Television

Nagat Zeinelabdin

Television

History: 

Since it’s varying stages of development across the 20^th century, media technology has played an essential role in education.  Following the end of World War II (1946), the federal government provided radios to schools to be included in classroom teaching. The radio proved to be highly valuable in teaching and was increasingly demanded by schools. Although television came soon after the radio, it wasn’t comfortably accepted by schools.  It wasn’t until the second half of the 1950s that schools began to consider the idea of including television in teaching. Unlike the radio, television left a massive impact on society as a whole. This new technology was too challenging for many educators who believed in the traditional ways of education; many were skeptical and even resentful of its educational uses and values.

It wasn’t until 1968, that the division of Correspondence Study provided more options for teaching with media items recognizing television to be a learning tool (Nasseh, 1997).In 1967, a new genre of television named “educational television” reflected a new type of programming material reflecting the values and standards mandated by the Public Broadcasting Act (signed by President Lyndon Johnson; the act was designed to develop the educational aspect of radio and television by providing new facilities, and funds for studies). From then on, public television channels included "informal" (intellectual and learning-oriented) educational programming as an alternative to commercial television, as well as “formal" (classroom) broadcasting hours (Educational Television, n.d.).

Hollywood had a big role to play in expanding television use in schools. This came first with the initiation of filmmaking classes and growth of performing arts during the 1950s and 1960s. Famous film maker, Thomas Edison, commenting on the use of films in education remarked “Scholars will soon be instructed through the eye. It is possible to touch every branch of human knowledge with the motion picture” (Cuban, 1986, p. 11).

Advantages:

Beside functioning as independent tools for instruction and education, televisions are significant for being entertaining. By showing a subject-related television programs to class, the teacher can help release students from the boredom of classroom settings and break everyday teaching routines.

Instructional television material also has the advantage of being concentrated and focused; that is by being edited off from meaningless intervals and having all the material centered on the subject. Since television programs are typically scripted, planned ahead of time, and target large audiences, they tend to provide a better guarantee for accuracy and efficiency than in-class lectures and activities.

Finally, television classroom programming is frequently recordable. When recorded, students get the opportunity to watch the material more than once; that is as opposed to in class lectures where students get a one-time chance to access the instruction.

In the DLI, television is the most used and important tool for instruction along with print materials. Television programming, with sound and picture, helps develop the students listening and speaking skills. Also, especially with regard to news channels, written material displayed during broadcasting, is essential for the students reading skills. Arabic cable news channels bring fresh materials around the clock, providing students with continuous access to new language materials.

Disadvantages: 

The commercial nature of much of today’s television programming can be damaging to the integrity of educational subjects and therefore inappropriate in school grounds. That’s why most schools are hesitant to allow cable networking in their classrooms. Especially in the case of lower grades, many parents and educators believe television commercials to be violating to the immature psyche of students (Fox, 1997). Another possible disadvantage common in television programming, is their entertainment nature, which can be distracting to students attention and focus.

Conclusion:

Although I believe that schools should implement restrictions and regulation of broadcasting, to a certain extent, television remains an essential educative tool-- whether through documentaries, news, or movies. Television has become a part of society’s everyday life and schools can take advantage of this technology as an educative tool to improve their own curricula.

References:

Cuban, L. (1986). Teachers and machines: the classroom use of technology since 1920. New York: Teachers College Press.

Educational Television. (n.d.). Encyclopedia of tv. Retrieved December 2, 2010, from http://www.museum.tv/eotvsection.php?entrycode=educationalt

Fox, R. F. (1997). Flavor crystals as brain food: unplug tv commercials in schools. Phi Delta Kappan, 78. Retrieved from http://www.questia.com/googleScholar.qst;jsessionid=E193CA09358C376FDF6F40592D041423.inst2_2a?docId=5000535640

Nasseh, B. (1997). A brief history of distance education. Ball State University, Retrieved from http://www.seniornet.org/edu/art/history.html

Electronic Dictionaries

Nagat Zeinelabdin

Electronic Dictionaries

In an age when technology is rapidly entering every aspect of our lives, educators are constantly striving to find new approaches to integrate emerging technologies with education.  It has only been a few decades since computers were standardized in school education and made available for students. Small electronic tools, such as iPods and dictionaries, are constantly being acquired by students and coming into heavier use. Electronic dictionaries are one of such recent technologies that have come to the attention of educators.

Functions of electronic dictionaries:

Electronic dictionaries are becoming increasingly popular; especially among language learners. Like print dictionaries, electronic dictionaries may be used for a wide variety of functions, beyond word-to-word translation tasks, such as to:

• Provide a definition of a word within the same language (i.e., English to English),
• spell check a word,
• explain idiomatic expressions, and
• clarify word structures (i.e., prefixes and suffixes).

Advantages of use:

The type of electronic tool has several advantages when compared to print dictionaries. For example, electronic dictionaries provide quick and easy access to desired results; the user wouldn’t need to conduct the time consuming alphabetical list search as in print dictionaries. Also, electronic dictionaries are usually pocket-size and mobile.

Educators observations:

Many educators consider new technologies, such as electronic dictionaries, to be a distraction to their teaching methodologies. Many educators have recently complained from student use of electronic dictionaries; Instead of trying to figure out the definition of new words or phrases (a task that teachers consider as essential to the learning process), students rush to their dictionaries.  However, such a problem should be attributed to the teacher’s approach in regulating the use of electronic tools in the classroom; however, not in technology.

Research showed electronic dictionaries to be highly valuable in student learning, because they produce quick results and save time. Even in the learning process, electronic dictionaries are valuable ; in order to conduct word search, the user has to spell the letters of the target word, which by its self is considered a valuable student learning task.

Conclusive Remarks:

From my teaching experience, the use of printed paper dictionaries slows down the students’ performance. They make students consume significant time from the class time when look up words.

In class, while speaking or listening to a passage, students frequently find themselves needing to know instantly the meaning of an unfamiliar word. Lacking a quick word-search tool, they direct their questions to the teacher. This distracts the class and disturbs the focus of the lesson.

Only very recently, many students resort to the use of Google Translate feature in class, which served the same role of the electronic dictionary. It is also fast and does not require obtaining an additional machine; it is available on the computer screen.

Nonetheless, Google lacks several important features found in electronic dictionaries. For example, Google Translate does not always provide the varied possible definitions of words. Electronic dictionaries can deal with rich alternates of a word’s meanings. In my experience, as a teacher and as a regular electronic dictionary user, I find that students can benefit much more from using the tool over the use of Google feature.

References:

Fox, G., & Potter, E. (2006). Using bilingual dictionaries in the classroom. Med Magazine, 41. Retrieved from http://www.macmillandictionaries.com/med-magazine/August2006/41-Feature-Bilingual.htm

Kisito, F. (nd). The Advent of Electronic Dictionaries in ESL/EFL Learning. ESL Magazine : Read & Publish ESL Articles. Retrieved from the ESL Galaxy website http://www.esl-galaxy.com/electronicdictionaries.html

Martine, L. (nd). 21 Creative Ways to use Dictionaries in the Classroom (Himeji Dokkyo University) Rerieved from http://www.tht-japan.org/proceedings/2006/martine21-26.pdf

Yonally, D, & Gilfert, S. (1995). Electronic Dictionaries in the Classroom!? Bah, Humbug! (Nagoya University of Foreign Studies). Retrieved from The Internet TESL Journal Website http://iteslj.org/Articles/Yonally-ElecDict.html

Scanners

Nagat Zeinelabdin

Scanners

An image scanner is a device that optically depicts an image (i.e. of printed text, handwriting, or an object) and transfers it into a digital image. There is a variety of desktop scanners where the document is placed on a glass window for scanning. Hand-held scanners, where the device is moved by hand, have evolved to 3D scanners used for industrial design, reverse engineering, measurement, and other applications. Modern scanners use a charge-coupled device (CCD) or a Contact Image Sensor (CIS) as the image sensor, whereas older scanners called “drum scanners” use a photomultiplier tube as the image sensor.

Due to increasing resolution needs and new required features such as anti-shake, digital cameras have become an attractive alternative to regular scanners. While still having disadvantages compared to traditional scanners (such as distortion, reflections, shadows, low contrast), digital cameras offer advantages such as speed, portability and gentle digitizing of thick documents without damaging the book spine.

At the DLI we regularly and intensively use image scanners. We use them to enter typed texts from books or textbooks into the computer, especially for homework through the Blackboard program. In teaching foreign language, we often find useful reading material with tasks or questions already made; we use these after we scan them in the computer. We actually use them as PDF expanded files. We also use scanners to save documents for students’ counseling or achievement certificates after the documents are signed by the students.
 

The image scanner is a very useful tool of teaching. Advantages are numerous. First, they represent a simple and a cheap tool usable at office and at home. Second, they are very easy to learn and use. Third, they make easy the transfer of ready hard copy material into electronic files that can be set and dealt with electronically. Third, they offer a tool to store signed documents in an online safely kept location and can easily be sent to other computers as a file. They make possible an environment-friendly paper use; that is by providing digital imaging as an option to paper-and-ink printing. It is a useful tool in the hands of teachers, and not to students, to ease and facilitate teaching.

Disadvantages, on the other hand, include a noticeable reduced resolution of written materials. Secondly, scanning lessons or part of a textbook is tedious and time consuming.