One of the verbal comments given by my mentor on my first teaching was “ICT is fancy but it does not always works.” She was rather correct in a sense- the use of ICT was not reinforcement for my teaching but become a negative element in that lesson.
I planned to use PPT and made a still film to be used in the engagement activity. There was no embedded projector in that classroom so I managed to book one portable data projector from the library. To make sure everything will be all right, I had a trial the day before the lesson. I found that the cable between PC and the projector was too short to make the screen in the perfect position if I didn’t want to move the computer (and its desk and all the related power lines as well as the security chains). Therefore I decided to bring my own laptop in the real lesson and I believed there would be no problem because I did that in my last placement school many times.
However, on the day of the lesson, the librarians announced that they would shut down the library during the recess time so I could not get the booked projector until the period start. Then, after I settled everything, I found my laptop could not read the projector[1] so I had to disassemble everything and rearrange the projector with the classroom computer. Furthermore, after I managed to fix everything, I still found my deliberated film was not much engaging for the students because the sun suddenly came out and the students hardly saw the projection on the white board in a spacious classroom without curtains!
I am not trying to find technical excuses to justify my teaching. On the other hand, this experience exactly exposed what a beginning teacher lacks: backup plan, flexibility, authority and confidence. I have learned:
1) Well preparation is necessary but also need to prepare that troubles may come from the preparation.
2) The greatest teacher may be not the one who knows how to apply a range of resources but the one who can still engage students in effective learning when he/ she has nothing external to use. (What a challenging task!)
3) It is NOT the prepared content and material to accomplish the teaching/learning but the teacher as a model (performer), the teacher-student relationship and the engagement of students interactively generate the learning outcome.
4) ICT should be used to simplify the teaching steps while supporting the learning aims. If it goes oppositely, rethink it again, there must be something wrong with the lesson plan itself.
[1] Later on, I found my computer could read all of the other projectors provided by the library but not the one I booked. Why? It’s still a mystery.
One of the verbal comments given by my mentor on my first teaching was “ICT is fancy but it does not always works.” She was rather correct in a sense- the use of ICT was not reinforcement for my teaching but become a negative element in that lesson.
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