In recent years of research on instructional technology has resulted in a clearer vision of how technology make a difference 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 featuring its own customized technology program. In many of these schools, teachers utilize the technology through integrated activities which are part of their daily school curriculum. For instance, instructional technology creates an active environment by which students not just inquire, but in addition define problems of interest to them. This activity would integrate the subjects of technology, social studies, math, science, and language arts with the chance to produce student-centered activity. Most educational technology experts agree, however, that technology should really 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 regular 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 learn to utilize the tools and understand the terminology required for participation in projects or activities. They need to have the ability to employ technology to improve student learning in addition to to help 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 vital role in academic content standards and their successful implementation. Expectations reflecting the correct utilization of technology should really be woven into the standards, benchmarks and grade-level indicators. Like, 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 should really be meant to support a curriculum full of the use of technology as opposed to limit the use of technology to specific skills or grade levels. Technology makes subjects accessible to all students, including people that have special needs. Choices for assisting students to increase their strengths and progress in a standards-based curriculum are expanded through the use of technology-based support and interventions. Like, 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 needs to have on math and science teachers’ efforts to supply every student with “the chance 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 efficiently and to be much more attentive to the person needs of these students. Selecting appropriate technology tools give teachers a way to build students’ conceptual knowledge and connect their learning to problem present in the world. The technology tools such as for instance Inspiration® technology, Starry Night, A WebQuest and Portaportal allow students to employ many different strategies such as for instance inquiry, problem-solving, creative thinking, visual imagery, critical thinking, and hands-on activity.
Advantages of the use 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, for instance, the use of meter sticks, hand lenses, temperature probes and computers becomes an easy section of what teachers and students are learning and doing. Contents teachers should use technology in techniques enable students to conduct inquiries and engage 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 in such classrooms are teacher centered because of the way they supplement teacher-controlled activities and because the application 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 capability of technology to enhance teachers’ efficiency are helping to raise students’ achievement in new and exciting ways.
As students move through 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 can 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 existing levels of scientific understanding and introduce new areas of research. They need to explain why basic concepts and principles of science and technology should really be part of active debate about the economics, policies, politics and ethics of varied science-related and technology-related challenges.
Students need grade-level appropriate classroom experiences, enabling them to learn and to have the ability to do science in an active, inquiry-based fashion where technological tools, resources, methods and processes are plentiful and extensively used. As students integrate technology into learning about and doing science, emphasis should really be placed on the best way to think through problems and projects, not only what things to think.
Technological tools and resources may vary from hand lenses and pendulums, to electronic balances and up-to-date online computers (with software), to methods and processes for planning and carrying out 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 familiarity with science and technology.
Most students in the schools, at all age levels, might involve some expertise in the use of technology, however K-12 they ought to notice 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. Additionally, they ought to develop the processes to fix problems and recognize that problems might be solved in several ways.
Rapid developments in the style and uses of technology, particularly in electronic tools, will change how students learn. Like, 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. As opposed to replacing the educational of basic concepts and skills, technology can connect skills and procedures to deeper mathematical understanding. Like, geometry software allows experimentation with families of geometric objects, and graphing utilities facilitate learning about 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 items are examples of the wide variety of technologies, or tools, used to teach, learn, and do mathematics. These tools complement, as opposed to replace, more traditional ways to do 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 solid 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 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 produce and interpret the data, and test conjectures about the impact of changes in the data.