Spring
Technology in Education
CSE 610
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Table of Contents
The Importance of Context and Collaboration in Adult Basic Education
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Technology in the Classroom
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Technology in Education
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Summary
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Why we need modern technology in education
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The Importance of Context and Collaboration in Adult Basic Education
Courtnay Slabaugh
In Learning with Computers: The Theory Behind the Practice, Cromley (2000) discusses
how technology can facilitate learning in different ways than traditional classrooms or textbooks.
Adult learners need to develop and apply higher-level cognitive skills in order to be successful.
However, adult learners can be hesitant to assess information or explain their thinking in front of
classroom (Cromley, 2000). Technology, especially computer-based games, allows them to make
decisions, assess information, and get instant feedback on their performance. This private
environment can help adult learners to develop confidence.
However, it is not a replacement for in-person adult education. All learning must be
placed in context. This is especially important with adult learners (Cromley, 2000). Before
accessing a concept or experience on the computer, students need to consider their previous
knowledge about the topic and what information they want and need to know. Following the
experience, they need to assess what they learned and identify how it does or does not fit into
their current schemas.
Another important aspect to adult learning is collaboration. Collaboration has many
advantages, including: increased motivation, development of critical and problem-solving skills,
and “a potential social atmosphere where all learners are afforded an opportunity to share,
consider, challenge one another’s ideas, and to co-construct new knowledge” (Smith, 2005,
p.182). Regina Smith (2005), a professor at Portland State University, conducted a study on
online collaborative learning. She identified strong benefits: Specifically, students were able to
re-define their role as student and began to take more responsibility to their learning (Smith,
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2005, p.185). They had to apply the information to their own unique situations without a
tremendous about of the guidance from the instructor.
She also noted an area for online instructors to be aware of in regards to student
collaboration. In traditional, face-to-face classrooms, social norms are typically employed during
the collaborative process. Students are familiar with these environments after years and years of
education. However, online environments can present more of a challenge. Smith noted, “The
need to communicate with limited non-verbal communication cure and a lack of communication
spontaneity added to the stress of online collaborative groups” (Smith, 2005, p. 196). She also
noted that tensions within a group often went unresolved with frustrated students often yelling at
their computers, rather that confronting the student who caused the frustration (Smith, 2005, p.
196).
Both of these articles note the importance of using technology as a tool in adult basic
education. However, technology can’t be seen as a magic bullet. Adult learners still need
scaffolding to develop the higher-level thinking and social skills. Technology offers a great
opportunity but as educators we need to teach adults how to interact with and contextual
technology.
References
Cromley, J. (2000). Learning with computers: The theory behind the practice. Focus on Basics:
Connecting Research and Practice, 4(C), Retrieved from
http://www.ncsall.net/index.html@id=303.html
Smith, R. (2005). Working with difference in online collaborative groups. Adult Education
Quarterly,55(3), 182-199. doi: 10.1177/0741713605274627
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Technology in the Classroom
Brooke Quinones
The use of technology in the classroom raises many questions. Should students be using
technology in the classroom? Technology has been used in schools for as long as I can
remember. Things are changing and students have become dependent on the use of technology.
This concerns me, do students know how to use a printed encyclopedia or would they assume I
am asking about Wikipedia? “It’s not a matter of ‘if,’ but ‘when’ and ‘how,’(Armstrong, 2014).
“A place still exists for traditional teaching tools and methods, but that place is much
smaller than it was 10 or even five years ago,” (Armstrong, 2014) As a classroom teacher I feel
that technology has its place while traditional tools take president. My opinion is based from my
experience as a kindergarten teacher. With this age we are not using a vast amount of
technology. I do have a teacher computer, projector and document camera. My school has
approximately 90 Mac laptops available and we have five student IPads and one teacher IPad in
my classroom which are on loan from the UofO during an app study. I have never used the
laptops and the only students that use the IPads are those directly involved with the app study. I
do use my teacher IPad daily for things such as attendance and showing the kids curriculum
related YouTube videos.
While reading articles related to the use of technology in classrooms I feel like I am
doing a disservice to my students by not having a lot of technology in my classroom. I also feel
like I am keeping a good balance. At the age of five or six too much screen time is an issue. Kids
need to play and use manipulatives. Giving a child a piece of paper and crayons is a great way to
assess so many skills. I can not find out information about a child’s ability to hold a pencil
correctly or form correct letters if they are only doing this on a computer or tablet. Students can
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explore and be creative on a computer which will be useful in the times that they are growing up
in, but is the use of pencil and paper dyeing out?
Alice Armstrong wrote an article about the use of technology in the classroom and she
made me think that I need to embrace technology and that I am the one that is afraid not my
students. Armstrong states that “effective training and technical support” must be provided to
faculty using the tools. I feel that this is a key point. The older we get the more we question our
selves doubting our ability to learn and teach new information. I want what is best for my
students and if that means that I have to struggle to learn something new, I will!
This same point was made in an article in COMMUNICATIONS OF THE ACM. The
research project (Kaganer, Giordano, Brion, &, Tortoriello, 2013) “was based on a three-month
field experiment with 124 students enrolled in an executive-MBA (EMBA) program at IESE
Business School.” Throughout the three-month period there were mixed reviews of the use of
tablets in the classroom. Students that were the control group and were still using binders with
case studies liked to use of laying papers out to find needed information. While students who
used the tablets found it to be a great advantage to be able to carry all the case files around with
them because of easy organization on the tablet. While groups had their positives they also had
negative feelings toward the study. Those using the tablets found it hard to take notes and find
information with out having learned the note taking techniques. The control group wanted to be
able to carry multiple cases at once like the tablet group.
While the study listed above does not directly pertain to my teaching it has made an
impact on my teaching. Kaganer (2013) stated that there is “no quick payoff.” I need to keep in
mind that new ideas are often hard to learn and they take time. If there will be a payoff in the end
I will take the long and sometimes hard road to get there.
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References
Armstrong, A. (2014). Technology in the Classroom. Illinios School Board Journal, 41.
Evegeny Kaganer, G.A.(2013). Media Tablets for Mobile Learning. Communications of the
ACM, 70, 73.
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Technology in Education
Fawziah Alshammari
Using the technology in the classrooms can change the way of teaching and the way
students are learning. The article, Technology in the classroom It’s not a matter of ‘if,’ but
‘when’ and ‘how’, raises the following questions: to what extent using technology in the
classrooms is effective, and what are the benefits? Also, the article mentions that we do not use
the technology in the classrooms because of several reasons: “A lack of funding, bandwidth,
technical support, mobile devices, software, teacher acceptance, and district policies”
(Armstrong, 2013, p.39).
There is a study that proves that there is a positive effect on students who are using
mobile devices in the classrooms more than the students who are not using them in classrooms.
This effect can be described as the strong interest in STEM subjects. That is giving students the
ability to understand math and science classes. Also, using tablets and smartphones in the
classrooms can give students opportunities to engage in the subjects. It helps students to control
their learning. It is just simply changing the students’ role from a listener and a note taker to an
explorer.
Using technology in the classrooms can change the way of teaching in which it will
depend on students’ collaborations. Also, it is hard for the teacher to keep everyone on the task
and it’s hard to control what the students’ see on their screens. But there is a product called
‘Nearpod’ which can help teachers to control the classroom activity. The article sums up by
calling for using technology in the classroom because it proves that it can prompt students’
motivation and participation.
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The second article, Evaluation of an adaptive online learning system, proves that
computer-assisted learning (CAL) can prompt learning outcomes in the anatomy and physiology
classes. It adds to the previous article the idea that technology is not only can help students in
science and math classes, but also in anatomy and physiology classes too. The authors Griff and
Matter (2012) compare the adaptive online learning ‘LearnSmart’ in anatomy and physiology
with the traditional CAL to evaluate its effectiveness. The authors did a study to assess the
posttests and the pretests scores, grades, and retention between treatment parts by using
LearnSmart, and control sections with providing online questions.
The result shows that there was no major difference between the parts either by using
LearnSmart or online questions. There was a survey that distributed on the students and the
teachers after the study was done. Most of the students liked LearnSmart and found it useful.
Some of the students complain by saying that LearnSmart took more time than some they wanted
to spend. The teachers assess that students who uses the LearnSmart was able to engage in the
class and ask more challenging questions. As a final thought, from both the articles mentioned
above we can say that computer-assisted learning is proved to be successful in many different
subjects such as math and science.
References
Armstrong, A. (2014). Technology in the Classroom. Illinios School Board Journal , 41.
Armstrong, A. (2013). Technology in the classroom It's not a matter of 'if,' but 'when' and 'how'.
Illinois School Board Journal , 81, 14-21.
Matter, E. R. (2012). Evaluation of an adaptive online learning system. British Journal of
Educational Technology , 44 (1), 170-176.
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Summary
Fadiyah Alnuways
In the articles “ Educational Technology” by Smith, L and “ The Effectiveness of
Technology in Schools: a Summary of Recent Research” by Bailo, E & Sivin- Kashala, J, the
authors emphasize the importance role of computer technology in education. Since 1980, the
education has changed positively due to using computer technology in instruction, and the
computer has become the main material in school curriculum. In addition, many studies have
shown that computer technology has significant impact to motivate students, support the
instruction with effective activities and help teachers to change and improve their methods in
teaching from routine tasks, which contribute to develop learning process. Moreover, computer
in education can affect significantly in students achievement in all major subject ( Avriam,
2000). Also, using computer in school can help students to earn many language skills and
abilities in evaluation with critical thinking, which cause important achievement in their study.
Beside this significant impact, students’ perspective toward learning has changed and improved
as a result of using computer in education. Most of students after practicing computer in school
felt that their self-confidence and their motivation toward success increased according to many
studies. Furthermore, the Internet that considers the most effective side of the computer in
education contributes in development of learning. It leads to connect with many cultures and
share a lot of information in many topics in education, and this method allows students to
interact with teacher and other students and participate in many online activities more than face
to face. On the other hand, Smith, L in his article illustrates that while using computer in
education has many positive effects, there are some negative aspects of educational technology.
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First, many teachers and students need a long time to learn how they can use computer
befor they can use it effectively in subject areas (Goldman, Cole & Syer, 1999). Second, using
computer in school will cost a lot of money to buy many computers, which affects on learning
process. Finally, the pros of using computer in education overtop the cons according to many
studies.
My personal view is that using computers in the processes of learning and teaching is one
of the newest areas that are supported by the computer beside a lot of sectors in our lives because
it contributes to develop the education in several aspects. First, The teachers are always
searching for methods to help them do their teaching in order to access to better education such
as smart board, power point and learning films, which provides an interactive learning
environment between the student and the teacher. Second, computer offers a lot of types of
education such as individual and collective learning, and it has practical tasks like learning,
training and evaluation. It is as a teacher. It also contributes to the formulation of educational
tools that help teachers in their work both inside and outside the classroom. Because of that, the
school administration should provide sophisticated computer labs, and training teachers to use to
serve the curriculum, and enable learners to use computers in a scientific way if it seeks to
achieve excellent educational outcomes.
References
Aviram, A. (2000). From "computers in the classroom" to mindful radical adaptation by
education systems to the emerging cyber culture. Journal of Educational Change, 1, 331-352.
Bailo, E. & Kachala, S. (1996). The effectiveness of technology in schools: A summary of recent
research. Retrieved from
http://www.ala.org/aasl/aaslpubsandjournals/slmrb/editorschoiceb/infopower/slctbialohtml
Goldman, S., Cole, K., & Syer, C. (1999). The technology/content dilemma [Online]. Available:
http://www.ed.gov/Technology/TechConf/1999/whitepapers/paper4.html
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Smith, L. Educational technology. Retrieved from
http://sitemaker.umich.edu/lem.smith/effectiveness_of_computers_in_education
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Why we need modern technology in education
Dorothy Key
We need modern technology in education like we need clean air and water, both are
essential for our future. In the classroom the old way of teaching “chalk and talk” was the main
way material was presented to students, sit down and listen was what was demanded of the
students. With modern technology all of that has changed, educators are creating lesson plans
with technology in mind. The old way of learning needs to be buried so modern technology can
emerge in our classrooms and homes. Computers, IPADs, and Smartboards are needed now in
schools all over the world, to get the students ready to take over the high tech jobs now and in
the future.
Currently, modern technology is being integrated into education now more than ever
before and creating a more diverse learning experience. In the fall of 2008, according to a survey
from the Sloan Consortium, nearly 4.6 million college students were enrolled in online classes
(Ward, 2010). Although all of these students are enrolled in online classes does not mean that
they have the schema for taking classes over the internet. However, if children are exposed to
high-speed schools in elementary, middle and high schools with personalized learning through
modern technology this will ready them for online classes and face to face classes in higher
education (Duncan, 2013).
In conclusion, modern technology and education go together like paper and pen. We need
both to survive on this spinning planet. Jobs and careers are changing at a speed faster now than
ever before. Unfortunaltely we as a people really don’t know what the future holds for anyone
but one thing is for sure technology is here to stay and smart people make a better world.
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References
Duncan, A. (2013). Why We Need High-Speed Schools. Scientific American, 69-71.
Ward, C. K. (2010). Journal of Online Learning and Teaching. Developing New Schemas for
Online Teaching and Learning: TPACK, 1-21.