The Impact of Using Technology on Children’s Learning Process

The Impact of Using Technology on Children’s Learning Process 

Introduction

Due to the current situation regarding Covid-19, the colombian government decided to implement health policies in order to prevent the propagation of the disease. The first restriction was to close public and private schools and look for digital alternatives for homeschooling. The purpose of this paper is to assess the impact of using technology through videos, slides and worksheets on kindergarten children’s learning of numeracy. The numeracy concepts were focused on rote counting, which means that students count numbers sequentially, and the rational counting that is a process in which learners have the ability to assign a number to the objects they are counting. For gathering information, some parents answered the following questions: what are the parents opinions regarding learning through technological devices? To what extent does the use of these activities enhance children's learning of numeracy? Which negative aspects did parents find about the activities? 

Literature Review

Using interactive technology in a played-based learning environment

Nowadays children are considered digital citizens, and preschool teachers have integrated technology in their classrooms. Miller (2018) conducted a research project in which Ipads were used to practice numeracy concepts through interactive applications. The research was carried out with children between four and five years old, which had math lessons for 20 minutes. It was found that using interactive technology increased motivation and teamwork. Moreover, it was observed that attention span decreased when the app was challenging them, and randomly chose answers to move to the next level. Finally, factors such as level of difficulty, creativity and funny apps promoted children’s engagement when using interactive technology.

Technology and interactive media as tools in early childhood programs

Technology has become popular in academic scenarios, since it provides enjoyable and engaging activities that support children's learning process. The statement suggested some principles to guide the use of technology and interactive media as tools in early childhood programs (National Association for the Education of Young Children, 2012). Firstly, technology should not replace communication and interaction with others, and technology should be used to support learning and enhances real exploration, roleplays and playtime. Further, activities that includes sensorimotor and practice  play allow learners to explore the functionality of these tools in real life situations.Technology tools can strength bilingualism, since it provides access to family´s home language while supporting the second language. Lastly, teachers need accurate training in order to look for the appropriate knowledge, skills and experience in order to accomplish the goals.

Method

Qualitative data was used to gather information regarding the parents perceptions towards the activities. The lesson plan was implemented with a group of kindergarten children in a private school located in Pereira. Three activities were designed for teaching numeracy skills using bugs as a theme. The instructions, required material, videos, worksheets and estimated time for each activity were posted on a Google Slide format; then, it was uploaded on the school webpage. When parents clicked on the link it opened the first slide that displayed the date of the lesson, and the second slide displayed the content. The third and fourth slide were used to welcome students and to encourage them to keep their hands clean. Then, it was introduced three literacy activities in order to present new vocabulary and developed language awareness. Firstly, the learners were exposed to an adding words activity in which the teacher used words and the students repeat them. The teacher says, “Add /*/ at the end and the word is?” Teacher and students answered together (Heggerty, M. & Hollmann, C. 2020).

Ex. T: gold   S: gold   T: Add /fish/ at the end and the word is? T&S: goldfish.

Then, the teacher developed a language awareness activity. She chose “The Itsy Bitsy Spider” nursery rhyme, and asked the children to follow the rhyme by made spider’s movements with their hands. She stuck the lyrics on a board, so while she was singing, she pointed at the words. The teacher repeated “The Itsy Bitsy Spider” and used a spider made of clay to performed the actions mentioned on the nursery rhyme. Through the second activity the teacher made a video in which she read a book  named “An Old Lady Who Swallowed a Fly”, which is a story about an old lady who ate different animals; while the teacher was reading she stuck on an old lady poster the animals that she mentioned before. Lastly, learners had to print the old lady poster, cut the animal and then pasted on the right place.

The sixth slide was used for practicing the number of the week while practicing a fine motor skill activity. The aim was to make a caterpillar by tearing paper into pieces. Then, they had to crumple fourteen pieces of paper in order to practice the number that was introduced on the previous class. The following slide had two activities taken from two different web pages; in order to explain the instructions, the teacher made a video were she showed how to start the game and how to play it. The first game was caterpillar count, which goal was to reinforce rote counting that is a process of counting numbers sequentially; the children used their mouse to move the caterpillar to the appropriated number, so it would swallowed the number. The aim of the next activity was practicing rational counting, which means that children are able to assign a number to the objects they are counting. For this activity, the learners were asked to put into the flowerpot the appropriate number of seeds in order to sow their garden. The flowerpot had the number, and on the left side were five options of seed bags, so they had to count, and then clicked on the bag and dragged the seed bag with the mouse to the flowerpot. 

Finally, the last slide had a link for the students evidence and a link for a survey that parents had to answer. The purpose of the survey was to gather information regarding how learners and parents felt while doing the activities, what kind of problems they find, their opinion about learning through digital technologies, and its advantages and disadvantages. The answers gathered were used as a qualitative method for the analysis and discussion of this paper regarding the implementation of the lesson. 

Analysis

Through the analysis of the data, four main aspects were found regarding implementation of interfaces, the use of videos, the need of monitoring and the lack of teachers, students and parents training. The first aspect found was that slides provide a friendly interface for parents and students, since the activities were display in order, the colors and cartoons gave pleasant view, and text charts had only relevant information. Similar, videos made by the teacher, reinforced the previous instructions; nonetheless, the quality of the videos in which the teachers recorded themselves was not good enough. Moreover, some parents highlighted that children really enjoyed the two online games presented on the lesson. As the National Association for Education of Young Children (2012) mentions, playful games enhance students to explore how the tools work; nevertheless, the lessons should include sensory activities. Although platforms provide interactive activities, preschoolers required someone monitoring the activity in case they get lost in the procedure. The NAEYC (2012) suggests that the integration of digital activities should be presented in a scaffolding process performed by adults in which learners smoothly develop critical thinking skills. On the contrary, the lack of teachers, parents and learners training did not allow an accurate development of the online activities (NAEYC 2012) . It was found that some parents get frustrated when children could not drag the seeds bags with the mousse. The teacher’s instruction was to drag the seed, despite that learners were not familiar with the concept of helding, the mouse button down while the object is moved. Lastly, Miller (2018), points that the lack of integration of technology in early years is due to the fact that teachers required professional development on the accurate way of using technology.

To conclude, it is necessary to look for other gadgets and test them in order to identify which one is more accurate for students learning development. Even though, children must have parents support since they are exposed to a digital world. Finally, technology is here to stay, and it means that educators and families must integrate it at some extend to their daily routines (National Association for Education of Young Children, 2012). 

Discussion

The following discussion is composed by three research questions, which were gathered from a survey that was made to some parents.

What is the parent’s opinions regarding learning through technological devices?

Technological devices enhance opportunities for further learning, due to the amount of information that is available on the web. Some parents consider that through this lessons children learned how to use gadgets for academic purposes. Actually, the fact of using challenging online activities increases student’s motivation (Miller, 2018), due to the fact of made their garden growth or see how the caterpillar become a butterfly. Moreover, some parents consider that through technology, students have the opportunity to extend information about some topics, due to the fact that screens expose learners to places, animals, things and events from the past that they can not experience at school or at home (National Association for Education of Young Children, 2012). On the other hand, Miller (2018) says that children used to choose entertaining apps due to the attention span, since challenging activities made them feel frustrated and they start to randomly choose an answer. Additionally, some parents mentioned that children are considered as digital citizens, and virtual classes promote the accurate use of  technology. Actually, the National Association for Education of Young children, points out in their article that the concept “digital citizenship” in early childhood means that adults are in charge of teaching them the proper way to use technology. In other words, the current situation is an opportunity to develop digital skills, but it is adults’  responsibility to show children “the use, misuse and abuse of technology” (National Association for Education of Young Children, 2012). Finally, the article mentioned above, emphasizes the importance of empowering children by teaching them how to protect themselves, and develop critical thinking regarding the information and situations they will face on the the internet.

In brief, families and educators should take advantage of technology, since it provides the possibility to get access to academic platforms. It is relevant that teachers and parents encourage children to use gadgets for learning as a tool for increasing knowledge. Lastly, children have excellent digital skills; however, adults are in charge of modeling the appropriate uses of technology (National Association for Education of Young Children, 2012).

To what extent does the use of these activities enhance children's learning of numeracy? 

Taking into account that the digital learning program was made in a short period of time, it was found that playful activities like games, increases students motivation: nevertheless, learners who had difficulties using technology, lost their interest, and required more support from the adult, a similar situation occurred on Miller’s research. Furthermore, the activities contributed to the development of numeracy concepts in both languages, since teacher's instructions was given in English and parents complemented instructions in spanish  (National Association for Education of Young Children, 2012). Additionally, technology supports and extends traditional math material due to the fact that they can be interactive. To sum up, online platforms with math sources can be useful for students to develop knowledge and for parents to look for alternatives and activities to promote children’s learning wherever they are.  

Which negative aspects to they found about the lesson? 

The challenges found through the implementation of the lesson were related with teacher’s feedback, social abilities and autonomy skills. It was found that students require feedback while doing the activities. For instance, it is highly important to implement feedback sessions as NAEYC (2012) suggests in their article. However, the paper mentions that the time children spend on the screams must be limited, it means that activities and feedback sessions must be given in a short period of time according to the learners’ age. NAEYC (2012) and Miller (2018) made emphasis on the importance of looking for activities that promote teamwork, interaction and creativity play, since they are activities promoted in a classroom with other children; on the other hand, some parents stand that it is difficult to promote social abilities through technology, due to face-to-face interaction is not allow in this pandemic situation, and students online meetings implies more time on the screen. Furthermore, some parents mentioned that technology did not promote the development of autonomy skills. It is important to adults to consider that toddlers are still learning how to be autonomous; therefore, they require the support from adults in order to learn how to use it (NAEYC 2012).

In summary, it is necessary to look for technological alternatives in which teachers can provide feedback online. Additionally, live sessions promote interaction between the teacher and students, nonetheless, it is relevant to keep in mind that it should be used to support learning, since social interaction in real life situations is important for children’s development (National Association for Education of Young Children, 2012). Finally, educators and parents should be aware that children still need support, since they are still developing their autonomy skills.

Conclusion

Although it was found that there are things to improve regarding the use of technological gadgets, this paper raised awareness of the importance of reflecting upon the process. Firstly, digital tools allow teachers and learners to continue with the learning process, especially when it is a demanding situation; for example, being sick or at the hospital are situations in which technology should be used as an alternative for learning. Nonetheless, it is important that schools promote digital training for teachers. Furthermore, institutions must consider to purchase their own platform’s domain, since it is easier for educators to upload their lessons in a platform that is accurate for their target population. Consequently, it facilitates the access for learners and parents due to they will find material designed according to the curriculum and uploaded by their own teacher. Lastly, the use of translanguaging is recommended in view of the fact that it facilitates access to the content, since parents are not bilingual.

In conclusion, the school population was not ready to face the current situation; nevertheless, there is a significant effort from educators, students and parents to look for better strategies in order to achieve a common goal, which is learning.

Reference

Heggerty, M. & Hollmann, C. (2020). Phonemic awareness: the skills that they need to help them succeed. Literacy Resources Inc. 

Miller, T. Developing numeracy skills using interactive technology in a play-based learning environment. IJ STEM Ed 5, 39 (2018). https://doi.org/10.1186/s40594-018-0135-2

National Association for Education of Young Children. (2012). Technology and young children. Retrieved from https://www.naeyc.org/resources/topics/technology-and-media/preschoolers-and-kindergartners.

Literature Review: ‘Being the Teacher”: Identity and Classroom Conversation

Literature Review: ‘Being the Teacher”: Identity and Classroom Conversation

Through this chapter was explored a discourse interaction between a teacher and some learners; besides, some pedagogical implications were analyzed. The paper took into account aspects such as the IRF cycle, classroom conversation, interactional construction, interactional patterns, conversations between the teacher and students, and the pedagogical implications. 

IRF is a pedagogical tool used by teachers in order to control conversations; the acronym stands for “initiation, response, evaluation” or “initiation, response, feedback”. Some scholars consider that IRF is associated with language learning progress; however, class motivation and class level are relevant if there is a lack of information. An alternative to contribute to this process is to replace evaluation by self-selection, so students will be able of making their own decisions and contribute to the conversation; nevertheless, the researcher starts the analysis thinking about the possibility of having a conversation in the classroom. In an academic scenario, conversation is a natural and spontaneous act, but currently when the teacher says: ‘have a conversation in English’, there is a pedagogical purpose behind, although unanticipated and spontaneous speech could happen. In order to promote conversation inside the language classroom, Seedhouse (1996) suggests two conditions: the students should see the teacher as a partner and, teacher should not lead the conversation.

Regarding the analysis of interaction among teachers and learners, Zimmers (1998) proposes three aspects about identity. The first one is the discourse identity, which refers to the development of the conversation while the learners get involved in the conversation. The second one is situated identity, which means that every participant accomplishes a task according to his or her role. The third aspect is transportable identity, which stands that physical appearance and cultural background are peoples’ insignia. Other aspect mentioned by Zimmer is the default identity which means that interactional expectations are connected to the context, and it could be used to control discourse identities in the classroom. Through the analysis of the paper, the researcher finds how Zimmerman's dimensions change or influence the interaction in the language classroom. 

Some colleagues could agree that teachers tend to keep the floor of the conversation, ask questions, provide instructions and provide feedback while the students answer what the teacher is asking for, those aspects are related with a default position. Nonetheless, there are situations in which learners are aware of a topic that the teacher did not know, and immediately the discourse identity changes. Discourse and situated identities, are an example of how sometimes the learners take the role of the teacher and the teacher encourages learners to provide more information while assuming student’s role. Finally, transportable identity could be evidenced in situations in which the context and cultural background could influenced the discourse.

To sum up, the three strategies mentioned before are implications that could be used for pedagogical purposes by considering emotional and moral aspects that promotes a better interaction between the teacher and learners; however, teachers avoid engaging interaction due to discipline issues. The aim of this paper is to provide a picture of different situations that could occur in a language classroom, and how to take advantage of aspects such as students’ spontaneous interaction, and learners’ background knowledge in order to promote a learning environment, where learners feel comfortable to participate and provide information regarding the topic. Although for teachers could be difficult to let students keep the control of the discourse due to discipline, classroom management strategies could be implemented within controlling the conversation. Evaluation is another reason that teachers have in order to control the discourse, since they tend to correct their learners. On the other hand, students answer teacher’s questions and wait for teacher’s feedback.

Furthermore, for preschool teachers, is recommended to encourage learners to have an active role through conversation. At the beginning it could be difficult since learners do not understand everything, but they tend to contribute to the conversation if they understand something. As it was mentioned in the text, if students’ discourse is not accurate to the topic, the fact of be willing to participate is a great opportunity for them at the moment of interacting with others. What is expected from the teacher is that if students require support, he or she will be able to do it without controlling the conversation. Finally, teachers’ personal and institutional identity are linked, due to the teacher’s identity is constructed through interaction, and it impacts at some point our teaching practice as well as our learners.

Literature Review: What Makes a Teacher: Identity and Classroom Talk

Literature Review: What Makes a Teacher: Identity and Classroom Talk

The aim of this paper is to understand the teacher’s identity through the discourse analysis. First of all, it is relevant to mention that historically people’s behavior, values and attitudes are linked with society, context and culture; it means that teachers’ experience influences their teaching practices, and self-perception is reliable for inquiring in teachers’ identity. Moreover, identity is built upon interaction, since it exposes people's’ personality, the way they talk and what they mean, which could be analysed through an approach. For this paper, the researcher selected conversation analytic, an approach that aims to study the social interaction, and claims that identity appears in social interaction. For example, language classroom behaviour is influenced by pedagogical goals that are interactional tasks which are lexical choices, and linguistic functions that were study through conversation analysis. 

The methodology implemented during this research was conversation analysis, used for the interpretation of naturally-occuring interaction inside the classroom, and to describe talk modes, body language, gestures and facial expressions. Three transcribed video recording English lessons were analysed throughout the Initiation-Response-Feedback/Evaluation cycle. Regarding the population, there were 19 female and 1 male, whose ages varied between 20 and 50. It was an English as a foreign language class, in which the teacher’s methodology and performance, promotes a pleasant learning environment. As it was mentioned before, the analysis of data was made considering the IRf/E cycle initially stated by Bellack, A. A., Kliebard, H. M., Hyman, R. T. (1966) as an structure with three exchange patterns: solicit, respond and react. 

The first extract presents three aspects regarding teacher’s figure. First of all, the teacher is recognized as person who has the right of asking questions. Secondly, the teacher is seen as a reference to gather information; and lastly, the teacher is in charge of monitoring, reconfirming or prompting for information. The second piece of conversation, reveals that turn-taking emerges during the primary stages of conversation analysis, which are basically the transitions that speakers follow during a conversation. It occurs due to the fact that most of the times, the teacher initiates the conversation and then decide who will talk, and the content to be used. The last extract, makes reference to repair, which actually deals with communication problems. There are four trajectories stood by  Seedhouse (2004) to fulfill repair. The first one is when students realize their mistakes, and then they correct themselves; the second one is when one of the speakers identify a language mistake, start to repair and the other speaker complete it; during the third one, one of the speakers notices the mistake, initiates to repair and another participant finishes; the last trajectory is when a participant identifies others’ mistakes and correct it. In summary, one of the teacher’s role is repairing and it includes error correction, confirmation check and clarification.

To sum up, this paper provides findings regarding the role of the teacher and the role of the learners in the language classroom. The first finding is that interaction shapes teacher’s professional background. Commonly, teacher's position is dominant over students position, since the teacher has a pedagogical control that is accomplished through questions, allocation of  turns and by keeping the floor of the conversation. It was observed that it happens because there is a model where the teacher has a fifty percent of communication turns, and most of the times learners do not assume a productive role. Moreover, to repair is considered a teacher’s goal in which repair is used as an error correction method, and less currently used for clarification request and confirmation. 

It is paramount to highlight from this research that many linguistic utterances are used most of the time subconsciously as a strategy to support learners’ linguistic development; nonetheless, it is important to look for strategies that encourage learners to take risks, and open the room for non-artificial conversions inside the language classroom. For example, nursery teachers tend to repeat the IRF/E cycle, since it is assumed that learners with a lack of linguistic knowledge is a boundary for interacting fluently with others; however, young learners are risk takers who take advantages of different methods for express themselves, such as body language, facial expressions or even create new words for accomplish the task. Certainly the teachers strategies are important especially during this early stages considering that teachers are guiding their learning process; in spite of, preschoolers are emergent bilinguals that enjoy learning and acquiring new information by playing, while using the language and interacting with people with whom they spend most of their time. The strategies that teachers can use to promote this type of learning environments are role play activities, nursery rhymes, storytelling based on their draws, and asking questions regarding topics that are current for them, among others. Finally, it is necessary to reflect upon the strategies, activities and discourse in order to promote a confident setting, where learners feel confident and motivated to participate and to have an active role in class.

Literature Review: Bilingualism and Bilingual Education as a Problem, Right and Resource

Literature Review: Bilingualism and Bilingual Education as a Problem, Right and Resource

Through the reading of this chapter it could be understood that bilingualism is not only about linguistic and sociolinguistic fields, three orientations on language were stood through this chapter. This perceptions are consciously or even subconsciously tough by educators, policy makers and planners, since they are linked to philosophical and ideological ideas from the society. 

Language as a problem is the first perspective stood by Backer and Wright (2017), in which it is explained that bilingualism could increase the levels of anxiety, since bilinguals consider their performance in the dominant language is not good enough. It also causes segregation due to many bilinguals come from minority groups and they build connections with their country of origin. Moreover, language is considered a problem in countries where being a bilingual person is a characteristic of being poor people or immigrants. What the author concludes is that it is important change the paradigm of the position of language minorities and instead, promote a positive attitude towards being bilingual.

An opposite perspective from language as a problem is language as a right, which aim is to avoid language discrimination and promote language as a human right. Nowadays, there are societies that suffer oppression from other cultures because of the colonisation; although they have their own community language, they must use the language of power in academic fields. Nonetheless, Kloss (1998) suggests that through promotion-oriented rights, people will be able to use the minority language freely in each context. The positive result is that it allows freedom of expression, preservation of the language and culture. Furthermore, job and learning opportunities increase since people will be measured by their professional characteristics than from their bilingual competence, and they will have the right to use their own dialects. Regarding indigenous communities, the United Nations Declaration on the Right of Indigenous Peoples, established that they have the right to manage their own political, social, economical, cultural issues and educational system. Similar, the United Nations’ Convention on the Rights of the Child claims that education should watch over children’s family, their culture, values and language. Indeed, what is expected from language rights is to decrease levels of discrimination and develop respect for minority groups and protect them as much as possible.

Language as a resource is the last perspective, which establishes that language can contribute to the culture, social communication, economy and to build interaction among different groups. Some countries encourage the development of a second language or the preservation of other languages because languages can actually co-exist. The main concern for education is to open the room to translanguaging practices, in this way, learners can accomplish tasks by using their home language abilities. 

Taking into account the comments gathered from the poster session regarding this paper, in Colombia, bilingualism is a problem since indigenous communities are facing language lost due to the fact that it is mandatory to learn spanish and english, but there is not academic support for their indigenous language. Moreover, there is also inequality since public institutions do not have the same access to the resources as private institutions do. It does not mean that there is a lack of effort from government and police makers, but opportunities are not the same. Otherwise, it is relevant to highlight that the government is working on improving bilingual national policies, and institutions and educators are constantly reflecting about their practices and looking for strategies to keep students motivated. 

Through the discussion of the chapter a question arose: It is bilingualism a problem in our context? We concluded that in fact it is a problem, but we must stop thinking that government, policymakers and language rights are in charge of solving it. Little actions could change the paradigm in our schools by showing learners that learning a foreign language is not complex. Teachers can also look at some extended strategies for those students who come from indigenous communities or at least show them how significant is to preserve their language because it is part of their own culture. Despite professional development is difficult to achieve because the lack of time or lack of money, it allows teachers to be updated, contribute with research projects and being in touch with colleagues who share their experiences. Finally, is crucial to reflect about our teaching practices and consider the perspectives mentioned before, because it is not enough to reflect about language itself, but also the impact of language in society.