Do you want to be TEFL or TESOL-certified and teach in Maoping Zhen? Are you interested in teaching English in Ankang Shi? Check out ITTT’s online and in-class courses, Become certified to Teach English as a Foreign Language and start teaching English ONLINE or abroad! ITTT offers a wide variety of Online TEFL Courses and a great number of opportunities for English Teachers and for Teachers of English as a Second Language.
The area that probes at my interests regarding teaching and that I have a huge interest in is, “Technology in Education.” It has begun its journey only in the recent past. In many of the current schooling systems around the world we are not taught how to design, we were taught that there is a right way and a wrong way. We are not shown the possibilities of the technology available to us. We were never really given the facilities to go and discover that, there might be a different way, an alternative way or even a better way. Dr. Ken Robinson’s paper clip experiment (explains how many uses you can think of for a paper clip, as you get older, the number of ideas for the paper clip use, decreases). It shows that we are all born with creative abilities but the parameters of everyday life stifle this and begin to shut down these innovative tendencies. As an educator that has thought Creative Design and Innovation for 5 years and studied modules relating to Computer Aided Design and Education around the world. It has always fascinated me as to how oblivious and unaware we are, to the destruction of creativity. With advances in technology and the vast amount of resources available to us, we are still relying on the teacher to teach us, rather than becoming responsible for our own learning and using the teacher as a facilitator. Perhaps one of the most innovative and creative people on this planet at this present time is Elon Musk, CEO of Tesla. To quote who I believe to be the most forward-thinking person on Earth now “I think that's the single best piece of advice: constantly think about how you could be doing things better and questioning yourself.” In many Educational Institutes, this piece of advice does not hold much value, and for a person who is single handedly changing the world, this infuriates and annoys me so much. Why would you continue to leave education in the dark ages when every other profession around the globe has advanced forward, at an enormous rate? In the current education system John Holt once said “We destroy the disinterested (I do not mean uninterested) love of learning in children, which is so strong when they are small, by encouraging and compelling them to work for petty and contemptible rewards — gold stars, or papers marked 100 and tacked to the wall, or A’s on report cards… in short, for the ignoble satisfaction of feeling that they are better than someone else.” This quote is almost 70 years old and we are still clinging to the regimental system of old. Why does education continue to group student by rows in classrooms, by age and by gender? The endless possibilities that the internet, phone applications, designing software. Perhaps fault lies with the teacher. Even in the videos we watched with the teacher “Simon” as part of this course, we see no use of modern technology in the classroom. I get that some places don’t have the funding for technology but not even a power-point. It would greatly enhance the learning experience and time efficiency in the classroom. References/bibliography • www.literacytrust.org.uk/Database/thinking.html Copyright ©National Literacy Trust 2008 (UK) The above quote is from 2005 • Book Title: Elon Musk: how the billionaire CEO of SpaceX and Tesla is shaping our future Book Publisher: Virgin Books Publication Year: 2016 • Book: Title How children fail. Book Publisher: Addison-Wesley Publishing Publication: Year: 1995
