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Diary of a Teacher in Poland [181]
It can do so much more, but I simply don't have the time to prepare the kind of lessons that would really take advantage of it.
More and more (expensive) pre-packaged courses are made for them. Otherwise you may as well just project from a laptop onto a whiteboard.
So - you can say that technology really helps with CLIL
With CLIL it's wonderful. Of course the downside is that so many places in the world have poor internet connections. Some have blackboards, classes of 120 and the kids writing 'notes' on pieces of wood that are wiped clean every day. Not always with electricity in the classroom either - they really have to know their methodology to teach that way. This will change, though not yet. I gave some training for School Inspectors on current best practice and was rather shocked at the lessons they have to inspect. Some teachers are doing two jobs at once, giving attention to their fee paying classes - something not unusual in rural PL a few years ago.
The most ingenious use of technology that I've seen in the classroom was through using mobile phones and tablets.
Where I am, most of the undergraduates that come to us have never used a PC. Fortunately I only have to teach them once a week, however I've noticed that for them, IT means smartphones now, they've bypassed computers. We give them a laptop each and some IT training, however even into the second year, many are daunted. The ones I do more often, mostly senior military and government people, have varying levels of IT skills however some are still hesitant. None have tablets, it's above most people's budgets here, even if they see the point of them in the first place.
