Discussion 4: Way to much to say

I have mixed feelings about technology in the classroom. I love using presentations from PowerPoint or Prezi, videos from youtube, images from the internet, and online homework and quizzes like My Comp Lab or My Math Lab. I find these tools to be easily useful and applicable to the learning environment. Even "fancy" new technology like iPads and eReaders can be useful: I know I use my iPad for 90% of my assigned readings for this semester. There are always developers working on new software and ways to bring it to the classroom. I've even come to like using the Wiki and the Blog to share ideas between students and encourage broader thinking. As I've started playing with AudioBoo, I can see there is great potential there, specifically for foreign language learning.

However, I still have trouble accepting that social networking sites like Twitter and Facebook can be good tools for learning. In my freshman year, my English 401 professor required us all to make Twitter accounts and to Tweet article links about that semesters Discovery Discussion topic once a week or so. I found it to be tedious and not very useful at all. Students were looking up links and Tweeting them, but not really interacting with each other or even fully reading their own articles, let alone someone else's.

I read the article about a college professor using Facebook with his intermediate French class of 17 students. The idea was they all took on a fake identity of a French person and they all lived in the same apartment building and interacted with only each other in that character. They were required to have some sort of interaction in that "community" 3 times a week as part of their homework and participation. They had to write memoirs and post them as notes, some of them created events for the apartment community and some of their characters became friends. It was interesting to see each of them create a unique identity and then interact through that medium. They certainly seemed to use French in a very social informal context, practicing with status updates, comments, messages, posting on walls, posting images of art, video clips of songs, etc. The professor then incorporated the apartment community into the classroom, where they would write their memoirs, complete activities and solve problems (like a murder mystery) in their personae   However, I'm not sure that would necessarily work in many classrooms at the high school or lower level. There is enough of a difference in maturity level that might make students less interested in this type of project or less willing to work within the guidelines responsibly. I think it is a fun and fairly useful way to encourage students to practice their language in a social context, but it is definitely not something that can be used in every classroom.

And that is really the biggest issue with technology: it isn't a cover-all solution. Teachers have to be properly trained to use it, apply it and guide students in using it. For example, not every school has WiFi, so not every school can benefit from iPads or iPods for students. Not every student has access at home to a computer, so teachers have to make sure to build in a bit of time in the computer lab or library. It's true students can stay after school or come early to have access, but sometimes they have to take the bus or are on another person's schedule. Even in a perfect world where every student has equal access to technology and every teacher has equal access to training and workshops, there are some parts of technology that will work better for different teaching topics and styles. I think technology can be a useful tool in language instruction, but the burden of proof rests on the teacher to search out the training and learn how to apply it where it will have the greatest effect.

P.S. I think the idea of Second Life for language learning is great for non-traditional students of foreign languages, but to require students at public schools to spend a certain amount of time online and interacting in  a chat world through an avatar is unrealistic. I think you would see similar behavior and problems that are found in any other online world. Students in a traditional school already have access to a (hopefully) teacher and other students that they can interact with. But if you want to learn a foreign language as an adult or in the cases of online high schools, the interaction and access to an authentic teacher and "authentic" learning environment can be incredibly helpful.