In the past few years of research on instructional technology has led to a clearer vision of how technology can affect 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. Generally in most of the schools, teachers utilize the technology through integrated activities which can be part of their daily school curriculum. For example, instructional technology creates a dynamic 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 generate student-centered activity. Most educational technology experts agree, however, that technology ought to be integrated, not as another subject or as a once-in-a-while project, but as something to advertise and extend student learning on a regular basis.
Today, classroom teachers may lack personal experience with technology and present yet another challenge. To be able 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 have to have the ability to employ technology to enhance 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 knowledge 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 usage of technology ought to be woven to the standards, benchmarks and grade-level indicators. For example, the standards will 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 ought to be designed to support a curriculum rich in the usage of technology as opposed to limit the usage of technology to specific skills or grade levels. Technology makes subjects accessible to all or any students, including those with special needs. Alternatives for assisting students to maximise their strengths and progress in a standards-based curriculum are expanded through the usage of technology-based support and interventions. For example, specialized technologies enhance opportunities for students with physical challenges to produce 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 provide every student with “the chance and resources to produce 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 responsive to the in-patient needs of these students. Selecting appropriate technology tools give teachers a way to build students’ conceptual knowledge and connect their learning to problem within the world. The technology tools such as for example Inspiration® technology, Starry Night, A WebQuest and Portaportal allow students to employ many different strategies such as for example 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 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 may be made part of everyday teaching and learning, where, like, 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 ways that enable students to conduct inquiries and participate 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 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 capacity of technology to enhance teachers’ efficiency are helping to boost students’ achievement in new and exciting ways.
As students undertake grade levels, they could 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 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 present quantities of scientific understanding and introduce new regions of research. They will explain why basic concepts and principles of science and technology ought to 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 learn and to have the ability to do science in a dynamic, inquiry-based fashion where technological tools, resources, methods and processes are readily available and extensively used. As students integrate technology into learning about and doing science, emphasis ought to be placed on how best to think through problems and projects, not only 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 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 understanding of 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 will recognize 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. Furthermore, they will develop the processes to solve problems and understand that problems may be solved in a number of ways.
Rapid developments in the look and uses of technology, particularly in electronic tools, will change how students learn. For 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 example 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. For example, 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 machines are types of the wide variety of technologies, or tools, used to show, learn, and do mathematics. These tools complement, as opposed to 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 knowledge of key mathematical relationships. A solid foundation in number and operation concepts and skills is required to use calculators effectively as something 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. For 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 information, and test conjectures about the impact of changes in the data.