ALT-4 Teaching in a Digital World
In this digital age, the world of teaching is rapidly changing. The days of "chalk and talk" are soon to be a distant memory. With the introduction and ready availability of information technology, a computer is standard in most classrooms and high speed Internet is becoming more and more common. However, technology alone is not enough, teachers must be ready willing and able to use it in an effective manner.
I.T. has many advantages in the classroom today. Interactive whiteboards, or Smart Boards, are ideal for getting students actively involved in their learning. They allow students to engage with their learning material in new and exciting ways. Studies have shown that if a student is an active learner, as opposed to a passive learner, their understanding, learning and motivation is greatly increased (Benware & Deci, 1984).
From a teacher's perspective, class notes can be fully prepared in advance and projected onto a screen at the touch of a button. This has obvious advantages, the teacher does not have to prepare the same material year in, year out. They can also face the students, as opposed to having their back to them while they are writing notes onto a board. This would improve the communication and discipline, within the classroom, and allows the teacher to engage more fully with their students.
The ability to project the computer image onto a screen allows the computer to act as a media centre whereby, the teacher can easily show educational DVDs, YouTube videos and archived TV shows. YouTube videos are particularly good as they are rarely longer than 10 minutes in length, about the attention span of the average teenager, and so the students are kept focused and attentive for that period. A teacher can also pull up clips of significant historical events such as the Apollo 11 moon landing, political interviews, news stories, etc. These can be invaluable resources for a class teacher.
Emailing offers opportunities for increased communication between teacher and student. The student can email assignments, questions and problems. This can be advantageous for students as it affords them the opportunity to ask their teacher something, which they may not feel comfortable asking out loud in a class environment.
Finally, file sharing is a great advantage of using I.T. in a learning environment. Websites, such as Moodle, allow the teacher to upload files, which the students can then access, using a unique login. This reduces the need for photocopying, which of course is environmentally beneficial. It also means that the student cannot lose their notes and resources and so will never have an excuse for being unprepared. Perhaps disappointingly for the students!
References:
Benware & Deci (1984). "The quality of learning with an active versus passive motivational set." American Educational Research Journal, 21, 755-765.
