TEACHING WITH DRAMATIZED EXPERIENCES

Listening to storytelling or reading is an individual activity, even if the story is presented to a group of children; dramatization of a story is a collective activity. Dramatization of a story means that we are “inside” of events and not “outside”, as often in story reading activity. “The pupils can be liberate to explore, what they understand of the original author’s ideas, they can embellish, expand, create ones…They become a powerful community with the ability to solve problems and resolve dilemmas” (Toye & Prendiville, 2000, p18). Individual experience is juxtaposed with a social context in ‘acting out’ the story, which is very important for young children.

Dramatizations together with adults offer an opportunity not only to observe but to practice ‘acting’ skills as well. We can conclude that the story gives shared content to children’s play activity and creates strong motivation.

Dramatic entrance is something that catches and holds our attention and has an emotional impact.

Formal Dramatized Experience

    A. Plays - Depict life, character, or culture or a      combination of all three.

    B. Pageants - usually community dramas that are based on local history, presented by local actors.

  C. Puppets – unlike regular stage play, it can present ideas with extreme simplicity, without elaborate scenery or costume yet effective.

Less Formal Dramatized Experiences

A. Pantomime – is the art of conveying a story through bodily movements only.

B. Tableau – (French word means PICTURE) is a picture-like scene composed of people against a background.

C. Puppets – unlike the regular stage play, can present ideas with extremely simplicity, without elaborate scenery or costume, yet effective.

Quite simply, a puppet is an inanimate object, constructed of wood, cloth, plastic, cardboard, papier-mâché, or any other type of material, brought to life and personified by the puppeteer. The puppet does not need to look like a human being; rather it must act like one. This is the puppeteer’s job and it will be discussed later.

Types of Puppet

1. The Marionette

Marionettes are generally fashioned from wood and resemble a human body. Body joints (ankles, knees,etc.) are connected by movable hinges. String is attached to various parts of the body, but most commonly to the arms, legs, and head, and it allows the puppeteer to create very lifelike movements. Although marionettes are renowned as an artistic and sophisticated method of puppetry, they are difficult to manipulate, especially for the beginner.

For the inexperienced marionette operator, the performance can be frustrating, as the puppet may not move in the intended fashion, and the operation strings may tangle or break.

2. Shadow Puppets

Similar to the marionette, but less sophisticated, is the shadow puppet. Shadow puppets are generally flat characters created from heavy paper or cardboard. Again, the characters are hinged, thus allowing the puppets to move freely, and rods are used to operate the gross movements. The figures are placed against a thin fabric panel, and a bright light is shone behind the screen. The result is that the audience sees a clear silhouette or shadow of a puppet. Although these puppets are quite simple to produce, they are not always simple to present.

3. Stick Puppets

Like most puppets, stick puppets vary in their complexity. A stick puppet can be as simple as a Styrofoam ball head attached to a stick, or a two-dimensional picture attached to a stick, or as complicated as a two-stick process whereby one stick supports the puppet’s head and body and the other stick becomes an arm and hand. Puppets can also be created using wooden spoons. Spoon puppets are easy to create and manipulate, but the puppeteer is restricted to very simple movements when using them.

4. Hand Puppets

Hand puppets are by far the most common type of puppet. They are relatively simple to create and readily available to purchase for those who are not inclined to make their own. With a hand puppet, the puppeteer’s hand is placed directly inside the puppet. Different fingers control the head and arms of the puppet. In addition to moving their head and arms, these puppets can pick up or manipulate props. The puppet becomes an extension of the puppeteer’s own hand, thus making movements with the puppet relatively natural. I recommend this type of puppet, particularly for the beginning puppeteer.

5. Mouth Puppets

Mouth puppets are my favorite type of puppet. They appear more lifelike than their counterparts (although this is not necessarily important to the child).

Mouth puppets are distinguished from other puppets in that they have movable mouths, thus allowing the puppets to talk more realistically. The puppeteer inserts his thumb into the lower jaw of the puppet and the other fingers operate the upper jaw. If the mouth puppet also has a body and arms, the puppeteer must decide what to do with the arms. A beginner might choose to simply leave the arms hanging to the side of the puppet. A second option is to tie some fishing line or invisible thread to both the wrist and the neck of the puppet.

Consequently, any large movement by the puppet would result in smaller movements of the arms.

6. Rod Puppets

Flat cut out figures tacked to a stick, with one or more movable parts, and operated from below the stage level wire rods or slender stick.

7. Glove-and-finger puppets

Make used of old gloves to which small costumed figure are attached.

Other Puppets

8. Stocking puppets

• Silhouettes make good shadow puppets
• Cardboard face on a stick is excellent for lower-grade children
• Cardboard face fastened to a band on pupils head

Making Puppet Theatres

Steps:

• Nail stick legs to each corner of a wooden crate that has two sides removed.
• Drape cloth from the bottom of the box and tack it around sides and front. Operators crouch behind the theatre.
• You may also use pieces of plywood, heavy cardboard or Masonite to produce a self-standing puppet theatre.

Suggestions of the puppeteers

• Do not use puppets for plays that can be done just as well or better by dramatic mean.
• Puppet plays must be based on action rather than on words.
• Keep the play short.
• Do not omit possibilities of music and dancing as part of the puppet show.
• Adapt the puppet show to the age, background, and tastes of the students.

D. Role Playing:

How role playing is done: It can be done by describing a situation which would create different viewpoints on an issue and then asking the students to play the roles of the individuals involved. Any kind of conflict situation, real or potential, is useful for role playing or any situation in which real feelings are concealed. Consider situation in school, at home, on the playground, at work, in the government.

The role playing has to be followed by a discussion.

• Among the questions that may be asked are:
• How did you, as actors, feel? Would you act/think that way in real life?
• As observers, would you agree with what the actors said or did?
• Any lessons learned?

Teaching with Contrived Experiences

Contrived experiences are those which are designed and arranged closely resembling direct experiences. It is not always possible to let a student have a direct experience of all things; some contrivances such as laboratory experiments, working models, etc. are very useful. Contrary to belief, contrived experiences are usually better than direct experiences. This is because models are made less complex, see-through as also easier and safer to operate.

We make use of representative models or mock ups of reality for practical reasons and so that we can make the real-life accessible to the students’ perception and understanding. For instance, a mock up of Apollo, the capsule for exploration of the moon, enabled the North American Aviation Co. to study the problem of lunar flight.

Recall how you were taught how to read time. Your teacher might have used a mocked clock. Those whose hands you could turn to set the time you were instructed to set.

Examples:

• Drama and role-playing
• Demonstrations
• Field Trips
• Exhibits and Models
• Motion Pictured and Video
• Visual Symbols
• Verbal Symbols

Why do we use them?

• Having the original is impossible
• It is the most effective and appropriate way to portray the idea
• It can justify the cost purchased
• It can stimulate to further learning

Using & Evaluating Instructional Materials

It is one thing to select a good instructional material; it is another thing to use it well to ensure effective use of instructional material, Hyden Smith & Thomas Nagel, advice us to abide by the acronym PPPF.

Prepare yourself. We should know our lesson objective and what you expect from the Dane after the session and why you have selected such particular instructional materials you have a plan on how you will proceed, what questions to ask, how you will evaluate learning & how you will tie loose end before the bells rings.

Prepare your students set class expectation and learning goals. We should motivate the students so that these interests in listening will be aroused. Give them a guide questions to be able to answer during the discussion.

Present the materials under the best possible conditions. Before discussing we should prepare first the materials so that your presentation will be successful.

Follow up. We should remember that we use instructional materials to achieve and objective not to kill time but we use the instructional material for the attainment of a lesson objective. To know if the objective was attained or not use should

DIRECT PURPOSEFUL EXPERIENCES AND BEYOND

Definition:

• It is a complex, integrated process involving people, procedures, ideas, devices, and organization for analyzing problems and devising, implementing, evaluating, and managing solution to those problems, involved in all aspects of human learning.
•  Is a very broad item.
• It is the application of scientific findings in our method, process or procedure of working in the field trip of education in order to affect learning.
• It embraces curriculum and instructional design, learning environment, theories of teaching-learning.
•  It is also a filed study and a profession.
• It is the use of all human inventions for teachers to realize their mission to teach in order that students learn.
• These experiences are our concrete and first hand experiences that make up the foundation of our learning.
• These are the rich experiences that our senses bring from which we construct the ideas, the concepts, the generalizations that give meaning and order to our lives (Dale, 1969)

Example of Direct activities

• Preparing meals
• Making a piece of furniture
• Performing a laboratory experiment
• Delivering a speech
• Taking a trip

In contrast, indirect experiences are experience of other… people that we observe, read or hear about. They are not our experiences but still experiences in the sense that we see, read and hear about them. They are not firsthand but rather vicarious.          

Why are these direct experiences described to be purposeful?

• They are experiences that are internalized in the sense that these experiences involve the asking of questions that have significance in the life of the person undergoing the direct experience.
• These experiences are undergone in relation to a purpose, i.e. learning
• It is done in relation to a certain learning objective.

Summary:

Direct experiences are first hand experiences that serve as the foundation of learning. The opposite of direct experiences are indirect or vicarious experiences

Direct experiences lead us to concept formation and abstraction. We should not end our lessons knowing only the concrete. We go beyond the concrete by reaching the level of abstract concepts. Persons learn through the five senses: sight, hearing, touch, taste, smell. In the five senses sight has a greater percentage that are the people easily learned through seeing which has 75% followed by hearing(13%) then touch(6%), taste(3%) and smell (3%).

People Remember

It is said that people remember:

10% of what they read

20% of what they hear

30% of what they see

50% of what they see and hear

70% of what they write and say

90% of what they say as they do

The percentages –> 10% of what they read 20% of what they hear 30% of what they see 50% of what they hear and see 70% of what they say or write 90% of what they say as they do a thing are not from Dale. The bogus percentages appear to have been first published by an employee of Mobil Oil Company in 1967, writing in the magazine “Film and Audio-Visual Communications”.

These percentages have since been discredited. THEY ARE FICTION! This is one of the great training/ people development myths.

Old Chinese proverb

“What I hear, I forget;

What I see, I remember;

What I do, I understand.”

Stands true – but only again as a saying, and NOT as statistical fact.

The Cone was originally developed by Edgar Dale in 1946 and was intended as a way to describe various learning experiences. The diagram presented to the right (Raymond S. Pastore, Ph.D) is a modification of Dale’s original Cone; the percentages given relate to how much people remember and is a recent modification. Essentially, the Cone shows the progression of experiences from the most concrete (at the bottom of the cone) to the most abstract (at the top of the cone). It is important to note that Dale never intended the Cone to depict a value judgment of experiences; in other words, his argument was not that more concrete experiences were better than more abstract ones. Dale believed that any and all of the approaches could and should be used, depending on the needs of the learner.

How should the Cone be interpreted?

The figure above shows what students will be able to do at each level of the Cone (the learning outcomes they will be able to achieve) relative to the type of activity they are doing (reading, hearing, viewing images, etc.). The numerical figures on the left side of the image, what people will generally remember, indicate that practical, hands-on experience in a real-life context will allow students to remember best what they do. Again, it is important to remember that this doesn’t mean reading and listening are not valuable learning experiences, simply that “doing the real thing” can lead to the retention of the largest amount of information. This is in part because those experiences near the bottom of the Cone, closer to and including real-world experiences, make use of more of our senses; it is believed that the more senses that are used, the greater our ability to learn from and remember an event or experience.

How can Dale’s Cone be used to enhance SL learning?

As stated above, the Cone should not be interpreted as indicating that teachers shouldn’t make use of reading, listening, viewing experiences and the like. These are all valuable and important parts of learning a second language and all have a place in the B-SLIM model. What should be taken from reviewing Dale’s Cone of Experience is that experiences at ALL of the levels described should be used in the second language classroom. Just as Gardner describes the Multiple Intelligences and appealing to them all, Dale’s Cone emphasizes learning experiences that appeal to the different senses and the different ways in which we learn. Direct parallels can be drawn between the different levels of experience depicted in the Cone and the stages of the B-SLIM model. When looking at Figure 2 (from Alabama Professional Development Modules) to the right, the first 6 types of experience (from the top of the cone downward) are all part of the Getting It and Using It stages of B-SLIM. The real-world experiences at the bottom of the Cone relate directly to the Proving It stage; it is at this stage of the model that students are encouraged to use what they have learned in new, real-life contexts.

Systematic Approach to Teaching

Instructional Technology

What is it?

A term often used but misunderstood, instructional technology refers to how student learns. Learn about the five steps of instructional technology, its history and its issues.

Confusion Surrounding the Term Confusion Surrounding the Term

Many educators have heard the term ‘instructional technology’ thrown about in discussions involving pedagogy or curriculum and instruction. It’s frequently bandied about, but often misunderstood completely, due to the somewhat ambiguous nature of the nomenclature. Technology must mean computers, overheads, etc used in the classroom, right? Yes, this is why this term is frequently conflated with the concept of technology used in the classroom. However, instructional technology goes beyond the actual technological gizmos and gadgets used in the classroom, and focuses on how to use them.

What is it then?

In reality, instructional technology is a very broad, generalized term. It does indeed relate to the field of education, and more particularly, to the way students of all ages learn. The term encompasses the entire process of learning through and from technology, focusing on both the theory and the application or practice that follows the theory of learning.

     

Generally, Instructional Technology is the use of a variety of teaching tools to improve student learning. We usually think of computers and computer software when we think of instructional technology, but instructional technologies are not limited to computers in the classroom. Instructional technology describes all tools that are used for teaching and learning such as: cameras, CD players, PDA's, GPS devices, computer-based probes, calculators and electronic tools we have yet to discover.

The Five Parts

There are five steps involved in instructional technology. The first is the design, or brainstorming, of the technological resources used in teaching the material to the student. The second involves the actual development of the process used to convey the information, or the design of the technological resource, such as a software program. The third focuses on putting these processes or resources into practice, and actually using them in a pedagogical setting. The fourth involves the management of the technological resource that has been created. The final step, and perhaps one of the most vital to the success or failure of any one technological   resource, is the evaluation of the created product.

The five phases are ongoing activities that continue throughout the life-cycle of a learning program. After building the learning program, the other phases do not end once the learning process has begun, but are continually repeated as new challenges are encountered.

Students and teachers use computer software and Internet resources to locate, process, and present information, learn and assess their skills.

Students can locate information from millions of sources using a computer, online encyclopedias, databases, and the Internet. Computer-based tool software, such as spreadsheets and databases, help students organize and report information. Students create professional-looking products as they report information they have learned using word processing and presentation software.  Students use computers as electronic tutors to improve skills such as reading and math.

Teachers use computers and other instructional technologies to present information they want students to know. They also use computers to assess students' learning and identify and report students' learning needs.

Becoming a Teacher. One Teacher = Many Roles

1. Controller - the person in control of class management.
2. Assessor – checking and deciding the method of giving feedback e.g. error correction.
3. A Resource – this is especially the case in developing countries, where there are limitations
4. Coach – encouraging class participation, especially for shyer students.
5. Tutor – in one-to-one teaching.
6. Organizer – instruction of students for activities and providing feedback.
7. Facilitator – for student interactive communication.
8. Counselor – solving any language learning problems.
9. An instructor – in the traditional sense on language points such as pronunciation, vocabulary or grammar.
10. A provider of experiences – in order for students to practice the four skills they require, as many language examples as possible are needed.
11. A model – particularly for pronunciation.
12. A motivator – balancing activities to achieve language targets and student interest.
13. An authority – students rely heavily on teacher pronouncements and so generalizations should be avoided/explained as such.
14. An arbiter – balancing fluency with accuracy in assessing error correction.
15. An examiner – continuous monitoring and testing.
16. A disciplinarian – essential to maintain class control.
17. A balancer – a sliding scale which constantly changes.
18. A mentor – giving language insight to another culture.
19. A prompter – without taking away the initiative from the student e.g. role-play activity vocabulary support.
20. A participant – e.g. discussion.
21. A performer – with suitable behavior according to the activity being undertaken.
22. Rapport builder – recognizing, listening to, respecting and being even-handed with students, in a professional manner.

What Other Attributes Must A Good Teacher Have?


The teacher has to exploit his/her talents as a visual teaching aid to incorporate mime, gesture and expression to convey meaning and atmosphere in the classroom.

Language modeling is important as students may find video and audio recordings difficult to understand.

Teacher Talking Time (TTT) should be used productively and the importance of our voices never under-estimated.

Observation skills in assessing student performance and progress are also vital.

Teachers must be culturally aware e.g. Japan has a masculine collective culture, virtually all classes are monolingual, long-term oriented with a high degree of uncertainty avoidance.

Some people are born to teach, whilst others must constantly strive to reinvent themselves and recreate their lessons in the perpetual pursuit of perfection. It is an ever evolving yet challenging and lifelong learning environment of which we are an integral part.

Teachers mold the students, touch their lives in one way or another with their utmost adherence to their passion..the passion to change..the passion to learn..the passion to TEACH.

Definition of Visual Aids

Visual aids are an important tool because different people respond to different learning modalities. Visual aids also add interest to a discussion. In order to effectively use visual aids, one must learn from experience what will and won’t work for an audience or group of students. Visual aids can take many forms and be presented in many formats. They may be used in different settings, from classrooms to board rooms, and anywhere that information is relayed to audiences on a regular basis.

Definition

A visual aid is an object or representation that may be used to clarify or enhance understanding of a concept or process. The best way to ensure success in learning is to present information in different formats for different learners.

Representational

Visual aids may take the form of graphs, charts, tables or photographs pertaining to the information being presented. In demonstrations and group discussions, visual aids may be projected onto a screen, pasted to a board on an easel or displayed on a television. Visual aids may appear in texts and in handouts.

Literal

Visual aids do not have to be flat or representational. They may also be the object of a discussion. For example, if a staff member at a zoo is talking to an audience about the different stages of a turtle’s life cycle, he may have different turtles on hand for the audience to look at and even handle. This type of visual aid can impact the audience by taking the subject out of abstraction and adding a dimension of reality that would otherwise be missing.

Preparation

To appropriately use a visual aid in a talk, a discussion leader, presenter or instructor must prepare far in advance. The discussion may be written verbatim or loosely outlined to allow for the discussion to flow organically. However, visual aids are ready, and the discussion leader knows when and how she will use them to carry the talk forward. A skilled presenter allows a discussion to take on its own direction while still managing to hit on all the points she planned to make.

Presentation

Interactive visual aids (such as the turtle at the zoo) often only work in group discussions of 20 or fewer people. In larger groups, the audience can become distracted waiting for their chance to handle, pet or hold the object. Likewise, it is important for the instructor to know the audience when making visual aid choices. Again in the example of the turtle at the zoo, if the audience is primarily composed of very young children, and if there are too many of them, touching a turtle may turn to chaos or arguments over turns. This would slow down the talk, thus detracting from the effectiveness of the aid. Meanwhile, smaller groups of the same age group may find the turtle engaging, making the turtle an effective tool that would extend the attention span of the audience and enhance their learning experience.

How to Use Audio/Visual Aids in Teaching

The teaching profession is filled with countless opportunities to enrich the academic lives of students. While some concepts and educational objectives will be easy for students to grasp, others will require you to think creatively to ensure that important learning objectives are met. Using audio/visual aids in teaching is one way to enhance lesson plans and give students additional ways to process subject information.

Instructions

1 Bridge the gap between the different types of learners by adding audio/visual aides to your teaching techniques. Since most people are visual learners, it's important to go beyond "spoken words" when educating students. Students are also more likely to learn material is they're exposed to it in a variety of ways. Always look over your lesson plans to find ways to inject different teaching styles.

2 Implement "show and tell" sessions to promote student involvement. This will also help you assess each student's overall understanding of the desired learning objectives. There are many ways to use show and tell sessions such as asking students to bring in modern items that still demonstrate colonial values.

3 Provide audio/visual aides to demonstrate mathematical concepts to students. This will help students learn to think of complicated material in a practical way. For example, concepts like fractions and proportions can be better visualized through the use of audio/visual aids such as marble representations and pizza models.

4 Watch videos and movies that reinforce lesson plans. Authors such as Shakespeare may be easier to understand when the material is seen as well as read. Use film clips to highlight historical events and to provide expert analysis of current situations.

5 Invite guest speakers to help students learn concepts. The use of real people can make subjects such as social studies seem more relevant to daily life. The visual and auditory information conveyed to the students can make a lasting impression. Ask guest speakers to bring in items for the class to pass around or to tell stories in their native languages.

What Are Audio-Visual Materials?

Audiovisual materials are instructional materials that present information to students in ways that do not involve the use of paper and pencil. Audiovisual materials are useful in instruction because they take learning away from a textbook-only approach. Many students find their classes more enjoyable when the teachers use photographs, films and music to bring the content to life.

Audiovisual Materials Used in the Past

Two of the most traditional audiovisual materials are films and filmstrips. While films are still used in the classroom setting, filmstrips are almost unheard of these days. A filmstrip is a series of still images projected onto a screen, accompanied by a recorded narration. A beeping noise on the narration tells the person controlling the filmstrip when to advance to the next image. More advanced filmstrip projectors automatically advance themselves.

Traditionally, films for educational use were displayed using a two-reel film projector, not a DVD player. For decades it was standard practice in teacher's college to learn how to thread a film projector. Few K-12 schools in the United States still have a film projector on hand.

Audiovisual Materials in Common Use Now

Today's teachers still show films in class, but it has become more common to use a DVD player. In many classes a separate player is no longer even needed, as up-to-date computers have DVD drives. To use a computer to play a DVD for the class, a computer projector is required, but many classrooms are increasingly equipped with this latest forms of audiovisual equipment.

Some classrooms still use television sets instead of a projected image. Some teachers still use VHS video casettes to show movies on TV sets, but DVDs are more common; most new instructional videos aren't released on VHS any longer.

The Digital Revolution

Audiovisual materials now often take the form of a computer file that is played using software installed on the teacher's computer. Instead of purchasing a DVD to use in classes, schools sometimes now subscribe to digital video services such as United Streaming, available through Discovery Education. These services provide Internet access to tens of thousands of videos, far more than any single teacher could hope to amass in a classroom collection. Access is immediate; there is no need to wait for items to be shipped.

Subscription video services allow teachers to download videos for permanent storage on school computers and also permit videos to be streamed through the Internet. These services have significant additional benefits. They often offer coordinating materials for videos, such as tests, worksheets and teacher's guides, which teachers can download for immediate access. They also have divided long videos into logical segments, making it possible to download just one portion to show. In addition, they include other audiovisual materials besides video. Most services also include audio clips and still photographs, all in downloadable digital format.

Best Practices for Audiovisual Materials

Although audiovisual materials can help make the classroom a more lively and engaging instructional environment, they are most effective when used with care. Best practices for teachers include following some basic guidelines, including not showing an entire film or video unless all portions of it are relevant. Teachers should show only the sections that relate to the learning objectives they have established for their students. Teachers should also preview all video material completely. Even instructional videos can contain graphic images that are not appropriate for certain grade levels. No teacher wants to see these for the first time when students are present. Finally, if your school's Internet connection is unreliable, it pays to download digital content in advance instead of streaming it. You are less likely to have an interrupted lesson if you play the content from a local computer.

The Uses of Audio-Visual Aids in Teaching

Audio-visual aids in the classroom can enhance teaching methods and improve student comprehension. Today's technology offers many choices to the informed educator who wishes to capitalize on a new generation's appetite for multimedia presentations. Lesson plans that incorporate the use of audio-visual aids should be consistent with curriculum objectives and not segued improperly.

Auditory Learners and Aids

·         Auditory learners focus more on the spoken word rather than the written one. Taped recordings of lectures or movies are helpful to auditory learners because they pick up on speech nuances such as tone and pitch. Computers with speech-recognition devices will also help auditory learners to process and retain information better than just reading from a textbook. Students with hearing disabilities will also benefit from teachers who use microphones while lecturing.

Visual Learners and Aids

·         Slide projectors have given way to PowerPoint presentations in the modern classroom, but the concept is the same. Visual learners understand meaning through graphic portrayals such as charts, illustrations and diagrams. Teachers that take the time to compose or find visual supplements to accompany their lectures help to greatly augment learning potential. The old adage that "a picture is worth a thousand words" still rings true, especially in today's image-submerged society.

Movie Clips

·         Incorporating a YouTube moment or any other instructional video clip into a lesson plan can greatly increase understanding as well as enjoyment during the learning process. If an interactive white board with Internet capabilities is not available, many video clips from the web can be downloaded and embedded in a PowerPoint presentation for classroom purposes. Be sure to prepare students before watching the clip by telling them what to expect or what to look for and then following up with discussion questions that tie in to the lesson plan.

Special Education Students

·         Students with special needs often require information to be presented to them in several different formats before they can adequately understand a concept or process information. Playing a book on tape while simultaneously reading together in class is a good way to reinforce material. Videos that deal with the targeted subject matter can be shown afterwards to further augment learning.

Don't Overdo It

·         Audio-visual technology has an important role to play in the modern classroom, but teachers who rely too much on technology may actually inhibit learning. It's the law of diminishing returns: you can only get so much useful enjoyment and assistance from a machine. The personal relationship between teacher and student is ultimately more valuable and rewarding in a brick and mortar classroom environment. This is not to say that there aren't some students who are quite capable of learning by themselves through interactive technology, but if that were true in all cases, then schools wouldn't need teachers, would they?