Week 7: The Six Senses of Technology

The Six Senses of Technology

Integrating technology into the lesson plan and as part of the activities of a course is not an added extra to a language course. It should be an add-on that promotes learning in class and that must be tied to the course objectives in the syllabus. Bearing this in mind, technology can be enhanced by keeping in mind 6 tips that cannot be overlooked. Let’s take a look at them:

1) A Sense of Continuity: Technology in class should contribute to create a continuum of tasks that are linked to a learning objective. It can help us to integrate more than one language skill into the lesson.

2) A Sense of Awareness: Technology can foster language awareness in terms of student improvement. With the use of wikis or blogs, students can post their oral or written works and self-assess themselves over longer periods of time.

3) A Sense of Achievement: Technology can create this sense of accomplishing learning objectives in one’s course outline for both the teacher and student. Creating stuff on the Web, such as podcasts or blog entries, can perfectly reflect what students must achieve in terms of language learning.

4) A Sense of Engagement: Technology can create stronger bonds between the student and the course objectives. By engaging Generation Y learners into digital activities, these online tasks can give them a sense of achievement and task completion that is meaningful for them.

5) A Sense of Topical Issues: Technology can link the Web tools available for learning with the thematic units that must be covered from a textbook. Technology can make the learning of this topics meaningful and memorable.

6) A Sense of Language Growth: Technology use can maximize exponentially student learning. Teacher can foster language learning in various areas such as vocabulary building, listening comprehension, grammar strengthening, consonant and vowel production and perception, punctuation review, literary concepts review, etc., etc.

Technology is not a goal in itself but a means to guarantee learning among the echo boomers that are regularly sitting in our classrooms. Approaching to their digital way of learning is indeed a must in education today. Giving students new ideas that can contribute with their personal learning and language acquisition are ways to plow their future with great success.

Jonathan Acuña

Universidad Latina

Costa Rica

Recommended for Reading:

Technology, Innovation, and Educational Change: A Global Perspective by Robert B. Kozma