Does technology help educators to be great teachers?
I do not think so as I think that if a teacher is a good one s/he could teach in the middle of the Sahara under a tree and still engage students. I do not believe that technology can help students' engagement per se.
So why do I use technology in my class?
For me technology is a great mean of bringing people together. If I were teaching French in NZ in the 1950s it would be harder to do what we do now in our French classes, and engagement has nothing to do with that. Indeed it would be harder to bring people together, it would be harder to work collaboratively (teachers-teachers/ students-students/ teachers-students) within greater distances, it would harder to participate in activities with the rest of the world etc.
This is what technology represents for me as a teacher and as a learner.
I got reminded that tonight when I checked my tweeter feeds. @ICTmagic put on a great website which I find wonderful. I only had a quick look at the site but I like the idea behind. Kids put videos of themselves speaking their mother tongue and presenting festivals in their country. Unfortunately there isn't anything yet in French. But it is not important as I think it is a wonderful evidence of what technology can achieve. It does not matter where you are in the world and it helps collaboration.
Maybe because I am a French teacher, I also love the title of the site :-) "celebrating language"
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I agree with you, Florence. Sometimes the most effective sessions are those when you just sit around and talk. What I like about technology is it allows you to be a little more flexible and creative. For a language teacher, I cannot think of any better thing than to connect students with French blogs, or students via Skype or other collaborative tools/methods. What has been the most exciting thing you and your students have done with technology?
ReplyDeleteWell...the most exciting thing? We did skype conversations with people in France, US, Australia. We started a virtual exchange with a school in New Caledonia which is becoming a real life exchange as we are going to spend 2 weeks in their school in October :-) We created movies and wikispaces
ReplyDeleteWow! You're way ahead of many of us. What did you learn doing these things that is worth passing on to the rest of us?
ReplyDeletelast year I was a Core Education eFellow. if you go to http://www.froggieflo.com you can read what I did
ReplyDelete