Much Ado About Nothing? Revitalizing Literature teaching and learning in Higher Education through ICT

Abstract

Is the use of ICT overestimated, or is it really an important part of today teaching and learning? If it is important, how can technology make a great impact to the teaching and learning of Literature? This paper tries to an answer these questions taking into account all the improvements that technology introduces to education, and analyzing some of the criticism that surrounds this issue as well; we base our research on a qualitative analysis in which we collect the opinions of some students and teachers from some of the Literature classes of the English Studies Degree at Jaume I University about the needs for a correct use of technology in the classroom. This analysis suggests that integrating ICT into Higher Education is necessary for improving the learning process and for better acquiring the EHEA (European Higher Education Area) competencies; the paper concludes that there is a need for revitalizing the teaching and learning of Literature subjects because of the many benefits that the study of Literature brings to the student. The paper follows pointing out some of the reasons why most of the teachers refuse to use technology in their classes. Teachers are an important pillar for this integration, but it is not them on their own who must make this integration come true. Changes coming from this technological integration imply a process of systematization, formalization, monitoring and evaluation, and this can only be done by institutions. Further conclusions point at the fact that there is still much work to do for a correct integration of ICT onto education. We also point out that there is a growing need for training teachers in the proper use of technology, and that there is also a need to make students realize of how important the study of Literature is for their learning development. Technology can do so.