In recent years of research on instructional technology has resulted in a clearer vision of how technology make a difference teaching and learning. Today, virtually every school in the United States of America uses technology as a part of teaching and learning and with each state featuring its own customized technology program. In many of those schools, teachers utilize the technology through integrated activities that are a part of their daily school curriculum. As an example, instructional technology creates an active environment by which students not merely inquire, but also 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 chance to create student-centered activity. Most educational technology experts agree, however, that technology ought to be integrated, not as a separate subject or as a once-in-a-while project, but as something 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 enough time to understand to utilize the tools and understand the terminology required for participation in projects or activities. They must have the ability to employ technology to improve 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 comprehension of concepts and procedures when used appropriately.
Technology should play a crucial role in academic content standards and their successful implementation. Expectations reflecting the right use of technology ought to be woven to the standards, benchmarks and grade-level indicators. For instance, the standards includes expectations for students to compute fluently using paper and pencil, technology-supported and mental methods and to use graphing calculators or computers to graph and analyze mathematical relationships. Write for Us Technology These expectations ought to 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 or any students, including people that have special needs. Options 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. For instance, specialized technologies enhance opportunities for students with physical challenges to develop and demonstrate mathematics concepts and skills. Technology influences exactly how we work, exactly how we play and exactly how 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 should pursue life’s goals and to participate fully as informed, productive members of society,” can’t be overestimated.
Technology provides teachers with the instructional technology tools they should operate more proficiently and to be much more tuned in to the average person needs of the students. Selecting appropriate technology tools give teachers a chance to build students’ conceptual knowledge and connect their learning to problem present in the world. The technology tools such as for example Inspiration® technology, Starry Night, A WebQuest and Portaportal allow students to employ a number of strategies such as for example 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 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 a part of everyday teaching and learning, where, as an example, the usage 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 methods enable students to conduct inquiries and participate in collaborative activities. In traditional or teacher-centered approaches, computer technology can be 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 program 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 boost students’ achievement in new and exciting ways.
As students undertake grade levels, they are able to participate in increasingly sophisticated hands-on, inquiry-based, personally relevant activities where they investigate, research, measure, compile and analyze information to achieve 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 ought to describe how new technologies often extend the present quantities of scientific understanding and introduce new aspects of research. They ought to explain why basic concepts and principles of science and technology ought to be a 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 be able 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 ought to be placed on how to think through problems and projects, not only what 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 usage 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 design and construct devices. Additionally, they ought to develop the processes to fix problems and recognize 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. 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 for example calculators and computers, help students learn mathematics and support effective mathematics teaching. As opposed to replacing the learning 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 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 tools 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 to do mathematics, such as for example using symbols and hand-drawn diagrams.
Technology, used appropriately, helps students learn mathematics. Electronic tools, such as for example spreadsheets and dynamic geometry software, extend the number of problems and develop comprehension of key mathematical relationships. A powerful foundation in number and operation concepts and skills is required to use calculators effectively as something for solving problems involving computations. Appropriate uses of those 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 some data, determine appropriate ways to show and interpret the data, and test conjectures concerning the impact of changes in the data.