The Challenges of Educational Technology. Case Study: Department of English University of Ammar Thelidji, Laghouat

Abstract

The growth of technology over the past four decades has been noticeably rapid, with desktop computers becoming an ordinary appliance at most homes around the world, as well as the advent of the internet in 1990. These two specific technologies have improved and progressed to the point where the absence of a computer or an internet service in any type of building, be it a house, a library or even a hospital, is seen as strange. Technology kept making its way into many areas of everyday life, and among them is education. Students nowadays rely heavily on their computers and the internet to retrieve the information they need while doing research and preparing for tests and exams. But given that we live in a third world country, our adoption of these technologies and modern methods of teaching has been very slow, and the use of technology in education is not widespread. The target of the dissertation is to get to the reasons behind this slow, if not nonexistent, adoption of modern technologies and teaching methods in our department, how we can catch up to the rest of the world, and see what difference the incorporation of these technologies can make in terms of both teacher and student performances.