Technology and Education

 

“We need technology in every classroom and in every student and teacher’s hand, because it is the pen and paper of our time, and it is the lens through which we experience much of our world.” 

– David Warlick

Hello Friends, 

Warmly welcome to my blog. Here I have described how technology has played a vital role in Education. Before the Covid19 some of the people were using technology for the learning and teaching process. But nowadays people are well familiar with the use of technology and how it is useful for teachers as well as students. For more information you can visit the blog of Dr.Dilip Barad to

click here

Is Technology beneficial for education Systems? 

Yes, technology is useful in the field of Education. The use of technology has become an important part of the learning process in and out of the class. Every language class usually uses some form of technology. Technology has been used to both help and improve language learning. Technology enables teachers to adapt classroom activities, thus enhancing the language learning process. Technology continues to grow in importance as a tool to help teachers facilitate language learning for their learners. This study of technology and education will focus on the role of using new technologies in learning English as a second/foreign language. 

It discussed different attitudes which support English language learners to increase their learning skills through using technologies. Here I have defined the term technology and technology integration, explained the use of technology in language classrooms, reviewed previous studies on using technologies in improving language learning skills, and stated certain recommendations for the better use of these technologies, which assist learners in improving their learning skills. The literature review indicated that the effective use of new technologies improves learners’ language learning skills.

Use of Technology in English Language Class

Technology is an effective tool for learners. Learners must use technology as a significant part of their learning process. Teachers should model the use of technology to support the curriculum so that learners can increase the true use of technology in learning their language skills. Learners’ cooperation can be increased through technology. Cooperation is one of the important tools for learning. Learners cooperatively work together to create tasks and learn from each other through reading their peers’ work.

The use of computer technology leads to the improvement of teachers’ teaching and learners’ learning in the classes. The use of computer technology helps teachers meet their learners’ educational needs.

Dawson, Cavanaugh, and Ritzhaupt (2008) and Pourhosein Gilakjani (2014) maintained that using technology can create a learning atmosphere centered around the learner rather than the teacher that in turn creates positive changes. They emphasized that by using computer technology, language class becomes an active place full of meaningful tasks where the learners are responsible for their learning.

Technology and Education 

In this given video you can find how technology helps students to learn everything from anyone and anywhere. Some of the good online learning platforms are provided by the Government like Swayam and other online courses, study apps, E-Material etc. More important thing is that now students have their own devices and wifi network to expand their learning skills as well as to engage with expert Professors and Teachers . Although, you watch the advertisement which focuses on the now time to turn towards the use of technology in learning and explores the way in the terms of job and business. So They can easily learn anything from anywhere. If anybody is living in remote areas still those students don't have to stop learning they can use technology to learn more without any restrictions. 

Use of Technology and Technology integration 

When we talk about technology integration in the classroom we are talking about a planned and highly structured and purposeful use of technology with students whose ultimate goal is to engage students and help them develop new thinking skills. Using technology, on the other hand, is a random and sporadic process whose main goal is to instruct students on content not to engage them with content. The below given chart offers a more detailed explanation of the difference between Using Technology and Integrating Technology. For more details go through the chart. 

What shall teachers do so they are not replaceable by technology? 

The word “future”, you hear “robots”. Artificial intelligence is rapidly growing, and that fear of losing your job to technology has become very real. Technology is merely an augmentation to a teacher. It can help the process of learning, but it certainly cannot replace the role of the teacher.

Technology can make it easy to get educated by sitting at home but that education too is provided by a teacher. Even in online courses, we see that teachers are necessary to give lectures, whether in the form of videos, tutorials, Skype sessions, meet, zoom etc. Students still need to learn computers to operate those online sessions, which of course are taught by teachers.

A teacher also acts as a guide, a mentor and an inspiration for students, a role that cannot be replaced by technology of any kind. Taking critical skills into account like decision making, time management etc, a child needs a teacher as the technology cannot teach these human skills. Even the tech wizard himself, Steve Jobs, believed that 

while technology can solve many societal problems, it’s not as simple as handing it over to a computer. At least not when it comes to teaching.

The most important thing is a person. A person who incites your curiosity and feeds your curiosity; and machines cannot do that in the same way that people can.

ICT

ICT stand for information and communication technologies and are defined, for the purposes of this primer, as a 

“diverse set of technological tools and resources used to communicate, and to create, disseminate, store, and manage information.”

These technologies include computers, the Internet, broadcasting technologies.

Information and communication technologies (ICT) have some benefits for teaching and learning.  First, learners play an active role, which can help them retain more information. Next, follow-up  discussions involve more information where learners can become more independent. Finally,  learners can process new learner-based educational materials and their language learning skills can increase.

CITATIONS 

Dawson, K., Cavanaugh, C., & Ritzhaupt, A. (2008). Florida’s EETT Leveraging Laptops Initiative and its impact on teaching practices. Journal of Research on Technology in Education, 41(2), 143-159. https://doi.org/10.1080/15391523.2008.10782526

American Literature

American Literature by Dharti Makwana on Scribd

Online Course: Coursera

 

Sunday Reading: Eco-criticism

 

10 November 2020

What is Ecocriticism? 

Ecocriticism is the study of literature and environment from an interdisciplinary point of view where all sciences come together to analyze the environment and brainstorm possible solutions for the correction of the contemporary environmental situation. Ecocriticism was officially heralded by the publication of two seminal works, both published in the mid-1990s: 

• "The Ecocriticism Reader" edited by Cheryll Glotfelty and Harold Fromm

• "The Environmental Imagination" by Lawrence Buell.

Ecocritics ask questions such as:

(1) How is nature represented in the poem ?

(2) What role does the physical geographical structure of nature have relations with humans?

(3) How do our metaphors of the land influence the way we treat it? That is, what is the link between pedagogic or creative practice and actual political, sociocultural and ethical behaviour towards the land and other non-human life forms?

(4) How does poetry open to critical scrutiny in terms of the effects of science upon the land?

"TREE ONCE AGAIN"

BY

SITANSHU YASHASCHANDRA 

Devang Nanavati delivered an interesting online talk on ecocritical reading of Sitanshu Yashaschandra's poem 'Tree Once Again'. This Gujarati poem he talked about poet and his poem from the perspective of Ecocriticism like "Fari Pachhu Vruksh". He talked about poets and his poems from the perspective of Ecocriticism. As given below 

Sitanshu Yashaschandra is among contemporary Gujarati literature’s most eminent representatives. A poet, playwright, translator and academic, he has received several awards over the years from the Sahitya Akademi Award (1987) for his significant opus, Jatayu, to the Padma Shri (2006) from the Government of India. He has authored three books of poetry.

1. Odysseusnu-n Halesu (1974)

2. Jatayu (1986)

3. Vakhar

What is the right time to understand the importance of nature? As lots of trees cut down because of industrialisation and the expansion of the land. The poet who tries to say this in this poem. The stillness under the tree after returning home exhausted having had a full meal. While reading the latest issue of genitalia generally translates it. It is the welfare of the people. At  times of restive moments the poet imagines that if the tree hadn't been cut what would have been the picture of the tree as well as earth? Picture of the tree today? Or infect what I have destroyed from the arm of the chair on which the poet is sitting lying near this door blows himself violet coloured flowers. 

You see the color image? You must be learning in your style. How the poet is using the colours of the names of the magazines. He manages the rhythm between one and the other stand so that you know the appeal to preserve the tree in our mind. 

Ecocriticism and Human Relations 

Ecocriticism investigates the relation between humans and the natural world in literature. It deals with how environmental issues, cultural issues concerning the environment and attitudes towards nature are presented and analyzed. One of the main goals in ecocriticism is to study how individuals in society behave and react in relation to nature and ecological aspects. This form of criticism has gained a lot of attention during recent years due to higher social emphasis on environmental destruction and increased technology.

Postcolonial-Ecocriticism 

Jack Nelson  defines  postcolonial ecocriticism as, 

Postcolonial  ecocriticism  (…)  is  a  way  of  thinking  that  seeks  to understand how top-level, elite driven processes like (neo) colonialism, capitalism,  international  development,  interstate  alliances  or  the centralization  or  devolution  of  power  are  connected  to  the  spaces  in which people live and act, while at the same time recognizing that the reclamation of space, land, and resources is a key part of the process of people’s liberation. “Humanity in Action”. 

Nelson also points out that postcolonial ecocriticism puts into consideration “spaces” and their physical and metaphysical ramifications and what they hold for the humans as they interact in them.

The essential assumptions, ideas and methods of ecocritics may be summed up as follows.

(1) Ecocritics believe that human culture is related to the physical world.

(2) Ecocriticism assumes that all life forms are interlinked. Ecocriticism expands the notion of “the world” to include the entire ecosphere.

(3) Moreover, there is a definite link between nature and culture, where the literary treatment, representation and “thematization” of land and nature influence actions on the land.

Thank you....

Thinking Activity: Then and Now; Colonialism, Imperialism, postcolonialism, Globalization and Environmental studies

 

 Hello Readers,

Warmly welcomed to Blog. Here, I have discussed the marked for identification as diverse instances of cultural imperialism. Cultural imperialism is one of a number of oppressive relations that may hold between dominant and subordinate cultures. Whether or not conscious and intentional, it serves to extend the political power, secure the social control, and further the economic profit of the dominant culture. 

Ultimately, it facilitates a type of cultural acquisition via conceptual, even material, assimilation; the dominant culture seeks to establish itself in indigenous cultures by appropriating, mining, and redefining what is distinctive in, or constitutive of, them. The mechanism for this, as we will see, is an oft-repeated pattern of cultural subordination that turns vitally on legal and popular views of ownership and property, as formulated within the dominant culture.

Situating Colonial and postcolonial studies

Colonialism and imperialism are often used interchangeably. The word colonialism, according to the Oxford English Dictionary (OED), comes from the Roman ‘colonia’ which meant ‘farm’ or ‘settlement’, and referred to Romans who settled in other lands but still retained their citizenship. Accordingly, the OED describes

it as a settlement in a new country … a body of people who settle in a new locality, forming a community subject to or connected with their

parent state; the community so formed, consisting of the original

settlers and their descendants and successors, as long as the connection with the parent state is kept up.

Then and Now: Colonialism, Imperialism, postcolonialism, globalization, Environmental studies 

The word ‘colonialism’ of any implication of an encounter between peoples, or of conquest and domination. There is no hint that the ‘new locality’ may not be so ‘new’ and that the process of ‘forming a community’ might be somewhat unfair.

colonialism can be defined as the conquest and control of other people’s land and goods. But colonialism in this sense did not begin with the expansion of various European powers into Asia, Africa or the Americas from the sixteenth century.

1. How can we understand these differences? 

2. Was it that Europeans established empires far away from their own shores? 

3. Were they more violent or more ruthless? Were they better organised? Or a superior race? 

All of these explanations have in fact been offered to account for the global power and drastic effects of European colonialisms. Marxist thinking on the subject locates a crucial distinction between the two: 

• Whereas earlier colonialisms were pre-capitalist, modern colonialism was established alongside capit- alism in Western Europe (see Bottomore 1983: 81–85). 

• Modern colonialism did more than extract tribute, goods and wealth from the countries that it conquered—it restructured the economies of the latter, drawing them into a complex relationship with their own, so that there was a flow of human and natural resources between colonised and colonial countries. 

This flow worked in both directions—slaves and indentured labour as well as raw materials were transported to manufacture goods in the metropolis, or in other locations for metropolitan consumption, but the colonies also provided captive markets for European goods. The economic imbalance that was necessary for the growth of European capitalism and industry. Thus we could say that colonialism was the midwife that assisted at the birth of European capitalism, or that without colonial expansion the transition to capitalism could not have taken place in Europe but the global connections established by modern colonialism were not entirely new. 

The trade routes that had connected Europe with Asia, and Asia with Africa since antiquity were reworked and expanded as the Americas were ‘discovered’ by Europeans.

Capitalism 

The distinction between pre-capitalist and capitalist colonialisms is often made by referring to the latter as imperialism. This is somewhat misleading, because imperialism, like colonialism, stretches back to a pre-capitalist past. Like ‘colonialism’, imperialism too is best understood not by trying to pin it down to a single semantic meaning but by relating its shifting meanings to historical processes. Early in its usage in the English language it simply means ‘command or superior power’ (Williams 1976: 131). The OED defines ‘imperial’ as ‘pertaining to empire’, and ‘imperialism’ as the 

 ‘rule of an emperor, espe- cially when despotic or arbitrary; the principle or spirit of empire; advocacy of what are held to be imperial interests’.

As a matter of fact, the connection of imperial with royal authority is highly variable. Lenin thus predicted that in due course the rest of the world would be absorbed by European finance capitalists. 

Globalization 

and 

Imperialism 

This global system was called ‘imperialism’ and constituted a particular stage of capitalist development—the ‘highest’ in Lenin’s understanding because rivalry between the various imperial wars would catalyse their destruction and the demise of capitalism. It is this Leninist definition that allows some people to argue that capitalism is the distinguishing feature between colonialism and imperialism.

Direct colonial rule is not necessary for imperialism in this sense, because the economic (and social) relations of dependency and control ensure both captive labour as well as markets for European industry as well as goods. Sometimes the words ‘neo-imperialism’or ‘neo-colonialism’ are used to describe these situations. In as much as the growth of European industry and finance-capital was achieved through colonial domination in the first place, we can also see that imperialism is the highest stage of colonialism.

In the early years of imperialism, There is was a description of a specific phase in history. In the last few decades of the 19th century, the European powers reversed their previous commitment to free trade and an enlightened colonial policy, erected tariff walls and began a new scramble for overseas territories. By the turn of the century, most of the Third World had been divided among the great powers and the growing rivalry, punctuated by periodic near-clashes over colonial interests, pointed to the outbreak of World War I.

The imperialism to a growing concentration of economic power within the capitalist countries. Giant capitalist monopolies, coordinated by banks, sought more profitable trade and investment opportunities overseas as well as sources for raw materials. Powerful capitalists forced their governments to secure foreign territories, ward off opposition from both Third World peoples and the other imperialist powers, and increase the pace of investment and exploitation.

CITATIONS 

• Loomba, Ania. Colonialism-Postcolonialism. Third Edition ed., Routledge, 2015.

• “Loomba, Ania. 

Colonialism/Postcolonialism.” OUP Academic, Oxford University Press, 27 Jan. 2016

• Whitt, Laurelyn. "Imperialism Then and Now." Science, Colonialism, and Indigenous Peoples: The Cultural Politics of Law and Knowledge. Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 2009. 3-28. Print.

• Whitt, Laurelyn. Science, Colonialism, and Indigenous Peoples: The Cultural Politics of Law and Knowledge. Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 2009. Print.

Thiong'o, Tharoor and films on colonial history

 

To view blog click here 👇

Thiong'o, Tharoor and films on colonial history 

Shashi Tharoor  is an Indian politician, writer and a former career international diplomat  who is currently serving as Member of Parliament, Lok Sabha from Thiruvananthapuram, Kerala, since 2009. 

Book: An Era of Darkness 

The full title of the book is An Era of Darkness: The British Empire In India. If we talk about how the idea of the book and book itself come to existence  it has its own story. Actually Tharoor went to Oxford Union in 2015 and took part in debate. The topic on which he gave a speech is

"Does Britain owe reparations to it's on former colonies?"

The speech went viral. Subsequently his publisher. Flores the idea to transform speech into a book. So, in this way the book An Era of Darkness comes. 

The book is the result of a speech which was given in Oxford Union. So let me first identify some of the key points from speech. The very first thing he talks about the economic condition of colonies was actually variant by the existence of British Colonialism. He takes the example of India and says that India shares the world economy of 23 present when Britain arrived. But by the time they left it was below 4 present.

The next he talks about that during their stay in India between 15 to 29 million Indian died because of starvation.  A great example of it is the great Bengal famine during the 2nd world war. Because the food is given to European as stoke by Winston Churchill. He further said that violence and racism was the reality of colonialism. Then he made a satire on the quote

“The sun never set on British Empire. "

He says that even god cannot trust English in the dark.

Key points from book: 

 The points we see in speech are incl The first point in book and in speech is common. He talked about the economic condition of India. But in the book we found examples from Indian textile market. According to hum three inderstree in India were doing good ; textile, still, and ship building all these three systematically, debratly, targeted and destroyed by British. In this book he also talks about the rules which are regressive. Some of which are still continuing today. He says that there are Darrin lows which are misused by the state government for tribal offence. 

Further he talk about the low on Homosexuality in section 377. According to him India was very liberal about self expression of sexuality. He says that this is Victorian morality which is imposed over India.

Thank you...