Electronic textbooks. We have adopted these new textbooks for our language courses which come with an e-book, an e-workbook, an online testing system, an online homework assigning system, and a myriad more digital gimmicks. And I hate them all with a fiery passion. I also resent all of the obnoxious attempts to make me use these things.
I have developed my own system of teaching the language and have developed a huge number of original activities to go with it. I work on these activities all the time, changing, improving, adding, modifying, etc. I also record grades in a paper gradebook and ask for handwritten homework because that’s the only way to obviate Google Translate.
I know I sound like a Luddite but, believe me, I love technology. I always work surrounded by my two laptops that are always on at the same time, my tablet, my iPod, and my cell phone. (I don’t buy all this stuff, of course. I get it for free.) Still, I don’t see the need to make technology part of teaching. At my school, we have all these workshops on how to use apps, tablets, clickers, and God knows what else in teaching but I avoid them like the plague. If you are a lousy teacher, no amount of gimmicks will change that. And if you are good, then you don’t need to bring anything but yourself to the classroom.
Clarissa's Blog 
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