Impact of Technology on the Field of
Education
The
use of technology has a direct influence on education especially in language
teaching and learning and thus is an interesting issue for all teachers
and practitioners in the field. According to
Connelly and Clanandin (1988) technology helps teachers to become developers of
their own curriculum; thus, they can tailor assignments and instructions to
sustain a positive interaction to increase learners’ interest and motivation. A
number of useful techniques nowadays are used in the classrooms to improve the
level of learning.
IWBs: Interactive
Whiteboards
According to Higgins, Beauchamp, & Miller (2007), IWBs
were first introduced into the United Kingdom for office presentations with most
of the presentation elements highlighted in the design but gradually as the
technology progressed to the advanced level it becomes a popular and effective
teaching tool, then for the higher education sector and, in the late 1990’s,
primary schools began using them. The IWBs is the most popular teaching tool
used by majority of the institutions in all the developed countries all over
the world. The interactive whiteboards are essentially a touch-sensitive
electronic presentation device and is made ‘interactive’ by being linked to a
computer or laptop using special IWB software and a projector is also attached
with this. The IWBs allows an instant
access to a wide range of multi-media resources by just using the special pen
or even with a touch of your figure tip and offers a number of useful functions
such as drag and drop, highlighting text, hiding and revealing techniques, use
of colors and eraser. Huge budget have been allocated for equipping the schools
with IWBs especially in UK, but mostly schools of USA and other developed
countries also use this technique as in everyday pedagogy. But researchers have
asked extensively that to which extent this technology improves learning? For
these kinds of inquiries researchers have to answer some significant
achievements of the technology rather than highlighting its enthusiastic
features. Such type of attractive features allows the teacher to present the
lecture in a more beautiful way by the inclusion of the relevant images and
audio, video materials. But the question here is that what is the position of IWbs
in relation to the literature? And how it could be used to enhance learning
outcomes in ESL/EFL class?
Academic Considerations
of IWB
Educational researchers particularly and the people in
general continuously ask questions about the usefulness of IWBs, whether they
improve learning or not? Are the IWBs really effective for education
perspectives or is it only teachers’ favorite tool(the ‘wow’ factor)? Degregorio
& Sobel-Lojeski(2010, p-257) points out that teacher’s pedagogy and
interactivity are all critical in students learning achievements.
But they also agree that IWBs really increase student’s
motivation and improvements in learning by allowing students to manipulate
contents available on the board. Interactive Whiteboards are the most versatile
technique providing countless benefits to educational setting.
Advantages of Using IWBs
As the three major advantages described by Harmer are firstly, it provides an opportunity to
teacher and students to write on the board or they can highlight, erase or hide
the items on the board by special pens or even by their figure. Secondly IWBs
facilitates them to print or save the information displayed on it just like a
computer and last but not the least strength of this technology is that they
offer extraordinary tricks for example mask a part of the board and then gradually
reveal information on that part. In view of students IWB is an inspiring and
attractive technique because it is easy to use, immediate and visual. Higgins
et al,(2007) claims that teacher who use IWB are more active to ask better and
open questions and are also able to
describe and evaluate materials because as said “ that a huge bank of
resources is always available at the touch of a pen” Dudeney, G. & Hockly,
N.(2007). Teachers having experience of
using IWB in their classes has a positive attitude towards this new, impressive
multimedia tool. The class environment is really improved because of several
elements for example, the lesson proceed fastly, enough time available for self-correction and student
carries their activities without ambiguities because learner do most of the
tasks in the class with teacher’s assistance now rather than taking it as a
homework.
Role of IWBs in Language
teaching and Learning
Language teachers try to incorporate various techniques,
methodologies, electronic devices and audio-visual assistance. But the effect
of technology specifically in second language learning and teaching is really
questionable. Though the discussion above provide a sound knowledge of the
effectiveness of use of IWBs in field of education but our major concern is to
evaluate whether IWBs are helpful specifically in the second language learning
and acquisition(SLA) or not? The concept of interactivity is deeply rooted with
the ESL learning. Coyle et al, (2010) points out that the term has been
ambiguously used in the literature of IWB. While using IWBs one can write
directly on the board, graphics can be enlarged, animated and moved, so all
these kinesthetic responses enhances learning. Special softwares have been
developed for ESL teaching using a sophisticated integration of audio-visual
contents.
IWBs: Aids for ESL Teachings
Grammar teaching and learning has always been an unenjoyable
subject. Experts have been promoting the ideas that the necessary is to teach
language functions according to its meaningful rules rather than to grammatical
or structural rules (Brown, 2000).IWBs offered a hot deal to the teachers to
teach grammar in a new fun teaching manner by using different video clips on
the usage of a particular grammar point in communicative context. A number of
vocabulary and grammar teaching material is also available in games teacher can
access that material using IWB and then encourage students to come and play so
they can learn grammar and vocabulary in an enjoyable manner. IWBs are also
proved quite effective in pronunciation teaching as in a pronunciation class
teacher can play recordings of the target language to make students familiar
with the native accent which results in enabling them to learn how an
individual word is uttered by a native speaker. Some critics have raised the
negative effects of IWBs on learner but it just in case when the teacher
strongly depends on the use of IWB in all the tasks and activities.
The ESL/EFL teachers can teach in a better way by
encouraging students to collaborate with their fellow students in class
activities. As IWB has an interactive nature so it enables the students to be
more creative in presenting their ideas. A successful L2 development should
occur if students are stimulated to try the language scaffolded by rich
language models and technology.
Opportunities afford by
IWBs for Learning and Teaching
IWBs though the technique is new but it is widely
accepted because of the benefits it
offers and it is also believed that the effective teaching take place by three
progressive stages of pedagogical development as;1) supported didactic_ using
the IWB to support an old didactic(old
things in old ways Betcher & Lee, p-50).2) second approach is
interactive which means the old things could be improved as a fun activity
using iwb.3) interactive approach is used to enhance learning by doing the new
activities in the new manner with the new and latest technologies such
as-IWBs.it could be describe as by building new resources ,students
collaborative activities, real-time videos, creating wikis and blogs, creating
podcasts. All these activities could be better assisted by IWBs and allows
students to enjoy a vast range of opportunities to interact with teachers or
peers using target language.IWB build a social and communicative environment in
learning where students can share and improve knowledge by communicating and
making mistakes. The real benefit of using IWB lies in the effective not in the
cognitive domain.
Challenges for IWBs
Though much has been said about the positive impacts of
the IWBs in English teaching, it is also found that some language teachers have
identified the negative impact as well. Some teachers discard technology because
they feel it difficult to use and some declares that such tools are nothing but
costly accessories to decorate the classroom.IWBs are also criticized for being
too costly, in fact that is the reality because it includes a number of hardware
along with the sophisticated softwares, maintenance expenses along with that
the teacher training for using this emerging technology take it out of the
range of most of the institutes worldwide. Miller ,Averis and Door , in their
research on IWB in 2005 , highlighted different features of IWB, they regard
that though teacher find it easy to use but these take longer time to prepare
lesson.
Practical Implications
for using IWBs in Language Classrooms
Initially there were very few materials available for IWBs
in the field of Language teaching so the early adapters of IWBs found it time
consuming but now IWBs offer greater reward in terms of student’s interest,
motivation and progress. As materials can be re-used and adapted easily ,kinesthetic
learning styles are improved.IWB provides a range of digital resources to
illustrate core issues of language learning. In addition to that a lot of
graphics also included into lecture to support ideas, it also increases
students participation in learning a language by engaging students in peer
activities, grabs student’s attention by fascinating them also save time for
complex and complicated materials to be arranged before lecture and just
presenting at the time of class. Critically speaking while using the
traditional board a very limited number of activities can be designed to invite
students to work on the board but IWB offers various activities for students to
use this attractive technique in their classroom. This dynamic technique generates
a high degree of interactivity not among the teacher and the students but also
among the students and between teachers and teachers (Betcher & Lee, 2009).
Conclusion
Perhaps we should remember that IWB only mediates teaching
and learning.’ Good teaching remains good teaching with or without the
technology’ (Higgins et al, 2007, p-217).It is the teacher who sets up the
important opportunities for group work and language interaction, and these may
or may not be stimulated by the IWB resources. The technology can only be truly
effective ‘where the teacher stimulates interactivity’ (Glover et al, 2004,
p-1).Efficient teacher knows all the novelties in the relevant field and
informed by an interactive, constructivist pedagogy that enhances the
successful language learning opportunities by using IWBs and the effective
teaching must be multi-modal; by including video, audio, graphics, text and images.
IWB really takes learning of a language to a higher level.
References
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to teach English
with technology’. Harlow, England:
Longman.
2.
Harmer, J. (2007). ‘The practice of
English language Teaching’. Essex, England: Longman.
3.
Higgins,
S, Beauchamp, G & Miller, D. 2007. ‘Reviewing
the Literature on Interactive Whiteboards’ . Learning. Media and
Technology. Vol.32. p213-225, accessed 13-09-2012.
4.
Sharma,
A. 2012. ‘Interactive Whiteboard
Technology in English Language Teaching Classrooms in India’. Vol.12. p
93-98.India.
5.
Glover,
D and Miller, D, Averis, D and Door,V. 2005. ‘The Interactive Whiteboard: a literature survey’. Technology,
Pedagogy and Education. Vol.14 (2). P. 155-170. accessed through Google on
13-09-2012.
6. Digregorio, P & Sobel-Lojeski, K.
2009-2010. ‘The Effects of Interactive
Whiteboards(IWBs) on Students’ Performance and Learning: A Literature Review’. Journal
of Education Technology Systems. Vol.38(3). P 255-312. Accessed 16-09-2012.
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