It was interesting to see how much technology has changed in recent years. Nowadays, most people aren't all that excited anymore about being able to pause, replay, slow down or accelerate a video, search for a phrase within a text, etc. I found it fascinating to read an article that was written in the heyday of that technology. What I really enjoyed from Chiquito, Meskill and Renjilian-Burgy's article was the application examples. It was great to read descriptions of how these different technologies were actually used in the classroom.
I also found it helpful to read some research that seems to prove that L2 learners learn vocabulary more easily, when they associate the L2 word with an actual picture. So, I guess there is a reason behind using picture flashcards and colorful pictures in the presentation of new vocabulary. I actually just recently seemed to find in my own classroom that students learn vocabulary much more easily when it is associated to a movement or gesture. Besides giving the kids a chance to move, gestures that accompany vocabulary presentations really seemed to help acquisition. This is of course a very unscientific classroom observation of mine...
My favorite quote from the reading: "The computer ... seduces us into believing that the truth is just around the corner of the next "text" that will fill the ultimate gap in our understanding" (Kramsch & Andersen, 1999, p.40). So true!
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