The role of media-technology in teaching today has become an important part of education. As technology expands, individuals are more accustomed to using various technological devices throughout their daily lives, such as the television, video, radio, cellular phones and the internet, and it is not surprising that he use of these devices carries over into the classroom. With the use of television, professors can show clips from television shows and the news. With the newest video recording devices, students can incorporate their own video clips into presentations. My opinions on the use of media technology are focused on college students. I have had a variety of experiences with the use of media technology in my college education—some are better than others. I have taken online courses where the entire course is taught online and there is no face to face interaction. Instead you use a discussion board to post all of your assignments and comment on other people’s work as well. In this experience, I found that people expressed their opinions and thoughts more openly when they were able to type it up rather than being put on the spot in a classroom or raise their hand and wait to comment. I’ve also had very effective learning experiences through the use of you-tube clips paired with lesson plans in my psychology classes. My professor brought in clips from youtube that pertained to the lesson and it kept me intrigued when I had an audio and visual example to go along with the lecture. Some uses of media technology in the classroom have also been more of a distraction that effective. For example, a seminar class that I was going to take used video-conferencing where our classroom was being team taught and it had a microphone, a camera, and a screen where our class could see the other class from the different school and vise versa. The technical difficulties took away from the learning experience and additionally, the professor’s attention was drawn away from the students in the class and was directed to the technology. I feel that technology can improve learning if it is incorporated appropriately.
This was a great post and I really liked your examples. I totally forgot to mention my humble beginnings- at Harbor city college where I took English 102, 205, 207, and 208 online. That was a wonderful experience where I learned to love English and write mo' betta.
ReplyDeleteThe discussion forum was public and something about knowing that everyone else could read my papers made me try harder. We were also allowed to read other posts and were required to comment- this exposed me to other types of writing and greatly improved my writing.
I cannot imagine taking a video conference class- even thought I have done ones totally online- I agree that too much effort would go into communicating both ways. Wexler has combined the mediums nicely and blogger is something that I would use in a high school classroom. If I am going to end up teaching any grade level I need to anticipate different types of learners- and media is something every youth is familiar with. (I also will let them end sentences with prepositions)
The technology of online classes are magnificent! I have had many online GE classes and found out that they are very intriguing and actually harder than regular classes. Blogs like these let people talk about different views.You are open to different ideas. I think that technology has provided a facilitated way in which we ive life. Certainly, the use of technology should be in great moderation, but its use is definitely an aid.
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