Learner Autonomy: Use of Technological Devices in Language Learning Classroom

For me, this week was pretty productive. Developing project plan is one of the prodigious works after applying it in my classroom it adds lots of things in my experience, in my cognition, in my professional development as well as in my CV…J. Learning about ANVILL is very useful, effective and fruitful for me to use in my classroom to provide my students lively classroom. It was interesting and proud to learn it as few people might know about it in my country. I can share them when time is suitable. I felt, peer review is the best way to assess students' work. At first, I'm planning to apply same strategy in my classroom. Then, I got chance to learn something from my friend's report. From the help of friends' we can get chance to improve yourselves in many ways. Likewise, Second half of the week's main work was to think and write about technological devices and its drawbacks and benefits in language learning classroom. From the task, I got chance to learn about its problems and the proposed solutions from my friend. Below is the same which I posted in the Nicenet:

It is obvious that when some people think of autonomous learning and learning with technology, the picture that comes in mind is that of students working in isolation. Then, when students work in isolation it directs to individual learning. Healey 2002 says that "Individualized Directed Learning" (IDL) is a way of encouraging learners to become more autonomous. The more learners are given free setting of language learning, I believe the pace of learning and success increases because the habit of "self-direction" and "independent learning" will developed. To promote self-direction and independent learning technology play a great role.

While going through some articles written in favor of learner autonomy what I found is technology's role in fostering autonomy has been praised over the years with a number of claims. They believe, use of technology or different technological devices supports different learning styles as learning styles is solely personal in individual. As some learners are audio learner, some are visual learners, some are kinesthetic, some are aural and some are verbal. Providing materials for all the five kinds of learners are the main motto of technology. For example, recently, we experience ANVILL which is useful for all types of learners which is authentic, literacy, interaction, vitality and empowerment to the English Language Classroom. Indeed, the dynamic nature of the Internet, together with the wide range of materials and resources it offers, makes it a valuable tool for language learning.

For me, though there are many benefits of technology I find very many difficulties to use these tools. Such As; while searching for just about a sensible topic you will be overwhelmed with thousands of topics, most of which are of low value. There is little guarantee that the most worthy results will appear close to the top of the list. Nowadays, Search engine placement becoming such big business that is more likely that the top ranked sites will be trying to sell you something rather than increasing your knowledge. The vast amount of ready-made learning content in the public domain has been a source of plagiarism to the students. I think, the course, we are taking now is distance education; it has risk that students may experience feelings of isolation and become demotivated. Therefore, to overcome from the problems support and communication facilities should be vital in maintaining learner connectedness. Teachers should be flexible and ready to communicate 24 hours if necessary with students as our Courtney does….:). Strictly refer authentic sites to overcome from affecting low values' materials and at last I suggest you all use it but don't overuse. It is the solution of all problems you get in using technology.