The use of ICTs in the Teaching-Learning process. (Meetings about ICTs)

During five weeks, I have been attending to a meeting about the use of ICT in the primary education classroom. These meetings took place on Wednesdays. 

It have been a great experience because I have learned different ways of teaching, more motivational for children, and also different ways to take advantage of the New Technologies in a educative way. Maybe some people, especially parents, think that it is not a good idea that the student spends too much time using the tablet or the computer, but this idea changes If he/she is using it because he/she is studying, searching for information, asking for help or doing an activity. 

Actually, the majority of people think that computers or smartphones only are useful to use facebook or whatsapp, but the truth is that we can use that to learn, to improve; in the end are facilities offered by the Information Society in which we live.

All these teachers who have come to perform the meetings, have showed different digital materials that we could use in the classroom when we work as teachers. For example we could use digital platforms as Moodle  which is a virtual place in which the teacher can upload the different documents, activities... that the students are going to develop during the year, and they (teacher and students) can use the forums and the chats to ask for help or to debate a topic. There are lots of digital platforms, and teachers can take advantage of them because if they use it during the class, the students don't have the need to use textbooks. 
Nowadays there are schools where the students don't use textbooks, but they use digital books. The teachers of the school make the books using augmented reality or QR codes. 



Another important reason why ICTs are so positive is because permit the involvement of families in school. The majority of parents aren't enough envolve in the education of their children because of the job, or because they are not sure if they have to go to the school to talk with the teacher. Through these digital platforms parents can talk with the teacher and are more informed about the contents and the achievement of the students during the course. In this way, the student is the protagonist of his teaching-learning process, because he looks for information, he talks about the different topics for example in the recording of a video to explain something to the others, and because the activities are so motivational for him so he wants to learn more. 
The students not only learn in the school, but they also learn at home, and their parents can learn with them. If a student cannot go to the school because he is ill, he can look at the digital platform and do the activities that his classmates are doing in the class, or the teacher can upload a video as a virtual class, in which the student can understand the topic as if he was in the class. 

It is important to keep in mind that the teacher has to follow some steps in the creation of a project to work with the students or in the creation of an activity. The teacher has to have confidence in his students, he has to follow the different contents and objectives that appear in the Curriculum, he has to create an educational community, not only into the class, but also outside it, and finaly he has to be able to achieve his students' knowledge about the topic. 

Those testimonials are great. In some videos that the teachers showed us in the meetings, we could see how the children learn while they are having fun, and we could see also the desire they had to do new things, to learn. And I think that it is a good point, because it could be the begining of a better education, an education that prevails durint all the life because students trudly learn, and not repeat contents constantly; contents that they are going to forget after doing the exam. 

 
<<They are not glasses to fill them content>>

I'm a little afraid of the idea of eliminating textbooks, because If there aren't books, and teachers teach the students using tablets and computers, probably in the future the students won't know how to write using a pen, they won't know how to paint using a brush. Technology has a lot of advantages, but I think that maybe teachers could use it a few times a week or something like that. The reason is because, I agree with the use of ICT, but sometimes I think that it is excessive, and because it's not the same to paint usint the tablet and paint using a brush, or build something using a software and build something in the school workshop using wood, and different tools such as hammers or pliers. 
It could be a good idea maybe to build an object using the tablet and later print it in the 3D printer, but they could do that once a month if they have done the homework everyday, as a reward. 

One of the teachers told us that in the future probably teachers will teach using mobile phones, so each student will have a mobile phone also. I don't know if new Technologies are so good, but I don't like the idea of using ICTs everyday, I think that teachers can work with the students using manipulative materials made by them, but not necessarily in a digital way, but of course it is only my opinion. 

It is another way to improve their creativity, autonomy and responsibility in the development of the activity, and also they become as protagonist of their teaching-learning process. 

-What do you think about? 
Maybe you have a different opinion about this topic so if you want to share it with me, you can write a comment or you can send me an email to this address: albialbita@outlook.es