Multimedia and Internet Technologies in the Classroom

Background
        The use of Internet and Multimedia technologies has generalized over the last years, in fact, most of the public and private language centers in the city have computerized labs. Even some of the public schools have computers and interactive whiteboards that we can use to improve our teaching.

Unfortunately, just a little percentage of teachers in town know how to use these technologies, and what is even worse, just a portion of that percentage is getting the most from those resources. For example, we may know how the basic use of a computer, but we are probably using it as a fancy typewriter. In other words, we may know how to operate a car, but we might find ourselves driving a F1 car like if we were driving a common sedan.

The purpose of this presentation is to show a little bit of my personal work using Internet and Multimedia technologies in and outside the classroom as an activity to increase both exposure and motivation.

First of all we have to define the concepts of Internet and Multimedia. Internet is, using common words, a really big computer network, which has not a central server but millions of small servers, that means that we can access loads of information from all over the world. This information can be text, sounds or pictures, and that is multimedia. Multimedia is the group that contains text, video, sounds and images. Using multimedia doesn’t imply using Internet, and it is not completely limited to the use of computers but to computer aided media. For example, if you play a DVD in class you are using multimedia, without using a computer.

We are in contact with Internet and Multimedia technologies everyday, and our students’ contact with technology is even bigger. Let’s imagine that we are teaching a group of teenagers. Probably the first thing they do in the morning is touch their cell phone, which they use for the wake-up call. They use their mobile phones all day long, even in the classroom, they spend a big part of the day reading and writing SMS. Then, in the afternoon, they turn on their PC and log in to the Internet, and they start chatting with each other using Instant Messengers; then they share audio and video files, watch on-line videos or listen to Internet Radio. They send e-mails to their friends who are not connected at the time; they log in to forums about their favorite artists or about hobbies they like, and read and post texts (sometimes in English!), and finally they write an entry in their Internet Log so that other people can learn what they did on their day.

We probably do just one of two of the things listed above, so we can infer that we are not as exposed to technology as our students are. We just probably use the computer to write our texts, like our lesson plans (those who actually plan their lessons). Sometimes we just turn on our computers to check our e-mail, and that probably happens once a month. I’ve seen some teachers who actually own a notebook computer, and they take it to the classroom. But they don’t use it as they should, the most they do with their computer is connect it to a projector and play a movie, and we know that some of our colleagues use this activity as something that can save them some effort in class.
We may think that we know how to use a computer, but you have to ask yourself a couple of questions, for example:

• Can I write complex documents and get the processor to create the index automatically?
• Can I use the computer for automatizing the whole grading process?
• Am I capable of using the Internet for finding materials for my students?
• Can I use Power Point for creating simple vocabulary exercises?

If you answered no to any of these questions then you are not getting the most from your computer. Let’s make a comparison; our students are in contact with technology in a better way than we are, so when it comes to technology, the ball is on their side of the field.

When our students feel that they are somehow better than the teacher, they have a motive to be in the classroom because they want to prove that they are better than we are.

It is important for us to keep our students motivated. Sometimes, we may think that our students are not learning, we believe that they don’t get the message. Well, students have the ability to understand and process all information given. So why don’t they seem to learn? It’s because they don’t have a motive. Motivation is like a light switch the learner has the ability to turn it on or off. As Jean Piaget said, “it’s up to the student whether or not they want to learn”

If you catch your students on a day where they don’t want to learn, technology just might be the key to stimulate their motivational level and sustain that given thought for the lesson.
There are many advantages of using technologies in the classroom, for example:

• The teacher is not the main source of information. That could be bad for our ego, but it’s a great way to increase learners’ autonomy.
• The teacher does not correct student’s work. They learn from their own mistakes.
• Students look for structures to express themselves, they find or generate their own knowledge.
• Students learn from real productive activities

Remember that exposure is a good way to learn English; I am a living proof of that, I learnt most of my English from music and TV, I just studied two levels in a language center. It was a long way, but it proved to be a good way. We are not supposed to teach anymore, but to provide learning opportunities. “Every time we teach a child something we prevent it from discovering himself”

The only disadvantage of using these technologies is that you need to learn how to use them; you need to give it some time and a lot of thoughts.

Description of the technologies
Internet Technologies
Forums and Messageboards. A forum is a sort of a web page, where you and your learners can post texts. You can use it for many purposes:

• Keeping your students informed
• Getting information from your students
• Receiving homework

Another way of using these technologies is by letting your students join forums according to their interests. This kind of activity is harder to monitor than having your own forum.

There are a lot of options to choose from when it comes to hosts, I personally use Invisionfree because I’ve worked with that host for more than four years and I haven’t had any problems.

E-mail. You can use e-mail communication to receive homeworks and comments from your students.

Instant Messengers. One way to increase Ss self confidence is by talking to them and not correcting them. But sometimes our students are afraid of talking to us in a face-to-face conversation. A good option to increase the students’ confidence is by chatting with them in an instant messenger. There are many ways to talk to your students in an IM, but what I do is this:

• Ask students for their IM handles (e-mail addresses)
• Add them to my contact list
• Talk to them one by one on regular basis. Not every day, because that could make them start disliking you.
• I never talk to them about classes; we talk about common interests, or about anything. I sometimes include some of the structures I taught in class, but not too often or too explicitly.
• I never talk to more than one student at a time, because this is not an online class, it is just a chat with friends.

Video posting websites. In the past few months we have been exposed to the increasing popularity of video posting websites, like You Tube. This kind of websites provides a wide variety of videos in many languages, from the world-famous “fall of Edgar” in Spanish, to the most interesting lectures in English. We can use these sites for both getting and posting videos, this time we just will analyze the utility of getting videos. What I do when I use You Tube to look for materials is:

• Analyze the lesson’s vocabulary
• Look for a video according to the lesson, for example, if the lesson is about weather, I look for a video talking about weather.
• I post the video in the forum and ask the students to watch it, or
• I put the video in an interactive exercise and the students watch it and answer some questions about the video.

Sometimes the videos’ English level is not graded, and it can be higher than our students’ level. But don’t worry; this kind of risks is what let our students discover their limitations and we have to motivate them to overcome them.

Blogs. Ask your students to open and maintain a virtual log, or Internet Journal in English. You can check it anytime and from anywhere, and students are free to write and post anything they want about any given topic.

Internet Radio. Internet Radio is a great way to expose our students to real radio shows from English-speaking countries. There are some EFL specialized stations, but what I do is getting my students to listen to common Internet radio stations and then write reports about the shows.

Internet Technologies are used mostly to increase exposure, but we can also get our students to practice in some focus-on-form exercises. There are pretty good websites with listening, vocabulary, reading and grammar exercises, but sometimes they don’t match exactly the goals of our course. If you find yourself in that situation, you probably need to create your own exercises and post them in your own site.

Hot Potatoes is an easy-to-use software for creating exercises, created by Half-baked Software Inc., this software is a powerful tool which lets you create your own interactive exercises. The program is free for use by state-funded educational institutions which are non-profit making, or individuals working for them.

Teacher’s website. Creating a personal or professional website is not hard to do; if you know how to work in Microsoft Word you are on your way to become a webmaster. If you don’t want to get in trouble, you can start your own website by opening your own blog, which you can use as home page.

A teacher’s website is a great tool to provide your students with opportunities to learn, you can post:

In other words, a teacher website is a tool for controlled practice.

Multimedia Technologies
As stated above, Multimedia involves audio, video, text and images. Multimedia does not necessarily involve computers. Teachers have been using Multimedia Technologies for years, even without using a computer. Some multimedia devices we probably had used are: projectors, DVD players, VCRs, regular pictures, slide shows, recorders, CD players, cassette players.
Computer projectors. A projector is a device which is connected to the computer and projects whatever you have on your screen on a larger space, like a wall or an interactive whiteboard.

When I was being trained as a teacher, my tutors used projectors, but they never got the most of it. They just used it to project the same text I had in my book, and sometimes for activities.

In my workplace, I’ve observed that my colleagues use the projector for two things: slide presentations and projecting videos. Both functions could be easily covered by an OHP and a TV with a VCR, and both devices are cheaper than a projector.

What else can you do with your projector? The easiest activity you can do using a projector is a vocabulary activity. Instead of using flashcards, create an slide presentation with pictures and use them in the activities where you normally use flashcards.

Another activity I’ve done is a computerized board game. When I was studying English I used to watch Jeopardy everyday before class, as a warm-up. Then, when I became a teacher, I got the inspiration to create a board game based on Jeopardy. It’s not easy to do, but once you create it, you can re-use it over and over.

Recording Audio. Productive skills are, for me, the most important aspects of Language Learning. But these skills are the hardest to grade, because it involves many subjective aspects.

A good way to improve the grading process of speaking activities is to record our students performance. One activity I’ve liked since I was an English student was making commercials, because it let me express myself in a free way, which means, to show my creativity. The resources my teacher had were so limited that we used a common cassette recorder to make the commercial.

When I became a teacher I wanted to use the same kind of activity, but I looked for a better way to do it. Since I am a musician, I had some devices at home, like audio mixers and microphones. So I decided to record my students’ commercials using professional audio gear and a computer.

The results were great, my students were glad to hear their commercials over and over, because they sounded good, and their voices were perfectly equalized and mixed. I even used background music.

What you need for doing this kind of work is:

• A Mixing console with at least 6 channels
• A computer with specialized software
• Microphones and cables

This kind of devices is not hard to use, but you need to take the risk of getting to know this technology.

This activity is motivating for students because it is not as stressing as a common oral exam (interview), the students are free to create their own material, and they like to hear the final cut.

Recording a video. Recording videos is a good activity because you not only hear your students, but you can watch their non-verbal communication. Some of us have recorded videos, sometimes we get our students to act a plot, or sometimes we make other kinds of videos.

In my first course, my course book marked an activity where the students had to make a brochure about their hometown. But since I try to innovate, I asked them if they wanted to make a video instead.

So the filming process was the same than every movie, I put the students in teams and each team produced a chapter. The innovating part was that I digitalized the video and my students recorded the voice-off. The result was not a professional video, but it was pretty good.

After I digitalized the video, I produced the final cut DVD and showed it to my students. But that was not all; I posted the video in You Tube. So far, we have had more than 5000 thousand visits and tens of positive comments about the idea. My students were so motivated that even now they ask me to be their teacher again, so that we can do something even better.

What you need for doing this kind of work is:

• An analog to digital video converter
• A computer with specialized software
• A camera

The software is usually included in the same pack as the video converter, and they are available in a low cost at many stores in town.

Conclusion
The use of technologies is not something that is going to come in a near future, because it is already here. Most of our schools are investing big deals of money in new technologies, and we have to make their expenses worth. Technology is not a trend, it’s a need, we need to be up to the date and get most of the technologies available at our workplaces. We have to learn how to use them so that we can increase our learners’ options to learn.

Internet and Multimedia technologies are for everyone, you just need to be willing to go the extra mile, to go back into a classroom and learn how to use these devices. It will be good for your learners, because you will give them a better service, and it will be good for you because you will have more chances to keep your job. There are a lot of young teachers who know how to use these technologies, and they are the prospects to get the jobs of teachers like those who don’t even know how to use a computer.