Technology-assisted Instruction & Presentation: A Course to Look Into

Professor Chen, the instructor of the course, said in an interview with us. Professor Chen added that in an age with advanced technology, learning how to use different online tools and websites is also critical. “For students in the English Department, learning to work with technology is especially important since only learning and knowing English is not enough.”

In Professor Chen’s course, she uses diversified tools and websites as her teaching materials, but also her students’ learning materials. After teaching one or two important functions of a tool, she would then ask students to try the functions themselves so that they can learn to actually “use” it.

When asked about her favourite tools taught in the course, Professor Chen stated that she doesn’t have a favourite one and that each tool is useful in its own way. “With the final project, in which students have to create a website using Google Sites, students can explore the different tools taught in class and decide which ones they will use to create content for their websites,” she said.

Professor Chen also brought up how she intended to encourage students’ self-learning through the projects she designed for the course. For example, group tutorials can help students know how to truly use an online tool instead of vaguely knowing how the tool can be used. “Only passive listening is not enough,” she said, “ and teaching as well as learning a tool can help students master the tool instead of knowing the tool on a superficial level.”

Both Sylvia Tu and Yvonne Tseng expressed their support for technology-assisted teaching and learning. “The way we absorb information has changed rapidly over the past years,” Sylvia told us. “Technology-assisted teaching is inevitable nowadays. Students will have to rely even more on websites, videos, and interactive media to learn as time goes by," she added.

Yvonne agreed, saying that she personally lacks the skills of using online tools. She added, “If I can combine knowledge and technological techniques together, it will be even better than just acquiring knowledge.”