TESL-0150- Unit 4- Advantages and Disadvantages of Using Technology

There are many debates about using technology in the classroom. As technology is progressing, the need for using them in the classroom is getting higher. There many advantages and also disadvantages for teachers, students and publishers. The advantages of using technology for teachers are that there are many online tools and materials in the classroom that a teacher can use. As mentioned in Tomlinson (2014), teachers can create interactive activities such as quizzes, tasks and projects , etc. to be done either individually or collaboratively. They can use social media to share content and interact with students. Teachers can use up to date materials and technologies in the classrooms.

Also, there are many advantages for students to learn through technology. There are many online tools that they can use to practice, learn and interact with other students and the teacher. There are a large number of websites, and increasingly, mobile/ tablet apps which allow students to create digital animations based on choosing scenes and characters to which they add text or voice content. Students can share their learning through blog, social media and through collaborative writing environments. Other areas of interest for creation of student-generated digital material are brainstorming, mind-mapping and collaborative decision-making tools. Students can learn a new language in their home using laptops or smartphones (Tomlinson, 2014, p.200).

Publishers has to improve their services and provide online technology for learners. They must allow a degree of personalization which permits each learner to create their own interaction with the material, such as making in-text notes; building personal glossaries; hyperlinking to other media; and selecting, prioritizing, combining and reorganizing content as is offered in new generation interactive coursebooks.

Despite of all these advantages, there are some disadvantages of using technology that has to be considered. For teachers, there might be lack of access and knowledge in using technology. There might be some areas that teachers’ knowledge of a technology is lower than students. There might be lack of access to the internet and online resources. It is also time consuming for the teachers to find the materials and adapt them for each class. For students also, they might get so attached to their smartphones and laptops that might lose their attention and get distracted by different content. There are some privacy issues regarding using social media.  students might face issues in writing, and face-to-face communication, and, in the experience of interacting with teachers. In addition, the challenge for publishers is the need to balance global approaches to English and its varieties, and content for a global market, with the strength of material designed and developed for local contexts, cultures, needs and plurilingual influences (Tomlinson, 2014, p. 201).

In conclusion, despite the fact that technology has a great impact in our learning and teaching process, we should always consider the disadvantages and try to overcome them. In my opinion, it would work better for teachers to use both digital and traditional materials in today’s classrooms.

References:

Brown, D. & Lee, H. (2015). Teaching by Principles: An Interactive Approach to Language Pedagogy (4th ed). White Plains, NY:    Pearson Education.

Tomlinson, B. (Ed.). (2014). Developing materials for language teaching. United Kingdom: Bloomsbury Academic.