In the past few years of research on instructional technology has triggered a clearer vision of how technology can affect teaching and learning. Today, nearly every school in the United States of America uses technology as part of teaching and learning and with each state having its own customized technology program. In most of these schools, teachers utilize the technology through integrated activities which are part of their daily school curriculum. For instance, instructional technology creates an energetic environment in which students not only inquire, but in addition define problems of interest to them. Such an activity would integrate the subjects of technology, social studies, math, science, and language arts with the ability to generate student-centered activity. Most educational technology experts agree, however, that technology must certanly be integrated, not as another subject or as a once-in-a-while project, but as an instrument to market and extend student learning on an everyday basis.
Today, classroom teachers may lack personal experience with technology and present yet another challenge. To be able to incorporate technology-based activities and projects within their curriculum, those teachers first must find the full time to understand to utilize the tools and understand the terminology required for participation in projects or activities. They have to have the capability to employ technology to boost student learning along with to help expand personal professional development.
Instructional technology empowers students by improving skills and concepts through multiple representations and enhanced visualization. Its benefits include increased accuracy and speed in data collection and graphing, real-time visualization, the capability to collect and analyze large volumes of data and collaboration of data collection and interpretation, and more varied presentation of results. Technology also engages students in higher-order thinking, builds strong problem-solving skills, and develops deep comprehension of concepts and procedures when used appropriately.
Technology should play a vital role in academic content standards and their successful implementation. Expectations reflecting the appropriate usage of technology must certanly be woven into the standards, benchmarks and grade-level indicators. For instance, the standards should include expectations for students to compute fluently using paper and pencil, technology-supported and mental methods and to make use of graphing calculators or computers to graph and analyze mathematical relationships. Write for Us Technology These expectations must certanly be meant to support a curriculum full of the usage of technology rather than limit the usage of technology to specific skills or grade levels. Technology makes subjects accessible to all students, including individuals with special needs. Options for assisting students to maximise their strengths and progress in a standards-based curriculum are expanded through the usage of technology-based support and interventions. For instance, specialized technologies enhance opportunities for students with physical challenges to develop and demonstrate mathematics concepts and skills. Technology influences how exactly we work, how exactly we play and how exactly we live our lives. The influence technology in the classroom should have on math and science teachers’ efforts to supply every student with “the ability and resources to develop the language skills they need to pursue life’s goals and to participate fully as informed, productive members of society,” cannot be overestimated.
Technology provides teachers with the instructional technology tools they need to operate more effectively and to be more attentive to the patient needs of these students. Selecting appropriate technology tools give teachers a way to build students’ conceptual knowledge and connect their learning how to problem present in the world. The technology tools such as Inspiration® technology, Starry Night, A WebQuest and Portaportal allow students to employ many different strategies such as inquiry, problem-solving, creative thinking, visual imagery, critical thinking, and hands-on activity.
Advantages of the usage of these technology tools include increased accuracy and speed in data collection and graphing, real-time visualization, interactive modeling of invisible science processes and structures, the capability to collect and analyze large volumes of data, collaboration for data collection and interpretation, and more varied presentations of results.
Technology integration strategies for content instructions. Beginning in kindergarten and extending through grade 12, various technologies may be made part of everyday teaching and learning, where, for example, the usage of meter sticks, hand lenses, temperature probes and computers becomes a smooth section of what teachers and students are learning and doing. Contents teachers should use technology in ways that enable students to conduct inquiries and engage in collaborative activities. In traditional or teacher-centered approaches, computer technology is employed more for drill, practice and mastery of basic skills.
The instructional strategies employed such classrooms are teacher centered due to the way they supplement teacher-controlled activities and because the software used to supply the drill and practice is teacher selected and teacher assigned. The relevancy of technology in the lives of young learners and the ability of technology to improve teachers’ efficiency are helping to improve students’ achievement in new and exciting ways.
As students undertake grade levels, they could engage in increasingly sophisticated hands-on, inquiry-based, personally relevant activities where they investigate, research, measure, compile and analyze information to attain conclusions, solve problems, make predictions and/or seek alternatives. They are able to explain how science often advances with the introduction of new technologies and how solving technological problems often results in new scientific knowledge. They need to describe how new technologies often extend the present levels of scientific understanding and introduce new aspects of research. They need to explain why basic concepts and principles of science and technology must certanly be part of active debate concerning the economics, policies, politics and ethics of varied science-related and technology-related challenges.
Students need grade-level appropriate classroom experiences, enabling them to understand and to have the ability to do science in an energetic, inquiry-based fashion where technological tools, resources, methods and processes are plentiful and extensively used. As students integrate technology into researching and doing science, emphasis must certanly be placed on the best way to think through problems and projects, not just things to think.
Technological tools and resources may range between hand lenses and pendulums, to electronic balances and up-to-date online computers (with software), to methods and processes for planning and performing a project. Students can learn by observing, designing, communicating, calculating, researching, building, testing, assessing risks and benefits, and modifying structures, devices and processes – while applying their developing understanding of science and technology.
Most students in the schools, at all age levels, might possess some expertise in the usage of technology, however K-12 they will recognize that science and technology are interconnected and that using technology involves assessment of the huge benefits, risks and costs. Students should build scientific and technological knowledge, along with the skill required to style and construct devices. In addition, they will develop the processes to fix problems and understand that problems might be solved in a number of ways.
Rapid developments in the style and uses of technology, particularly in electronic tools, will change how students learn. For instance, graphing calculators and computer-based tools provide powerful mechanisms for communicating, applying, and learning mathematics in the workplace, in everyday tasks, and in school mathematics. Technology, such as calculators and computers, help students learn mathematics and support effective mathematics teaching. As opposed to replacing the educational of basic concepts and skills, technology can connect skills and procedures to deeper mathematical understanding. For instance, geometry software allows experimentation with families of geometric objects, and graphing utilities facilitate researching the characteristics of classes of functions.
Learning and applying mathematics requires students to become adept in using many different techniques and tools for computing, measuring, analyzing data and solving problems. Computers, calculators, physical models, and measuring products are types of the wide selection of technologies, or tools, used to show, learn, and do mathematics. These tools complement, rather than replace, more traditional ways of accomplishing mathematics, such as using symbols and hand-drawn diagrams.
Technology, used appropriately, helps students learn mathematics. Electronic tools, such as spreadsheets and dynamic geometry software, extend the range of problems and develop comprehension of key mathematical relationships. A solid foundation in number and operation concepts and skills is required to use calculators effectively as an instrument for solving problems involving computations. Appropriate uses of these and other technologies in the mathematics classroom enhance learning, support effective instruction, and impact the levels of emphasis and ways certain mathematics concepts and skills are learned. For instance, graphing calculators allow students to quickly and easily produce multiple graphs for some data, determine appropriate ways to show and interpret the info, and test conjectures concerning the impact of changes in the data.