How technology can help improve education.
Nov
23
Written by:
11/23/2009 2:33 AM
By David Andrade
Improving education is a huge issue (and always has been). Test scores, our perceived performance against other countries, and other factors have pushed education to the forefront of national politics, right behind healthcare reform. Technology can be used to improve teaching and learning and help our students be successful.
While smaller schools and class sizes are always desired, technology can not do that physically. However, technology can be a “force multiplier” for the teacher. Instead of the teacher being the only source of help in a classroom, students can access web sites, online tutorials, and more to assist them. Education doesn’t stop at the end of the school day because students have access to teachers, resources, and assignments via the web and access these resources at any time. Students can also get help and tutoring at any time, whether from the teacher via email or online collaboration, or from a help web site.
Parental involvement is another factor that can increase student achievement. Most parents these days have extremely busy schedules, work different hours, and can’t always help their child with homework or come to school for conferences. Technology can help. Parents can go to a class website and see what their child is working on, they can contact teachers via email and web sites, and they can even check their child’s attendance and grades through online systems. They can also talk to their children from work via email and instant messaging.
Inquiry based projects are another way to get students to think rather than memorize. These group projects also help students build important skills such as communications, team work, critical thinking and problem solving. Technology can help with these projects and skills. Students can create things such as web sites, blogs, and multimedia presentations as part of their project. They can use the web for research and as a resource. They can connect with students at other schools and do collaborative work with them. They also learn technology skills while doing these projects.
Money is always an issue in education and technology can help. Virtual field trips, electronic forms instead of paper, email instead of printed memo’s, virtual labs, electronic textbooks, and the thousands of free online resources can all save schools money and give students excellent educational experiences.
Teachers can use technology to find resources and attend virtual professional development seminars and conferences (most are free). They can also create personal learning networks (PLN) with Ning, Twitter, and other resources to find and share ideas and resources, and get support from their colleagues.
Technology can give teachers and students great resources, new opportunities for learning, ways to collaborate and create, and save money. Technology is a very powerful tool for education.Some resources that can help:
http://www.google.com/options/
http://www.evernote.com/
http://www.zoho.com/
http://www.techlearning.com/
http://www.freetech4teachers.com/
http://educationaltechnologyguy.blogspot.com/2009/10/scribblar-online-whiteboard.html
http://educationaltechnologyguy.blogspot.com/2009/10/calculus-lifesaver.html
http://educationaltechnologyguy.blogspot.com/2009/08/resources-for-students.html
http://educationaltechnologyguy.blogspot.com/2009/10/21st-century-skills-and-education.html
http://educationaltechnologyguy.blogspot.com/2009/05/how-to-get-started-with-project-based.html
Share your ideas on how technology can help improve teaching and learning.
9 comment(s) so far...
How technology can help improve education.
Hi,
I personally like your post; you have shared good information.
By Dissertation Help on
12/9/2009 4:48 PM
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How technology can help improve education.
I can share my own experience. I'm an MBA student and study online. My university provides online study platform with an access to video lectures recorded by my tutors. It's very convenient for me because my study process is flexible and I can organize my work and my studies at the same time. And I feel as I'm sitting in a real class.
By Jane Barry on
11/25/2009 11:13 PM
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How technology can help improve education.
My school is utilizing technology to help our students improve math scores on state testing. We are using the JiJi math program, and our new math series, Pearson, offers a website for our students to use. It allows them to print homework pages, revisit the current lesson, and play games using the skills they were taught in class. There is so much available for our students; we just need to make sure they have access.
By Kristina Mintzer on
11/28/2009 3:19 PM
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How technology can help improve education.
Even in the poverty, Our schools still acquired and utilized more technology to improve students education.
By Private Schools Palm Beach Teachers on
12/8/2009 12:28 PM
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How technology can help improve education.
Even in the poverty, our schools still acquired to have technology for students learning.
By Private Schools Palm Beach Teachers on
12/8/2009 12:30 PM
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How technology can help improve education.
Why stop at how Technology can improve Edu and take it to the logical conclusion... how can technology make all learning free and bring about the eSingularity? http://www.eSingularity.org . That's the real question? The reality the only thing stopping it from happening is the current paradigm, that for some silly reasons thinks that it can't be done... The facts are we have the connectivity, the content the only thing we are missing is a FOSS platform that would bring all the OER into one space, allow anyone to create rich-multimedia remixes of it and deliver it to any web enabled device autonomously to meet the end-users needs... the good news is someone is working to bring it about in India http://bit.ly/EDUITIN
I am attending TED Global 2010 and will be promoting and creating this new paradigm for global education. You can help by joining the http://www.eSingularity.org movement on FB.
Thoughts?
By Michael J. Trout on
12/15/2009 9:06 PM
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How technology can help improve education.
Some time before, I needed to buy a house for my organization but I did not have enough cash and couldn't buy anything. Thank God my mate proposed to try to take the mortgage loans from trustworthy creditors. Thence, I acted so and used to be happy with my credit loan.
By Valencia33Jerry on
4/7/2010 12:29 PM
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How technology can help improve education.
Yes, technology can be used to improve things...BUT, it can also be used to make a bad system even worse. It's important to make sure you have a proper education system so that you are not magnifying a problem.
By Mark on
10/18/2010 10:38 AM
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How technology can help improve education.
Clearly technology do improve the learning. But one of the major issue is what do we do of those who cannot access to this technology ?
By Daniel on
5/21/2010 7:48 PM
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