Using technology to design an engaging literary lesson.
If the right hand engages the subject matter which in this case is literature, technology can be the left hand that makes the act of teaching and learning of the literary text more seamless and borderless, by design. It’s not something that happens naturally but something that as educators we need to design into our context. It answers the questions of how and not the what and why of our teaching.
Padlet, Storybird, Coggle, Word cloud, Kahoot, Quizlet, Quizizz, Mentimeter, Canva, Augment reality, Virtual reality, 3-D printing, Youtube, SlideShare, Edmodo, Google classroom.
The above are some of the countless web-based applications and tech-tools that many of us use in our teaching and learning today. These tech-tools are free and readily available with a simple registration of a user name and password. They are usually accompanied by free tutorial videos on YouTube or elsewhere, to facilitate user experience.
There’s a famous line from Shakespeare’s The Merchant of Venice in which we are reminded that ‘All that glisters is not gold.’ To ensure that technology is more than just the glitter in the teaching, I moot that technology within a literature class be used in the following manner:
1. Create equity for all learners through borderless spaces
If you have a large class, chances are you won’t get to all your learners during class time. Opening the class to a mobile platform, as studies have shown, allows for greater connectivity and equity.
Learning time as we all know is not limited to the classroom. And if the pandemic has done any good, it is this, the borders of our teaching and learning is limited only by internet connectivity and our mindset. Using mobile devices can allow for greater connectivity within or outside the class.
2. Find collaborators and support online
To create innovative approaches that can transform our teaching from a teacher centered to learner/learning centered, I moot that teachers connect with fellow educators online. The community of practice may help us with content that they have used in their classroom.
In addition, Open Education Resources (OER) available on the web can also help transform our teaching from the traditional teacher-centric to an active learner and learning centric.
Also, consider developing content that can engage your learners better and make these contents available to your community of practice. These simple steps will help us be better teachers for our learners.
3. Use technology to create micro, personalized spaces of learning
Digital platforms can be used to create micro-learning opportunities that allows learners to understand the lessons at a personalised pace. By breaking the lesson into bite size chunks, teachers can ensure that learners can understand a content before proceeding to the next level. By making these micro learning available on a designated platform like Schoology and Google Classroom or any learning management system we allow the learning to happen at the learners’ personalized pace and time. A classic example of personalized, micro-learning space is Khan Academy.
4. Use technology to create content producers among the learners
To ensure that the learning of literature becomes relevant beyond language and literacy competencies, the assessments of literature need to reflect real life contexts. One possible way is by designing assessment that allows learners to create an output and share it on the social media. Allow our learners to become content developers and not just content consumers. These outputs can be in the form of digital essays or presentations or even a podcast where they share their critical and creative thoughts about the texts being studied and the relevance to their life.
Technology and literary studies can co-exist in the way teachers learn, re-learn and unlearn their role as 21st century educators. Through a clear sense of what we want to achieve given the context of the current millennial and the type of learners we engage, we can use technology
to promote borderless learning anywhere, anytime;
to collaborate with fellow educators;
to develop personalized, micro-learning spaces
and to provide learners the space to become content producers.
