Use of Technology in Teaching

Dr. Bhagyashree S. Varma

We are breathing a high-speed digital life today in the
second decade of Cyber-Culture. A wide range of techniques
proliferated in the world around us is simply thrilling. The
educational canvass is clouded by “Be the Best and buy the
Best” – market commercialism so much so that the teacher’s
job is no less breath-taking than that of a soldier on the front. It
begins with the magical expectations like igniting the fires of
curiosity (without the match-box!) among the learners and does
not end till they become the part of systems around.
One can simply begin by asking “what is the position of a
teacher today?” A teacher has no escape from the slavery of
books but is he to remain a shelf or a show case of books?
Going to the classroom and speaking for fifty minutes with or
without pauses has in fact made teacher a living cassette of
recorded data.
Sometimes a teacher has to enact dramatically and
entertain the students as if they are theatrical audience. Earlier
the teacher used to rule the climate within the classroom like a
king but today he has been reduced to a marks-giving umpire,
the fact seems to be painfully ironical but is a fact. He is like a
punctuation mark either asking questions to prompt
interrogative thinking or bring out the instructive dimensions
like an exclamatory mark.

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 In the double effort of creating pleasure and sharing
instruction actual position of teacher has been like a semi-colon,
a half-complete catalyst in the classroom – a half-full glass
which you can describe as half-empty.!!!
In the rural areas of the country a teacher is not less than
a jester for the villagers, a ringmaster for the unruly children
and a poor helper to everyman in the street. A teacher has to be
a theorizing agent in his practice of teaching and a poster of
devoted worshipper or a priest in the noble of knowledge.
Finally one can say that the position of a teacher has been
reduced to a PEDAGOGICAL DINOSAUR…!
(Slides on) Use of Technology in Teaching – Educational
technology especially computers and computer-related
peripherals have grown to permeate all areas of knowledge.
01) Position of a Teacher --Showcase of books-?
Cassette recorded-? Dramatic replay-?
Entertainer or ringmaster-? King of classroom-?
Marks-giving umpire-? Pedagogical dinosaur-?

Technology in broader sense relates to the use of

techniques or methods in doing a job like teaching. A general
fallacy about the use of technology restricts its benefits to the
literacy in the areas of mathematics, science, studying weather
and stock-reports, developing a personal financial plan or
diagnosis of some health problem through the doctor’s use of
techniques. According to Glennan and Melmed (1995)

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“Technology without reform is likely to have little value, and
widespread reform without technology is probably impossible.”
02) Use of Technology-a resource and storage-house, an
impact-vehicle, as a digital demo-samples record-research data-
feedback tool-an assessment device-as reformation machinery-
For updating, modifying, editing and ideating knowledge

Teaching, like all fashions in the world, is changing today

with quite a high speed. We teachers are supposed to be
technologically advanced enough to help the students become
familiar with high-level skills such as how to access, evaluate,
analyze, and synthesize vast quantities of information. In the world
of such expectations from teachers, what are the basic questions to
face?
03) Basic questions for a teacher-Access to knowledge--
Computer-literacy---Training resource--Financial backing --Time
management-Changing measures--Inevitability of advancement--
Methods and techniques--Question of survival

Technology today has become a catalyst for teaching and

learning in the classroom. Broadly it includes traditional
technology and modern technology as used in the respective
classrooms. The traditional classroom has been changing
revolutionarily in such a manner that the students who studied
in the Ashramas and jungles and gardens, in the lap of Nature,
have now entered not only classrooms but air-conditioned
rooms of Cultured societies wherein they have no glimpse of

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nature. Yet they have gone through a long history of a sort of
freedom-fighting against the reign of Teacher-God in the earlier
happy paradise of knowledge. Was it the intellectual
domination of the learned over the learners is the question a
modern child would ask?
04) Traditional classroom---Teacher-centered pedagogy
One-way communication, ‘Knowledge’? ‘Dictation’
Restriction of audio-visual aids--Pressure in stereotyped ethos
Negativity in monopoly, command and self-superiority ?

One will not be really surprised to see all the students

discussing a problem and the teacher sitting like a dullard in a
classroom in modern times. This is what we call modern
classroom. It is not only an academic gathering but even a public
place where one more simile for a teacher would be proper if it is
that of a traffic policeman!
05) Modern classroom--Student-centered guidance-two-way
communication--‘Information-access’/self-learning-Facilitating
resources--Web of websites in cyber culture-Auto-circulation of
audio-visuals--User-friendly educational ethos-Positivism in
multidisciplinary -and all-inclusive competence

What we need then, is neither a traditional outdated class nor

a modern class but a solid and sober mixture of the two which we
can call a hybrid classroom.
06) Hybrid learning--Mixture of the old and the new techniques

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Lectures with intervals of discussions--Comments, responses,-
demos from learners--Handouts, assignments, tasks etc.--Seminars
with guided presentations-Encouraging initiatives in and out of
class--Widening measures of student-teacher relations---Promoting
research attitude and aptitude-Teacher as a parent, friend and guide

One cannot think of using technology in educational ethos and

escaping the digital context which happens to be the core of
modern technology in the world. Educators must now prepare
themselves for a technology-rich future.
07) Digital technology-Internet-‘social software’-Does machine
Separate man from man?-Online multi-players-Games, earning etc.
Cyber-friendly relations-E-communication- chatting/e-mails-
Matrimonial, advertising-Discussion-boards/conferencing-
Threaded/unthreaded conversations-Job-hunt,online appointments

Teacher competency in using technology is the first and the

foremost factor that matters. In any subject the easiest presentation
that can be acquired fast and prepared smoothly is the power-point
presentation.
08) Power-point presentation ---popularity in multimedia--ease
in demonstration--Accessible and time-saving --Clarity of
Perception through sound and vision--Techno-pedagogical
records--Sharing and preserving information--Collaborative
professional ethos--Campus-learning and publication---Animated

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impact-machinery-Digital features of replay, relativity and
transferability--Electronic whiteboards as canvass for interactivity

Increase of technology in schools and colleges is ongoing,

unstoppable and necessary. Teachers are expected to acquaint the
students with the complex problems, solutions, to make them
capable of meeting all the needs of life irrespective of their talent.

09) Teaching with technology---Find, absorb and recycle the

information--Flexibility and integrated capability in desktop, Lap-
top, palmtop and Tablet-PC etc.--Learn with open mind from
colleagues and students--Academic triangle – teacher-student-
technology--Help of I T Professionals--Browsing E-journals and
E-mails for timely progress--Sets of web-based modules, response-
boxes and contextualized exercises-Teacher as a businessman –
text, context and hypertext--Teacher as social Engineer – building
personality of learners--Teaching within and without frame borders

Only moving the learners from one degree to another, and

assuring their ability for success in primary exams and
achievements in education is not enough today but it is a part of
teacher’s responsibility, moral and professional, that the learners
should be capable of reaching their individual growth and
fulfillment in life. The education that imparts the knowledge of life
to them would be considered the authentic education.

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 Teacher today is robot, human resource,
Full screen slide-show and a techno-pedagogical
SUPERMAN!!!

10) Activities suggested-----Problem-based activities like error-

analysis--Homework like reports, questionnaires, and reviews
Small projects like interviews or online dialogues
Skill-based work as bio-bulletin, news-items, digital report etc.
Human-contact skills as role-play, action-maze etc.--Interactive
options like branching or teamwork--Peer-groups, collaborative
discussions and seminars--Writing, mentoring and mock-exams--
Graphics, collage and other arts--Break classroom boundaries

A TEACHER WITHOUT TECHNOLOGY

IS LIKE A TRIBALAMONG THE CIVILIZED!!!

“THE BEGINNING”

Reference-links
ONLINEPD@US.IEARN.ORG

www.crlt.umich.edu/tstrategies/tstt.html

www.cmu.edu/teaching/technology/index.html -

teacher.scholastic.com/technology