The Role of Educational Technologies Play in Teaching and Learning
Educational technologies allow instructors to be more creative and have more time with students. At first, it takes more time to organize your thoughts and create multiple technologies for the same objective. In the long run, it will save you time because the instructor has stored the media for a lifetime. From a video, to a Powerpoint, to a poster, or the new classroom “Clickers” that allow teacher and students to give immediate response to question and answers, each person is engaged.
With the advent of the internet, memorizing has fallen to the wayside. Information that student once memorized is at their fingertips. What is more important is if the student knows what to do with the information. Today’s students are more engaged in higher level processes. Applying knowledge and its uses is taking on a new importance in America.
It is important for educators to stay abreast of new technologies in education. Today’s children are very technology savvy and teachers must keep and if not surpass the student. If our products where not students, as educators we would have to deliver the best product to compete in business. Students are our business and corporation are developing new educational technology from pre-school to high schools.
Educational technology has to represent real life situations. Many students will enter the work force and perform task on simulated technologies learned in the classroom. All educational technologies assess what the learner has learned. This has placed independent and accountability on the student to become a lifelong learner. This is something that educators have discussed that is really taken shape. With the advent of technologies geared toward education, we can have on line courses and students taking control of their own learning.
There will always be need for a teacher/student relationship. Modern educational technologies do not replace the teacher, it just offers more time for teacher to become a facilitator for those aspects of learning that you may need some form of intervention.
I use to believer that elementary kids needed one-on-one teaching, but with the advent of computer games and video games, even young people can learn how to use educational technology that assess their individual skills. Recently, I watched a news segment on older citizens, in nursing homes using WE to keep in shape and playing computer jeopardy to keep their minds sharp. I guess there is something for everyone.
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2 comments:
While I agree that it is important that students know what to do with information, I'm not certain that I agree that today's students are engaged in higher level thinking processes. Because students are able to obtain information with just the click of a mouse, many seem to expect everything to happen that way . . . if anything, I would argue that many of today's students don't even know how to think on their own. I have seen many of my own students grab a calculator for basic multiplication or use Google to find information that most people would consider extraordinarily basic. I would say that most of the students I teach have a very shallow depth of knowledge, but on a larger variety of topics than students in the past. Students are so accustomed to information being instantly accessible that their attention doesn't hold long enough for a deeper comprehension.
Technologies used within the education environment are definitely an improvement on teaching styles. But what do we do with those classrooms that do not have access to computers, such as the real-life sample we had from chapter one? I personally would love to create a blog such as this one with my seniors and have each one post a response to what we discussed in class that day. However, due to the poor economic status of the majority of my students and the economic status of my school, these "savvy" ideas are fruitless. I completely agree with Wanda in that technology improves the learning environmnet and that teachers need to be abreast on the latest technologies, which I hope I "sorta" am, but it does me no good in the classroom I have inheirited; one with 2 whiteboards and a television with a VCR (which is now as obsolete as the LP player).
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