[Retrieved from apple.com]
We always think about how to integrate technologies into classrooms. However, technologies are not cheap. I visited a teacher today in her elementary school building. She was unpacking 120 brand new ipods provided to the school through a grant. These ipods will be used for students to learn a foreign language such as Chinese, Spanish.
Whoever saw the ipods lining up on the desk couldn’t help saying, “Cool. It is such a cool thing.” Yes, technologies are always cool. They appear in front of us with beautiful faces, multi-functioning skills and creative ideas.
With ipods, students can do podcasting or share their video clips during the process of learning a foreign language, thus to be further motivated to learn. Imagine playing a dialogue of their own or a situational video clip of students using the language. It brings so much interest and fun during the process. No doubt, the use of ipods can help students learn a language. Then podcasts can be shared and reused again and again for all kinds of purposes: listening, imitating, presentation, etc.
Ipods are more like toys to students nowadays, so how to use it is not a problem. These students will be great istudents, knowing how to make dialogues and videos.
While thinking how I would use ipods to help with the learning of a foreign language, a thought came to my mind. Here is the technology, an expensive one, waiting to be used for the learning of a language, or speaking, to be more specific.
Will it achieve the effect we are expecting? Is the money worth on this? It is hard to tell because a student might learn the skill to make podcast and use it for other purposes later. That is something we cannot measure.
Can we achieve the same goal without using expensive technologies? We can. We can ask students to draw comic strips to make their own dialogues. We can ask students to act out their dialogue. Traditional methods still work, however, new technologies just look better and attractive. In real life, I prefer my LCD monitor screen to my old bulky CRT monitor. They both work, but the difference is the LCD monitor is more beautiful and leaves much space on the desk. However, they do the same job. So is it worth the money to change the old monitor to a thin and flat monitor?
Will the use of ipods become similar to having a LCD monitor? We don’t know yet. But I do see the beautiful part of it: students learn from their own dialogues more effectively. To make a great podcast, students tend to practice more and speak the language better. These istudents may have the interest of using this technology for future use, which is a great thing if they can put the skill into use.
Maybe we should so some analysis on the result of using a technology before investing money. To help with istudents, we need to be iteachers first, so that we can evaluate the practical effectiveness of the technology.
I am very interested to see what role ipods are going to play in the process of learning a foreign language in the elementary school. To be or not to be, let’s test it.
