Barriers to the effective use of technology in education with a reflection on French teaching

Many technologies or Information and Communication Technology (ICT) are currently available for teachers and learners in Welsh schools and universities and many learners and teachers are already using them. However there are still many barriers to a more optimal use of these technologies.

The educative process with technology is the interaction between learners and teachers through technology in a set environment (political, social, cultural...)

Lin (2005) has explored learners barriers to online learning. Some were directly related to the learners like academic and technical skills, motivation, others were linked to the learner's environment (administrative issues, time and support available, access to the internet and its cost, technical issues). They also identified independent variables that impacted on those barriers. Those directly linked to the learner were age, gender, ethnicity and while the learner worked online if it were an enjoyable and effective experience and how he/she would rate him/herself. Some surrounding factors were also identified like the type of learning institution, the way online learning was appreciated in traditional classes. In my placement, all the students seem to be connected. They do not project any lack of motivation concerning ICT.

Bingimlas (2009) made a literature review on the integration of focusing on schools and teachers. He adopted the classification separating teacher-level barriers from school-level barriers.

At a teacher-level he recognized teachers were usually keen on the use of ICT, but they were faced to a lack of confidence connected to a lack of competence to be able to use effectively ICT and a resistance to change coupled with a negative attitude.

At a school-level he confirmed the existence of barriers such as lack of time, lack of effective training, lack of accessibility and lack of technical support.

In my placement, there is an everyday use of technology in class using interactive presentation and online videos (French dialogues videos from the BBC or from Youtube), they are usually well appreciated by learners. There is not enough adapted video materials on the web to teach French. It would be interesting to have a corpus of videos for teaching. But as it is described in Academic materials we lack the technical support, the time and the funding. It would be such a change to have the learners study the videos, then tutors could be there to explain what they did not understand and make them work more actively and efficiently.

So change and a model of change are required, this has been advocated for a long time by Johnson (2000), but what type of change?

As Hew (2007) proposed, we should have a shared vision of technology use and its integration in the teaching/learning of French. Resources are not limitless, so a strategy to deal with that scarcity is required. It could incorporate the collaboration of all Welsh French teachers to develop an integrated video corpus of French teaching. In the current socioeconomic state of Britain, this might prove to be a challenge.

As a whole, I think my mentors and the learners I am working with are using technology fairly well as a tool. In the years to come I see the use of technology to be more and more as a support to teaching like Salman Khan is doing at the Khan Acabemy. I think the next step after will be the development of virtual tours and visit in French speaking countries or environment, learners will be able to meet virtual people and have conversations with them. I thimk being a French teacher is going to be more and more exciting in the years to come.

Bingimlas, K. (2009) .”Barriers to the Successful Integration of ICT in Teaching and Learning Environments: A Review of the Literature” Eurasia Journal of Mathematics, Science & Technology Education, 5(3), 235-245

Hew, Khe Foon; Brusch, Thomas (2007) . “Integrating technology into K-12 teaching and learning: current knowledge gaps and recommendations for future research”Educational Technology Research and Development, 55(3), 223-252.

Johnson, D. L., & Liu, L. (2000). “First steps toward a statistically generated information technology integration model”. Computers in the Schools, 16(2), 3-12.

Lin Y. Muilenburg & Zane L. Berg (2005). “Student barriers to online learning: A factor analytic study” Distance Education, 26(1), 29-48.