. Since the searching bar is on the right side of the page which could
efficiently improve the quality of preparation. However, there are some
disadvantages such as the language setting only include English, Japanese,
Korean, French and other four languages, which means the teachers of other
languages could not choose this tool using for teaching.
Thirdly,
there are the websites such mailvu.com or voki.com could provide the platform
for communication in persons. Teachers might adopt these tools to communicate
with students from long distance to answer their questions and monitor the
progress students make. The disadvantages are that some websites charge money
from users and the design of the characters’ look is not that satisfied which
may decrease the interest of the students of using the websites.
The
way of using technology is to enhance the effect of teaching and learning.
However, the design of technology should be based on the students’ needs and
the teaching planning. Teachers ought to avoid of decreasing the interactive
between students. Technology is not the main topic in class, it should be
combined effectively with teaching activities.
