Blog Task #5

In this blog entry, I am going to write about my interview with a 17 year old girl, talking about her experiences with new media in school.

 

The first question I asked her was the following: Do you see differences in the climate of the class when comparing old methods with the use of new media in school?

 

Surprisingly, she told me that she liked standard-methods such as using the blackboard better than the use of new media. The problem is that many of her teachers don’t really know how to deal with technical problems that often appear. This stops fluency in class and thus, pupils lose their interest. However, she seemed convinced that most of the pupils are more motivated when knowing that new media is going to be involved in a lesson. Pupils love to watch movies or using the computer  as it is less boring than starring at the teacher all the time. Another problem is that there are many pupils who are not used to working with a computer but it is a chance for the pupils to help each other. This is why new media can encourage a good climate in class. Most of the old methods and media are boring and frustrating to the students.

 

As a second question, I wanted to know if there are special subjects in which new media is used more often than in others.

 

Her answer was that teachers of  biology, chemistry and other sciences sometimes make use of dvd-players or videos whereas language teachers are more “old-fashioned”! Maybe there is more material existing for sciences. Nevertheless, she told me that it would be fun to watch movies dealing with books as it is easier to remember them with this method. Doing research on the Internet to get background information would be an alternative to the standard-methods but is rarely used nowadays.