Teachers have been told to draw up e-lesson plans in order to improve the
teaching quality. However, it seems that they are facing too many difficulties in
applying information technology in teaching.

lot of funny stories have been related about how teachers use overhead
projectors in their classes.

A
secondary school history teacher was in a cold sweat as she could not turn back
to the home page to find the figures for the battle that she mentioned in the
lesson. Finally, she had to ask for …students’ help. Another teacher, in a
biology class, wanted to show her students the motions made by a flying bird .
However, though the teacher tried to click the computer’s mouse for several
times, the bird still… could not fly.

A
primary school teacher in district 10 in HCM City
used the e-lessons compiled by a colleague. However, the problem was that the
font size was too small, while most of her students were short-sighted. At
first, the teacher could not understand why students were so passive in the
lesson and they just sat quietly. “Why are you so passive? Why don’t you say
anything?” the teacher asked students. Then the class representative said: “We
cannot see anything on the screen”.

Can
information technology help improve teaching quality?

B,
a student of TV High School in HCM
City, admitted that
teaching with e-lesson plans help make the classes less boring. However, B said
students have many problems with the new teaching method.

“Previously,
our literature teacher wrote down the main ideas on the blackboard. But now, as
she has overhead projector, she only has to show slides on the screen. We now
do not look at the blackboard, but look at the screen and copy the notes in our
notebooks,” the student explained.

“However,
the problem is that the teacher shows every slide for just several minutes, and
we cannot copy all the necessary notes,” she complained.

An
official of the HCM City Education and Planning Investment, who asked to be
anonymous, said that e-lesson plans still do not contribute to lessons as much
as expected. Some teachers use overhead projectors just to show students some
images or video clips which may attract students. But they do not care about
the efficiency of the new teaching method.

The
official said that he cannot see many improvements in the teaching efficiency
which uses the new methods. In the past, teachers lectured and students noted
down in their notebooks. nowadays, teachers show slides, and students note down
on their notebooks

A
teacher of Phan Chu
Trinh Primary
School in HCM
City said that e-lesson
plans will help make the lecturers more lively and more attractive. However, it
will take teachers more time to draw up e-lesson plans. Therefore, in order to
save time, teachers copy e-lessons from each other. However, this had led to
the fact that the e-lessons are nearly the same and they are not creative.

Le
Thi Lien, Teacher at Duong
Minh Chau
Primary School in
District 10, said that in order to compile the plans for 32 geography lessons,
she will have to spend two years to look for materials.

Meanwhile,
many teachers have doubts about the efficiency of e-lesson plans. A teacher of Trung Phung Primary School in Hanoi related that her school has purchased
an overhead projector worth five million dong. However, the overhead projector
has onlybeen used for workshops and conferences and special teaching hours. “It
is a big waste of money. I think the money could be used for some other urgent
needs,” she said.

The
same thing has been happening with many other schools. A lot of overhead
projectors have been left idle, because teachers are reluctant about using the
“high-tech product”. Meanwhile, even the teachers keen on IT also believe that
teachers should not completely rely on overhead projectors in teaching.

Source: Tuoi tre