task 2-article review

TSL 641
COMPUTER ASSISTED LANGUAGE LEARNING

TASK 2:
ARTICLE REVIEW


NAME : MOHD SYAFIQ LUQMAN BIN SHAMSUDDIN
2006208092
CLASS : LINK 6, COHORT 3
LECTURER: MR. WAN ZULKIFLI WAN ABDULLAH
DATE : 4 MARCH 2010

 
Honestly, as far as I can remember, I always start my review on an article by mentioning the name of the author or writer. However, for this time, I cannot do that. I don’t know why, but basically, the author of this article didn’t acknowledge himself. Despite that, based on my reading, I found that this article is very interesting as the issue that bring highlighted is very useful for as a future English teacher. Taken from http://www.languages-ict.org.uk which is an educational website, I have chosen the article entitled “Focus on Interactive Whiteboard Technology”.

According to the writer, an Interactive Whiteboard or IWB, is a large interactive display that connects to a computer and projector. A projector projects the computer's desktop onto the board's surface, where users control the computer using a pen, finger or other device. The board is typically mounted to a wall or on a floor stand. They are used in a variety of settings such as in classrooms at all levels of education, in corporate board rooms and work groups, in training rooms for professional sports coaching, broadcasting studios and the latest, the theory is even applied to mobile phones or precisely, touch-screen hand phones.
As I was reading and analyzing the article, I personally found that it offers several guides on how to use the IWB effectively in the classroom. The writer provides twelve ways or examples on conducting activities and planning the lesson using the IWB included in the article. They are using interactive resources, ‘labelling, matching and sorting’, ‘Spotlight’ feature, slow reveal, Gap-fill activities, re-ordering language, brainstorming exercises, using colours for grammatical or textual analysis, multiple choice voting, team competitions and lesson planning. To be honest, this is the first time I came across of this technology and I found out it is very useful and beneficial for language teachers like us. The article not only provides ways and examples but also explanation in detail on how to effectively implement them in classroom. For instance, for ‘labelling, matching and sorting activity’, the article specifies:

“Dragging text labels to match them to pictures is a good way of practising very new language, as it can give pupils a powerful visual image by which to remember. This activity can also be used for sorting vocabulary and phrases. For example, you could ask pupils to match a selection of nouns, adjectives and verbs to an image of the annual season they best reflect. Text can be typed or handwritten, which is useful for languages in non-Roman script not supported by software programs. For suitable images, use ClipArt pictures or digital photos you have taken yourself. Some whiteboard software offers a library of images and background settings of its own. It is often possible to take a ‘photo’ of a selected area of your screen. This could be a shot of a CD-ROM activity, a video still, a digital photo or a web page.”

Based on my reading and analyzing on this article, I understand that the dominant purpose of this article is also to enlighten language teachers on how they can use the resources available to them in making the lesson more interesting and effective. Of course, IWB is able to cater the students’ interest in term of wanting to participate in the activity and thus, creating an interactive teaching and learning session. Of course, when we are reviewing an article, we also should do some further research just to give ourselves a clearer picture. I did a further research on this new technology and I found out that it has been used in developed countries such as United Kingdom, United States of America, France and Japan for quite some time. Sadly, it is still not available in our country, maybe it is quite costly and yes, it is expensive.

Apart from that, in my personal opinion, I think it would be great if our government can manage to get this technology into the Malaysian classroom as the advantages of using it are far more valuable than the cost itself. Hopefully, the Ministry of Education would find a way to bring it in our education system. Last but not least, I really hope that we will be able to use IWB in our own classroom one day.

Source:
http://www.languages-ict.org.uk/downloads/technology/languages_ict_whiteboard.pdf