Thursday, June 14, 2007

Skype, podcasts and broadband transform language teaching

According to the Economist, Skype, podcasts and broadband are transforming language teaching. There's no doubt that such technologies can complement traditional language teaching but the word "transform" in this context is a bit strong. Overhyping the educational possibilities and then complaining about failures to meet unrealistic expectations just undermines much of the terrific potential of such technologies (and it irritates the hell out of me, especially when they really do have transformational potential in certain educational contexts when appropriately deployed). Can we just be given the time and space to play with them, try them out and see what does and doesn't work, without the hype please?

No comments: