What materials do I use?  How do I use them?

Over a few lessons I made notes of the materials I used, as well as how, when and why I used them, and how they worked.  Here’s what I found:

I was quite happy with the variety of materials that I’d used in the lessons – videos, coursebooks, additional worksheets, PowerPoint presentations. For the most part they worked well in the context, but were also useful in identifying areas for future lesson focus.  The table above also shows that I used a combination of materials from different sources: the prescribed coursebook, additional materials that I selected or created, and some from that library of resources that my colleagues have sourced and created over the years.

Compared to some of my classmates, there was greater use of technology.  Perhaps this is partly down to our notes only providing a snapshot of our teaching, teachers having to follow a strictly set programme or coursebook, or that facilities simply don’t allow for it.  Some of my classmates are rightly skeptical of using technology in the classroom.  Although I think that Ed Tech is an area that will become an increasing part of our day-to-day teaching, how we choose to implement it in the classroom must be with careful consideration.  It would be easy to become convinced that our students are ‘digital natives’ (Prensky, 2001) and so we have no choice but to integrate technology into our lessons, but I’m not (and neither is Prensky nowadays).  I find the idea of being called a ‘digital immigrant’ quite offensive and irreconcilable with my experience of technology, particularly in the classroom.  Use of new technologies should work alongside what we already do to improve it or add a new dimension, following and supporting ideas about second language learning and teaching methodologies.

I often find that though my students are attached to devices throughout the day, how they use the technology and their knowledge of how to use it best to their advantage leaves a lot to be desired.  Digital literacy is one of the main focuses this year in our college, and I think that it will/should be a key aspect in how we implement use of technology in the classroom.

I hope that following this course will mean that I have a stronger sense of how to implement Ed Tech with principles in mind, and give me more ideas for materials that I can experiment with.