Thinking activity: ELT & ICT

Hello Readers,

This Blog is about my classroom thinking activity given by our professor in which students have to write about given points. here is the blog link of the professor click here

1) Why is it necessary to use Technology in Education? 

Change is the rule of nature, if you don't change or update yourself with the time you can't survive in this competitive world. In other words, 21st century is the age of ICT and people can't live without technology. In every discipline technology is very useful thing in human life. Education cultivate us from the animal to human being, it is fundamental right of people to be a literate and also it is very useful for live better life. So, with the passage of the time education also need to upgrade from chalk and talk to smart class. Digital classroom is necessary for teaching and learning process, it is useful for both teacher as well as students. In traditional way of teaching, teacher was at center but now in this age student is at center. Teacher's work as facilitator because through the technology students come with every information and work themselves so teacher's work is to facilitate them. Students can learn anytime from anywhere through digital classroom. Teacher can teach all the subjects like Math, science, History, Language, Geography, etc through technology. Technology stimulate learning interest in the students much better than traditional way of lectures. So, according to me technology is necessary in education for better future career of the students or we can say that technology means good facility hence students and teachers have good facility in education.

2) What is the difference between 'using' and 'integrating' technology?

There is big difference between 'Using' and 'Integrating' technology. Using technology means sometimes teacher use technology for teaching but in integrating technology students also be a part of it, in other words we can say that integrating means a medium of teaching and learning. Through integrating technology students can build up their creative thinking. Technology is used to deliver information while in integrating, technology is used to construct and build knowledge. In using technology teacher teaching the contents and put his or her views while in integrating technology students also can put their views and ideas along with teacher. At last we can say that using technology is teacher center and integrating technology is student center.

3)How can we integrate technology

We can integrate technology in the classroom through various web tools like power point presentation, Blog task, Flipped learning and social media like Whatsapp and Facebook, in which Flipped learning is very interesting because it broke the traditional norms of teaching and learning in the classroom. Students can learn any time from any where through flipped learning. Teacher can engage the students without his or her presence. 

4) Can technology replace teacher?

I don't think so, Teacher and technology both are significant in the process of teaching and learning. Technology is better for leaning in new style, it gives you information but don't guide like teacher. Technology do not teach you life lesson and not be a role model for you but teacher can teach these all aspects of life. Teacher teach you to connect the dots but technology can't. In the age of technology we have to integrate it in our education but teacher also much needed to guide. Many times student like me failed to understand some topic while reading in google and watching videos but my professor Dr. Dilip Barad can teach me with the help of various examples, hence teacher is very helpful to understand easily.

5) Write in brief on David Crystal's views on 'effect of new technologies on English language', 'biggest challenge for English language teachers in the times of internet', and 'texting is good for English language'. (All these three videos are worth watching.

David Crystal is a well known British Linguist, he has talked very interestingly about the effect of technology on English language. He gave many examples of using abbreviation of English language on Twitter, Facebook, etc. How people using technical language like LOL in social media. he also talked about the difference English language like British English, American, African and Indian English, we can see the effect of technology in these languages. Furthermore, he talked about the challenge of English language teacher in the era of internet and said that the teaching profession especially the language teaching is very difficult than other because teacher has to be careful about the difference usage of English language in different way by different countries. At last he talked about the texting on social media that means texting on twitter on whatsapp and in Facebook is good for English language because it express the thoughts of people in front of other in limited characters. In this way we also learn the technical or social media English language.

6)Name one web-tool which can help in development of all four L-S-R-W skills. 

Whatsapp as a web tool is very useful for all four basic skills. We can develop listening, speaking, reading and writing through whatsapp features. Whatsapp gives very good feature for improving these skills. For instance our professor gives us reading task in whatsapp so through this we can improve our reading skill and also it gives the features of video sharing, video calling, voice recorder and we also write messages for writing skills.