In the past few years of research on instructional technology has resulted in a clearer vision of how technology can impact 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 many of the schools, teachers utilize the technology through integrated activities which are part of their daily school curriculum. For instance, instructional technology creates an energetic environment by which students not merely inquire, but in addition define problems of interest to them. This kind of activity would integrate the subjects of technology, social studies, math, science, and language arts with the opportunity to produce student-centered activity. Most educational technology experts agree, however, that technology must be integrated, not as another subject or as a once-in-a-while project, but as an instrument to promote and extend student learning on a daily basis.
Today, classroom teachers may lack personal experience with technology and present yet another challenge. In order to incorporate technology-based activities and projects into their curriculum, those teachers first must find the time to understand to utilize the tools and understand the terminology required for participation in projects or activities. They have to have the ability to employ technology to boost student learning in addition to 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 ability 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 understanding of concepts and procedures when used appropriately.
Technology should play a crucial role in academic content standards and their successful implementation. Expectations reflecting the appropriate utilization of technology must be woven to the standards, benchmarks and grade-level indicators. As an example, the standards includes 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 be intended to support a curriculum full of the utilization of technology rather than limit the utilization of technology to specific skills or grade levels. Technology makes subjects accessible to all or any students, including people that have special needs. Choices for assisting students to maximize their strengths and progress in a standards-based curriculum are expanded through the utilization of technology-based support and interventions. As an example, 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 must have on math and science teachers’ efforts to provide every student with “the opportunity and resources to develop the language skills they have to pursue life’s goals and to participate fully as informed, productive members of society,” can not be overestimated.
Technology provides teachers with the instructional technology tools they have to operate more proficiently and to become more tuned in to the average person needs of their students. Selecting appropriate technology tools give teachers an opportunity to build students’ conceptual knowledge and connect their learning to problem within the world. The technology tools such as for instance Inspiration® technology, Starry Night, A WebQuest and Portaportal allow students to employ a variety of strategies such as for instance inquiry, problem-solving, creative thinking, visual imagery, critical thinking, and hands-on activity.
Benefits of the utilization 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 ability 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 could be made part of everyday teaching and learning, where, as an example, the utilization of meter sticks, hand lenses, temperature probes and computers becomes a smooth element of what teachers and students are learning and doing. Contents teachers should use technology in techniques enable students to conduct inquiries and take part in collaborative activities. In traditional or teacher-centered approaches, computer technology is used 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 application used to provide 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 boost students’ achievement in new and exciting ways.
As students move through grade levels, they are able to take part in increasingly sophisticated hands-on, inquiry-based, personally relevant activities where they investigate, research, measure, compile and analyze information to reach 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 ought to describe how new technologies often extend the present levels of scientific understanding and introduce new aspects of research. They ought to explain why basic concepts and principles of science and technology must be part of active debate about the economics, policies, politics and ethics of numerous science-related and technology-related challenges.
Students need grade-level appropriate classroom experiences, enabling them to understand and to manage to do science in an energetic, inquiry-based fashion where technological tools, resources, methods and processes are readily available and extensively used. As students integrate technology into researching and doing science, emphasis must be placed on how 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 doing 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 utilization of technology, however K-12 they ought to observe that science and technology are interconnected and that using technology involves assessment of the benefits, risks and costs. Students should build scientific and technological knowledge, in addition to the skill required to style and construct devices. In addition, they ought to develop the processes to resolve problems and recognize that problems may be solved in many ways.
Rapid developments in the design and uses of technology, particularly in electronic tools, will change how students learn. As an example, 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 for instance calculators and computers, help students learn mathematics and support effective mathematics teaching. Rather than replacing the learning of basic concepts and skills, technology can connect skills and procedures to deeper mathematical understanding. As an example, 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 a variety of techniques and tools for computing, measuring, analyzing data and solving problems. Computers, calculators, physical models, and measuring devices are types of the wide selection of technologies, or tools, used to instruct, learn, and do mathematics. These tools complement, rather than replace, more traditional ways of accomplishing mathematics, such as for instance using symbols and hand-drawn diagrams.
Technology, used appropriately, helps students learn mathematics. Electronic tools, such as for instance spreadsheets and dynamic geometry software, extend the product range of problems and develop understanding of key mathematical relationships. A strong foundation in number and operation concepts and skills is needed to use calculators effectively as an instrument for solving problems involving computations. Appropriate uses of the 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 data, and test conjectures about the impact of changes in the data.