After the invention of World Wide Web, the Internet technology has been changing our lives at an unprecedented speed. Within a decade, the most widely mentioned Internet terms and companies today has emerged. Consequently people’s lives have been changed dramatically in terms of social networking, commercial relations, public administration as well as education. Though we seldom notice the dramatic changes, we are aware of them when comparing the life 10 years ago and the life now. In fact, our learning experience has become more convenient but at the same time, the Internet has also raised some problems for educators.
Students love new technologies because technologies provide them colorful and interesting learning resources. I am a foreign language learner of English and French, and I have witnessed the development of education technologies during my second language acquisition process. When I first learned English at the age of 10, I can only listen to native speakers’ recordings on a tape through a walkman or through a radio because there are not so much foreign language materials around. When I was a 9th grader, I had my mp3 and could download free textbook audio materials, various English songs, news broadcasts. I could watch English movies, read English websites, and even make friends with native speakers. The Internet just has opened a world of possibilities for me. Now I am learning French and I can certainly feel the technological advantages nowadays.
On the other hand, teachers should be conscious of the annoying advertisements around the specific piece of information which they want to share with the class. Students are mostly teenagers who are easily distracted by those animated or suggesting pop-ups, and therefore, as a teacher, it is crucial to know how to filter information.
As we can see from above, we are living in an information age when educators have taken advantage of the technological development in order to provide their learners more learning resources as well as more convenient and more interesting learning experience. It is my goal as a future teacher to know to to pick up and filter the most helpful information for my students and to create a more comfortable learning environment.
My little sister is currently learning Mandarin in her High School class and she is currently practicing downloaded lessons from her I-pod touch. I am amazed at how students can now carry textbook materials in their mp3 players or cellphones! A few years back when I was learning Japanese at JCCC, the material was in CD format. In order to practice the pronunciation of the language, I was required to go to the Language computer center and practice on specifically assigned computers.
ReplyDelete(Melinda Yeh)