Ernesto Carriazo Osorio - Teaching With Technology

Navigation Links
Home

Technology Reflection

(Why should you use technology for teaching?)

Because I do come from a so called Third World country, I am not the kind of person who automatically assumes that technology should be used in the first place as if I were begging the question. It all depends on where and for whom one teaches. But assuming that one teaches in an upgrade section of the United States (where everyone has access to laptops, internet, and so forth—something that I do not assume to be true of all Americans), I would certainly use technology because it facilitates teaching and sometimes it improves learning as well.

(What are the limitations of technology as a solution for teaching and learning challenges?)
Perhaps the major challenge that technology imposes on teachers and students is to retrain both of them to become accustomed once again to direct human contact in a classroom, with all the limitations and imperfections that teachers and students may contain as part of their intrinsic nature as human beings: lack of patience, possible bad hearing, undesirable behavior, intermittent attention, etc., traits that a computer actually does not sense or even care about.

Another limitation of technology is that it standardizes learning processes, the pace and procedures individuals need to follow in order to learn. I have heard students complaining (legitimately so) that they not always learn with the explanation of a power point presentation or online exercises because they wish and need the presence of a teacher to expand explanations. In addition, computerized homework not always promotes the development of multiple intelligences (say kinetic, other than moving one’s fingers!).

Technology can also be a great distracter. For instance, young students are likely to open Facebook (or any other page not related to their subject o study), chat with the virtual version of their friends, send presents, and in essence, waste a great deal of time before, in between or after doing their technology homework.
(How does technology help you and the people with whom you work and teach?)

However, technology such as e-mail is a tremendous facilitator and time saver! It shortens distances, saves energy, avoids face-to-face communication when a face to face encounter is likely to create frictions, it is far reaching to a vast collectivity to which one could not address at the same time if such technology didn’t exist. Other technology such as video conference allows one to make long distance connections between groups or among institutions, expand cultural boundaries if such connections are made internationally. Power points can at times make a presentation far more graphic and appealing than the traditional chalk.

(How does technology relate to you personal and professional goals?)

I definitely want to learn and master the creation of a web page in this age that humanity has found another way to ascend to heaven; i.e, literally to float on cyber space, be part of the millions of alms that live above and beyond their own bodies on earth, and to transcend their physical limitations, acquire the gift of ubiquity, appear like god does whenever one is invoked (i.e., whenever, someone types one’s webpage or links). In short, to be part of this second, last, and humongous Library of Alexandria that only a galactic Comet may burn and vanish to leave no trace to posterity of how we communicated since the end of the 20th century on. In the world of academia, technology has become other people’s means to identify one’s blueprint, one’s fingerprint, one’s actual existence, and to peruse one’s spiritual history.

The Pennsylvania State University. Copyright 2008
Last Updated on: February 2, 2009 3:58 PM
Email: Ernesto