Strategies to overcome the negative impacts of technology on learning.

By: Stephanie Jones

How Technology is used today:

Technology today is now used throughout the world for gathering information, keeping records, creating proposals, constructing knowledge, performing simulations to develop skills, distance learning, and global collaboration for lifelong learning and work.

Directions and guidelines fortechnology implementation

Technology is most effective when educators:

1. decide what is the best way to use it within a particular context and content.2. pursue teacher training specifically related to the intended use.

How to put the implementation to work:

Technology integration decision makers(#1 from previous slide) should consider the knowledge and needs of students,

teaching methods, the interchangeable role of the teacher and the learner, learning styles,

and professional development requirements. Thoughtful decisions require knowledge (#2

from previous slide) about the use of all technologies available to meet the changing needs of this generation of learners.

6 Steps to making teachers more educated on integrating technology in the classroom:

1. Set relevant, realistic goals through the creation of a plan that will enable teachers

to use technology and the expansive resources it makes available to improve student performance and achievement.

2. Include all stakeholders and capitalize on all resources by involving teachers, parents, students, administrators and community leaders in all planning and implementation phases.

3. Link professional development to the core lessons the teacher is teaching and to the skills the student is working to acquire through relevant experiences using technology.

4. Model best practices in all professional development by using technology to teach about effective technology integration processes to meet predetermined

objectives.

5. Empower teachers and students to learn by doing, through the use of technologies such as distance learning, online networking and Web- and computer-based classes to learn, communicate and exchange ideas locally and globally.6. Provide resources, incentives and ongoing support to create professional development activities that do not jeopardize teacher time with students or rely primarily on teachers’ personal time.

Some research supporting technology’s use

Technology in classrooms yield's three general observations:

1. research studies and meta-analyses technology on student learning under specific conditions. 2. research findings often reflect a narrow set of

conditions, they require careful interpretation if used to support broad.

3. research methods to determine technology’s impact on student learning are changing, due to rapid changes in the technology itself and the way it is used.

Examples of how computers can be used for in the classroom:

Computers as tools for self-directed learning: Computers allow students to take charge of

their own learning and to proceed at their own pace.

They teach students how to learn, how to direct their own learning, and how to find and discriminate among sources of information. They also teach students that learning can be an exciting pursuit of oneís own interests.

Computers as tools for collaborative project work :

Students can use scheduling software to plan their projects, communicate over networks about their projects, store project components in a central place, use individual software tools (such as word processors, Internet browsers, and graphics programs) to carry out specific project tasks, evaluate their progress using online evaluation forms, and design elegant final products for sharing with their teachers and classmates. 

Computers as research tools: Homework help, vast libraries, reference

works, museums, government and educational archives, news reports on these are but a few of the many resources available on the Internet. Instantly, and with little effort, the student has access not just to local resources but to the resources of the globe. 

Computers as exploratoria: A student can call up a map of ancient

Greece and follow the path of Odysseus through the Mediterranean from Troy to Ithaca or can pretend to be a water molecule, enter a root hair, travel up the stem of a plant, and evaporate into the air.

Computers can take students where they otherwise could not go and make learning into a thrilling, self-directed journey

Teaching with Technology Video

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tE8hHTOtWHs

Examples of Technology in the classroom:

Project Abstract in Chile http://hpmslab.ing.puc.cl/

How a science teacher has her students working on laptops creating power-points on how Humans impact the Earth.

http://etc.usf.edu/plans/lessons/lp/lp0171.htm

References http://www.mcrel.org/PDF/PolicyBriefs/5

983PI_PBImpactTechnology.pdf http://hpmslab.ing.puc.cl/ http://

www.emcp.com/intro_pc/reading1.html http://

www.youtube.com/watch?v=tE8hHTOtWHs

http://etc.usf.edu/plans/lessons/lp/lp0171.htm