In recent years of research on instructional technology has resulted in a clearer vision of how technology can impact teaching and learning. Today, almost 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 the schools, teachers utilize the technology through integrated activities which are part of their daily school curriculum. As an example, instructional technology creates an active environment where students not only inquire, but additionally 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 create student-centered activity. Most educational technology experts agree, however, that technology should really be integrated, never as another subject or as a once-in-a-while project, but as a tool to promote and extend student learning on a daily basis.
Today, classroom teachers may lack personal experience with technology and present an additional challenge. In order to incorporate technology-based activities and projects into their curriculum, those teachers first must find the full time to learn 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 enhance 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 knowledge of concepts and procedures when used appropriately.
Technology should play a critical role in academic content standards and their successful implementation. Expectations reflecting the correct utilization of technology should really be woven in to the standards, benchmarks and grade-level indicators. Like, the standards will include expectations for students to compute fluently using paper and pencil, technology-supported and mental methods and to utilize graphing calculators or computers to graph and analyze mathematical relationships. Write for Us Technology These expectations should really be intended to support a curriculum rich in the usage of technology rather than limit the usage of technology to specific skills or grade levels. Technology makes subjects accessible to any or all 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 usage 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 we work, how we play and how we live our lives. The influence technology in the classroom must have on math and science teachers’ efforts to provide 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 proficiently and to be much more attentive to the average person needs of the students. Selecting appropriate technology tools give teachers an opportunity to build students’ conceptual knowledge and connect their learning how to problem within the world. The technology tools such as Inspiration® technology, Starry Night, A WebQuest and Portaportal allow students to employ a number of strategies such as inquiry, problem-solving, creative thinking, visual imagery, critical thinking, and hands-on activity.
Great things about 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 could be made part of everyday teaching and learning, where, for instance, the usage of meter sticks, hand lenses, temperature probes and computers becomes a smooth part 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 employed 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 software 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 capacity of technology to boost teachers’ efficiency are helping to boost students’ achievement in new and exciting ways.
As students move through grade levels, they can 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 could explain how science often advances with the introduction of new technologies and how solving technological problems often results in new scientific knowledge. They will describe how new technologies often extend the existing quantities of scientific understanding and introduce new regions of research. They will explain why basic concepts and principles of science and technology should really 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 learn and to manage 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 studying and doing science, emphasis should really be placed on how to think through problems and projects, not merely what 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 familiarity with 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 should observe 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 create and construct devices. Additionally, they should develop the processes to fix problems and understand that problems may 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 calculators and computers, help students learn mathematics and support effective mathematics teaching. Rather than replacing the training 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 studying the characteristics of classes of functions.
Learning and applying mathematics requires students to become adept in using a number of techniques and tools for computing, measuring, analyzing data and solving problems. Computers, calculators, physical models, and measuring products are examples of the wide variety of technologies, or tools, used to instruct, learn, and do mathematics. These tools complement, rather than replace, more traditional ways to do 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 product range of problems and develop knowledge of key mathematical relationships. A strong foundation in number and operation concepts and skills is needed to use calculators effectively as a tool for solving problems involving computations. Appropriate uses of the and other technologies in the mathematics classroom enhance learning, support effective instruction, and impact the quantities of emphasis and ways certain mathematics concepts and skills are learned. As an example, graphing calculators allow students to quickly and easily produce multiple graphs for a couple of data, determine appropriate ways to display and interpret the info, and test conjectures concerning the impact of changes in the data.