How limited your resources are?
Since we are living in a digital and information age, it is hard to avoid the critical issues in using technology. One of these issues is the limitations of resources when it comes to instruction and teaching.
There are varied concerns with the integration of technology in language teaching some are positive and some contradicts. With the emergence of technology, a variety of e-learning materials are available for use in educational programs. In many parts of the world, schools,colleges and universities have invested much effort into increasing the use of the web in all its forms to meet the demands of competitive markets and to bring a variety of learning choices to their learners. Since, instructors tend to use ICT’s and these materials in teaching language, there is still an issue with the reliability of these technologies for classroom use. For many of us, the productive use of information and communication technologies present a challenge in our teaching practice. Students are usually very engaged with technology and have developed expertise outside the classroom which the teacher may not have. Taking into consideration the fact, that most of the teachers are skilled under the traditional setting and they are not knowledgeable enough with the use of technology inside the classroom. Contextualizing it in our country, we lack teachers, classrooms and even instructional materials how much more the training of our teachers on how to integrate technology? This, well in fact can discourage teachers from making use of technology as often as they would want to because learners appear to be more digitally competent with the usage of it than them.
Last thing that i consider the most cruel downside of integrating technology is that authentic materials such as books, newspaper, radio, television are all left out. What the new generation today selects to use is gadgets because it is handy and easy to access. Unlike with books, e-books are available in mobile phones anywhere, anytime. Everything a student needs, smartphones and other gadgets can provide it for them. This could be the saddest thing that actually happens because of technology. The value of books are being ignored as a reference in teaching language because for some it is outdated unlike with the use of internet, each article is updated every minute of the day and there are varied ways and techniques that can be used to engage and motivate students. Another reason can be, since the need of information and communication technology increases in our society it gives birth to newer and newest digital media and technologies. Nevertheless, the value of technology is nothing compared to the value and beauty of printed medias such as books and newspapers.
Having these issues in mind, teachers must ensure to try something new with technology, open doors to new experiences, find new ways of learning and collaborating and discoveries in the classroom. As teachers we need to keep in mind to balance the use of technology and the use of authentic materials that are both helpful for the students. We can see how innovated our world and society turned out to be and so do we.
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