Technology as a useful tool.

Hello everybody!
How are things going?

Now that we are closed in our home, we have become more related to technology. We use it to communicate with our loved ones, to keep in touch with our teachers, to complete our assignments and so on.
I want to ask you: Could you go a day without technology?
I guess the answer is 'NO!'
Technology has become an inseparable part of our lives and I can say that we are addicted to it sometimes.
So, let's take the best from it.
We are all future teachers and as a generation which has been so much in touch with technology, we should know how to make use of it in our classrooms. We should know how to implement it in order to meet our students' needs and interests.

Let's focus on its benefits:
•First of all, the use of technology in the classroom engages students more.
They are used to technology and using it while teaching, increases their interest and helps them to have fun. If students are interested in something, they will participate more, they will be active, they will share their opinions and knowledge.
•Technology improves knowledge retention. Students who engage, have better language retention, because they will be part of the lesson and being part of it they will construct their own knowledge and understanding and it will be easier for them to remember things. Not only that, but by integrating technology in teaching we can use different aspects of it such as: pictures or videos and this will help students to memorize things better and also for a long time.
I can make a comparison from my experience.
In subjects where teachers only explain the lesson with their words, without using any kind of multimedia parts, I can hardly focus on what the teacher is saying and I can't remember most of the information.
On the other hand, when the teacher uses power point presentations which contain also pictures, it is easier for me to understand and to memorize things.
•Technology encourages collaboration.
What we can do is to give students a project and ask them to work on it as a team. This project can be about any kind of topic, but students should make a power point presentation and share it with the class.
Students may also present their project by creating their own videos and upload them on YouTube so other students may see it, or they may present their video in their laptop. This encourages also students who are shy to speak in front of a public.
•Through technology, students learn different skills. One of them is cooperation, which I previously mentioned.
It also helps them to develop their critical thinking. Since students have to do a lot of research using internet, they will have to choose which is the most appropriate information, which is reliable or not and so on.
It also develops practical skills such as creating presentations. Students may create a power point presentation as I mentioned above, they may create a video of themselves, or using pictures and different information, they may use graphics etc.
Technology helps us to write emails. Students may write an email to their teacher if they have any kind of request, if they want to clarify something and many other formal things.
Writing emails serves not only for teachers, but also for other formal people they will meet throughout their life.

How to implement technology(multimedia) in our teaching?
•If we have to do with elementary school pupils, pictures, games and music are the best ways to make them learn and have fun at the same time.
If we are dealing with vocabulary, we may use images to show them the meaning of a new word.
We may allow them to play games, which at the same time helps them learn, such as the hot potato game in which students toss a small object to each- other while the music plays and they have to tell a word about a certain topic. The player who is holding the object when the music stops, is eliminated.  In this way they also learn from each other. One online game, which I came across the previous semester is the Kahoot game. It is a user-generated multiple- choice quiz that can be accessed via a Web browser.
Our classmate introduced it for us and I really enjoyed it.
She presented it with a projector, we logged in and we completed it by our phones. It had colours, so it can also be used for young learners. It is a good way to make all students engage and also to make sure they don't cheat.
We may also add music to our teaching. They will have fun while listening and singing to a song and at the same time will learn something new.
We can also use different power point presentations created based on students' need.
Also, students can create or design their own magazine using different aspects of multimedia. This allows students to work together, to show their strongest abilities and to learn different apps.
•Technology is advancing and we can also use different WebQuests for our students. They are a kind of online teaching lessons. One of them is Zunal, which is very easy to deal with.
We may create online exercises for them using online generators.
•What about a class Webpage?
It allows learning to take place everywhere and anytime. Here, we can all post announcements, different materials, photos.
Students can access objectives, notes, worksheets, extra information and so on.
We can create a blog, or we can also use online platforms such as: Google Classroom.


Look at all these ways we can use to integrate technology in our teaching and learning.
I have only mentioned some of them, but they are much more.
But, do not get confused, technology is not a solution, it is a tool. A tool which helps us to improve our way of teaching, but never to replace us.
We should be careful while using it. We should always keep in mind that technology is there to 'serve' us.

P.s Feel free to share your opinions.

Thank you!