Part of the new intensive class schedule is a Korean run class called “CNN based listening”. There is a program where video clips flash the occasional subtitles in a block after someone speaks. The idea is that people listen, then try to check their skill. There might be typing involved. It’s a Korean teacher class, so I’m not informed on how it works exactly. Anyway, there is now a classroom with computers in it!
There were a series of boxes on the floor for the past few days, and now the school has an actual computer lab. The machines are set up PC-room style next to the wall. This makes it easy for teachers to watch what the students are doing. Using the computer is an extreme temptation for every student, but they aren’t allowed in the room when class is out of session.
In my morning class, I had a problem once again with my book material. The lessons and books didn’t match up, so I had a problem trying to fill time. The students were going to write an essay explaining about a Wonder of the World. I decided to let the students into the computer room if they followed the strict rule of not doing anything but searching wikipedia for their information. I made this restriction because there is no parental guard software, firewall, or anything other than basic virus software on the machines. I didn’t want the students off playing games, reading blogs, or doing anything dumb in class that would get me in trouble.
Five of my students were awesome. They went to the wiki and started looking up information for their essay. They looked for the Korean version of the page, but the Korean Wikipedia has next to no content. I think Wikipedia is too functional for Korean web users. If it isn’t a portal site with 100 crappy popups and advertisements written in broken html with no browser support other than IE, it’s not going to be popular in Korea.
Anyway, one of my students got hit with a pop-up that magically started downloading a popular game he likes to play. Wonder how THAT happened…I caught him in the act and made him delete it. Then, the middle school girls in the class started searching about fashion models and celebrities. The students could literally only concentrate on one task for five minutes before they started treating it like it was their own spyware infested home PC.
The three middle school girls were completely blowing off my assignment. I told them that computer use was only for research, and NOT to catch up on their favorite drama. A new girl stopped, looked at me, then went back to surfing. I was RIGHT NEXT TO HER when she did this. She completely ignored me.
I told her to stop, and kicked her out of the lab. I said she needed to leave since she wasn’t doing her work. I was probably animated about it, as I had the rest of the class to watch from downloading games and keeping them virus free. (They HAD to install Windows on the damn things, didn’t they?)
The girls went back to the classroom. I had to supervise the students that remained on the computers. I left the girls to chat about their television shows in peace. As long as they weren’t wasting my time in the computer lab, I don’t care what they were doing.
My director later told me that the girl I had scolded for ignoring my rules was a new student. I had almost driven her to tears. She hadn’t understood why I had gotten angry when she started talking about the exact same stuff even after I told her to stop. My director said that she was surprised that the girl hadn’t understood. My director had taken her to be a clever girl, but it seems her composure doesn’t match her ability.
