In recent years of research on instructional technology has triggered 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 an integral part of teaching and learning and with each state having its own customized technology program. Generally in most of the schools, teachers utilize the technology through integrated activities which can be an integral part of their daily school curriculum. For instance, instructional technology creates an energetic environment by which students not only inquire, but also define problems of interest to them. Such an 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 should really be integrated, never as a different 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 an additional challenge. In order to incorporate technology-based activities and projects into their curriculum, those teachers first must find enough time to master to utilize the tools and understand the terminology essential for participation in projects or activities. They need to have the capacity to employ technology to improve student learning as well as 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 capacity 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 right utilization of technology should really be woven in to 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 use graphing calculators or computers to graph and analyze mathematical relationships. Write for Us Technology These expectations should really be designed 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 any or all students, including people that have special needs. Alternatives for assisting students to increase 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 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’t be overestimated.
Technology provides teachers with the instructional technology tools they have to operate more effectively and to become more responsive to the in-patient needs of these students. Selecting appropriate technology tools give teachers a chance to build students’ conceptual knowledge and connect their learning to problem found in the world. The technology tools such as for instance Inspiration® technology, Starry Night, A WebQuest and Portaportal allow students to employ a number of strategies such as for instance 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 capacity 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 an integral part of everyday teaching and learning, where, as an example, the usage of meter sticks, hand lenses, temperature probes and computers becomes a seamless section of what teachers and students are learning and doing. Contents teachers should use technology in methods 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 program 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 enhance teachers’ efficiency are helping to raise students’ achievement in new and exciting ways.
As students undertake grade levels, they are able to engage 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 should describe how new technologies often extend the existing degrees of scientific understanding and introduce new aspects of research. They should explain why basic concepts and principles of science and technology should really be an integral 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 master and to have the ability 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 studying and doing science, emphasis should really be placed on the best way to think through problems and projects, not merely what to think.
Technological tools and resources may range from 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 involve some expertise in the usage of technology, however K-12 they need to understand 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, as well as the skill required to style and construct devices. Furthermore, they need to develop the processes to solve problems and realize 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. 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 instance calculators and computers, help students learn mathematics and support effective mathematics teaching. Rather than 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 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 items 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 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 knowledge 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 the and other technologies in the mathematics classroom enhance learning, support effective instruction, and impact the degrees 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 a couple of data, determine appropriate ways to show and interpret the data, and test conjectures about the impact of changes in the data.