Chapter 7 Planning and Developing Technology Rich Instruction

Planning and Developing Technology Rich Instruction

    As we approach the 21st century, several new, more powerful technologies are just beginning to make their way into classrooms across the nation. For example, new personal computers support "multimedia" educational software that employs both sound and video to teach students facts and concepts. Advances in telecommunications technologies have spurred access to the Internet, allowing students and teachers to communicate with people from around the world via electronic mail, or "e-mail" as it is commonly known. New ways of obtaining and presenting information have given students powerful new ways of analyzing and understanding the world around them.

In fact, not only are new technologies more powerful, but they are easier to use and more accessible. Modified keyboards, joysticks, and head pointers allow students with physical disabilities to use computers.  Synthesized speech lets those with speech impairments "talk" by typing their words into a computer. And speech-to text translators transfer the spoken word into written text, facilitating communication for those who cannot type, or choose not to. Through the use of advanced computing and telecommunications technology, learning can also be qualitatively different. The process of learning in the classroom can become significantly richer as students have access to new and different types of information, can manipulate it on the computer through graphic displays or controlled experiments in ways never before possible, and can communicate their results and conclusions in a variety of media to their teacher, students in the next classroom, or students around the world. For example, using technology, students can collect and graph real-time weather, environmental, and population data from their community, use that data to create color maps and graphs, and then compare these maps to others created by students in other communities.   Similarly, instead of reading about the human circulatory system and seeing textbook pictures depicting bloodflow, students can use technology to see blood moving through veins and arteries, watch the process of oxygen entering the bloodstream, and experiment to understand the effects of increased pulse or cholesterol-filled arteries on blood flow.  

Chapter 8 Selecting and Integrating World Wide Web Resources

Selecting and Integrating World Wide Web Resources

     The technology framework consists of four general capabilities that computers provide to support students learning to read.  Computers can present information and activities to students, as a means of support or enhance their learning ability.  Computers can be used in the classroom as well as at home with the aid of the parents who can then help their children with activities that the teacher provided.  Also, teachers are able to access student work at a click of a button, which can be supportive for the student who will need extra help and access their teachers for work that they are having trouble with.

    By responding to student’s work, both teachers and students can then make correction as needed.  This can make time management in the classroom more productive and manageable for both students and teachers especially if there is not enough time for the student to make correction and complete assignments that is given.  Last but not least, resources on the web site can also provide scaffolds, such as access to word pronunciation and definitions that help students read successfully.  This flexibility can be valuable in presenting educational tasks such as, phonemic awareness practices that would aid and benefit most students.     

Chapter 9 Technology Integration in the Content Area

Technology Integration in the Content Area

     Technology will always improve performance when it directly supports the curriculum standards being assessed.  Therefore, many standards and learning objective explicit to the students is part of effective technology that is being implemented in the classroom.  However, technology integrated activities often requires teachers and curriculum planners to revisit curricular standards as they select technology applications.  It is becoming more and more effective with the use of computers in the classrooms whereby, students and teachers carry portable computers and have ready access to a school network.

     Some interactive video programs have been demonstrated to increase problem solving skills.  Students who use some video programs may demonstrate ability to complete problem solving tasks as appose to others students who do not have access to computer or other interactive devices.  The role of the teachers is to further facilitate and help students to develop their thinking skills during learning activities involving technology tools.  Students who have access to the internet have produce far better projects than students who do not have access to the internet.  It is imperative that teachers knows and have students who do not have direct access to gather information in the classroom through whatever technology is available to enable or foster better projects through the aid of  these interactive programs. 

Chapter 10 Games and Virtual Environment

Games and Virtual Environment

     We have come a long way, and now that we have the virtual environment to assist us in the classroom; we can now create educational games that could assist in the teaching and learning practices of our students.  Virtual environment are systems which track verbal and nonverbal signals of multiple interactions of the students and educators.  This enables the educators to post and assign work virtually without the physical interaction of the students.  Unlike telephone conversations and video conferences interactions in the virtual environment have the ability to systematically filter the physical appearance and behavioral actions of the students in the eye of the educator or teacher.  Amplifying or suppressing features and nonverbal signals in real time for strategic purposes.

     The study of digital human representation has progressed significantly in and out of the classroom and a vast number of educators have seen the benefits of the virtual environment, and its interaction with student learning.  With the advent of the Global Virtual classroom which is a collection of free, online educational activities and resources that most teachers find useful and could be used in and out of the classroom.  This aims to complement the efforts of educators around the world to integrate technology into their classroom and curricula and to link their schools to the internet in educationally productive way.

Chapter 11 Mathematical Modeling

Mathematical Modeling

     Computers have been used in the classroom, but not as effective as it is used today because teachers have become more and more aware that the use of technology in the classroom enables the students to become more effective learners.  Student’s belief and attitude further facilitate their ability because their cognitive involvement in the learning process determines the extent and the amount of knowledge they acquire in the classroom.  It is also believed that student’s attitudes are mainly attributed to their experience in the mathematical class which shows the improvement of their thinking skills.

     “Some case studies show that some students who are taught mathematics in an authoritarian and traditional way find mathematics to be boring and too formatted.”  With this belief I think students attitudes toward mathematics influence their motivation in learning this subject in school and may have a negative impact on their learning ability at higher level education.   To improve student’s beliefs and attitudes regarding mathematics and increase their interest I the discipline there must be some other teaching approach to get students engaged in the subject matter.  With a short intervention on mathematical modeling I think would change the mindset of the student and further assist them with this learning process.