Once upon a time pens and papers were deemed appropriate in traditional education. Nonetheless, with the rapid advent of modern technology, the twenty-first century witnessed a quick change of classrooms setting in various institutions around the world.
Indeed, many of which are well-equipped with a wide range of technological items, such as: overhead projector (OHP) , interactive whiteboards IWB , a fixed data projector,etc. It is, indeed, the norm in many developed countries. In many schools in ‘third world’ where lower standard of living lies and the rate of illiteracy is alarming, there is an excessive use of boards on which students and teachers can write on using only chalks in different colors. At best, in our professional institutions, as a case in point, many instructors tend to use overhead projector, if available, to project images and text to change the pace of their lessons.
During the last few decades, many teachers on the other side of the world, have become aware of the many good facets which modern technologies can offer. As a matter of fact, these instructors showed a high level of interest in bringing recent technologies to their classrooms. As such, they use interactive whiteboards which enable them not only to save time, but to keep record of anything covered or printed since the board itself serves as a bulk computer. By virtue of the data projector which shows a wide array of computer- generated images used mostly in class presentations, teachers and students alike can have quick access to Internet and share classroom worksheets such as spreadsheets or any other related material.
In UK, for example, every single student has an interactive whiteboard (IWB) at his desk or wireless keyboards. This is useful to project individual assignments and work onto the screen. As a result, the whole class sees the work and may make necessary improvements on it. Furthemore, the students can save files or use the stored audio files to be played on the speaker system or even via individual headphones. Besides, these technologies allow users to get a tremendous wealth of information in an unprecedented way. CD-ROMs, DVD’s, or USB are such a fantastic tools. One can use a universal serial bus to store a great deal of videos downloaded from peer to peer hardwares or search engines such as google to share information.
What is more, there are encyclopedias, bilingual or monolingual learners’ dictionaries which come in three various forms: as a separate pocket electronic dictionaries, on CD-ROMs or on Internet. All having the advantages of providing users with great of information just by typing in a word and a simple click of a mouse. Seemingly, technologies are such endless sources of activities and information for project designers, university pupils, researcher,etc.
On this basis we conclude that, if technologies are well-deployed, moderm technology holds great promise to bring good quality of learning.
