The Positive Impact of Technology on
Teaching and Learning
Abstract
Schools need to understand the positive
impact that technology can have on students, teachers, and administrators. There is ample research available that
emphasizes the value technology can have in our classrooms. This research can help rebut the naysayer’s
looking to minimize the importance of technology in education. I researched teaching delivery methods in
which technology could help foster greater learning as well as the various ways
that one could use technology to improve standardized test scores and overall
academic achievement. In addition to a
student-centered focus, I will also be discussing how using technology can
assist both teachers and administrators.
Chip Flemmer
Boise State University
Dr. Connie Pollard/EdTech 571
November 25, 2007
The Positive Impact of Technology on
Teaching and Learning
I strongly believe that technology should
be used as a teaching and learning tool in helping both students and teachers achieve
higher levels of success in and out of the classroom. The
belief that there is a positive impact of technology on teaching and learning
has been put to the test and questioned by many, but there is ample research
available which shows that technology has a legitimate and valuable place in
our educational system as both teaching and learning tool. I want to see schools across our country
utilizing the research that is available in an effort to use the best methods
available for applying technology into our curriculum. A lot of people want to use technology in
their schools, but they just are not sure how to use technology. I want to insure that both students and
teachers are using the technology to its greatest potential and we only need to
look at the research to help guide us in the right direction. Teaching and learning will greatly benefit if
technology is used according to researched methods resulting in proven success.
We live in a “high-tech” world and our
students need to be trained in using technology to insure that they will be
given all the tools necessary to successfully compete in this “high-tech”
society and job market. We must understand that technology is
constantly changing and we must be prepared to evolve our educational
technology practices when we find a better and more efficient way of educating
both our teachers and students. We have plenty of research available and now’s
a perfect time to start applying what has been researched and put it into
practice in our classrooms. We don’t
want our students and teachers to be left behind as technology increases and
the job market evolves.
Technology is all around us, everywhere you
look, and anywhere you go. I believe if something is as prevalent in our
daily lives as is technology, we need to look into ways in which we can
incorporate it into our teaching and learning if it can be effectively done. Teachers, students, administrators, parents
and community members are bombarded with technology and as hard as one may try;
technology is here to stay and we need to learn to make it work to our
advantage and benefit.
If you question the importance of
technology in our lives, just think about the following situations and decide
if you believe technology is important enough to incorporate with our children
in the classroom. Have you ever needed
some money and walked up to your local neighborhood automated teller machine (ATM)?
One swipe of your bank card and a few
numbers punched into the machine and out spits cold, hard, ready to be spent
cash like it is Christmas. Have you ever had to drive through a toll
booth? We used to have to stop at every
toll booth to pay the allotted fees, but not any more. Today, if you have a Toll Tag, there is no
need to stop your vehicle. If you just
place the Toll Tag on your window, every time you drive through the toll booth,
the fees will be added to your credit card in turn saving you a lot of time
that was normally spent waiting in a long toll line. School administrators don’t need to write
down their classroom observations using pen and paper anymore. No, they just walk into your classroom with a
Palm Pilot in hand while using their magic wand on a little magic screen poking
down all the information that they need to get their job done quickly and
efficiently. It is really hard to
escape technology. Every time I make a
mistake typing this paper, my good friend, Mr. Microsoft Word, is so kind and
generous to help correct any spelling blemishes or strange sentence structure. I have probably learned more about sentence
structure and spelling through all of my experiences using word processing than
I ever remember from all the “red marker spots” that wallpapered my papers as a
child. Technology is very important and it is
everywhere.
Technology can have an extremely positive
impact on teaching and student learning and should be used in our classrooms as
a tool to improve both teaching and learning.
To ensure that this positive impact of technology is the rule rather
than the exception one needs to become familiar with current research on how to
use technology in a manner that promotes higher levels of success. It is also important to keep in mind that students
are not going to be students forever.
Our goal as teachers is to prepare them for the “real world” by
providing the skills needed to successfully compete in an ever-changing job
force and integrating technology into our curriculum is a huge step in
accomplishing that very task. If we
really want our students to compete, we need to use technology in a way that meets
our goals, increases learning, and helps move all students forward. How is this all possible? Research shows that technology will improve
student performance when the application directly supports the curriculum
objectives that are being assessed. It
was concluded by the CEO Forum on Education and Technology in 2001 that
"technology can have the greatest impact when integrated into the
curriculum to achieve clear, measurable educational objectives" (CEO Forum on Education and Technology, 2001, p. 2).
A lot of teachers fear that they won’t have
enough time to work technology into the curriculum because they need to focus
their valuable time improving state test scores. For those who use that argument, they only
need to view the research from an eight-year longitudinal study of SAT I
performance at New Hampshire's Brewster Academy (Bain &
Ross, 1999). Students participating in the technology integrated
school reform effort (School Design Model) demonstrated average increases of 94
points in combined SAT I performance over students who participated in the
traditional independent school experience. Not enough time to use technology in your
classroom after reading those eye-bulging results?
Often times we think of a traditional
classroom as one in which the students are all in symmetrical rows quietly
doing their work. The trends in
education have changed to incorporate more collaboration into the student’s
learning experiences. This trend is also
very important in utilizing technology in the classroom. Technology has been found to improve performance
when opportunities for student collaboration are provided. Improved achievement tends to be the result
of technology applications that enable student collaboration. A study involving upper-grade elementary
students used Computer Supported Intentional Learning Environment (CSILE), a
software collaboration tool that enables students and teachers to collaborate
by creating and posting text and graphics as well as asking questions,
searching for other students' answers, giving feedback on student responses and
work and then reformulating the answers and questions. The students in this
study performed better on standardized tests in reading, language and
vocabulary and on measures of depth of understanding, multiple perspectives and
independent thought than students who did not use the software (Scardamalia
& Bereiter, 1996).
The research shows that using technology
that supports the curriculum objectives and allows for collaboration
opportunities can improve student learning.
If improving student learning is our primary objective then it stands to
reason that we need technology in our classrooms.
There are very few lectures or lessons I
remember from my elementary school years, however, I remember in detail looking
forward to playing Oregon Trail on our dinosaur computers back in the
mid-1980s. I remember learning the names
of the various forts and rivers along the Oregon Trail by playing that classic
computer game. I might not have
remembered those names so well if my teacher only presented that information in
the form of a lecture. I strongly
believe that we need teachers to present information in a wide variety of
formats which work to meet a wide array of learning styles. Technology is one of the formats that must be
used in our schools if we want more of our lessons to have a longer-lasting
impact on their lives.
Technology is so important that twenty-four
years ago, way back in 1983 to be exact, the federal report A Nation at Risk
recommended that high school graduation requirements should include the
“Five New Basics”—English, mathematics, science, social studies, and computer
science (The National Commission on Excellence in Education, 1983, April). Technology is not limited to a computers
class. We can use technology in our
elementary classrooms, science, social studies, English, reading, math, foreign
languages, and any other subject imaginable.
The integration of computers with traditional instruction produces
higher academic achievement in a variety of subject areas than does traditional
instruction alone (Fouts, p. 8).
I just finished leading a staff development
day dealing with how today’s students use technology. The purpose of this staff development was to
enlighten teachers and administrators on the common uses of technology in our
student’s lives. A lot of teachers and
administrators knew a little bit about MySpace, Facebook, YouTube, and the text
messaging craze, but we brought in two tech-savvy students to explain why,
when, where, and how often they use these technologies. It blew everyone away to find out that one of
the students that we brought in wrote 3,000 text messages in one month during
the summer. Things slowed down for her
once the school year started and she is now down to 1,000 per month. We are teaching a different kind of student
than we had in the classroom twenty years ago.
This new type of student isn’t necessarily better or worse, they are
just a lot more technologically intelligent than most of us were when we were
in school. Most of us grew up with
rotary dial phones in our house. We had
to memorize phone numbers or at least have them written down if we wanted to
call someone. Nowadays, we just find the
name and click call or better yet we can put these people in our “Fav Five.”
Back when most of us adults were in high
school you would see cliques of students gathered in the hallways shooting the
bull with buddies or flirting with someone that looked like possible dating
material. Now, you are more apt to see
groups of high school students gathered without much noise, but rather with
thumbs rapidly maneuvering messages to friends (possibly friends that are even
standing two feet in front of them). I
am not saying that some of the technology trends we see in today’s society are
great, but I do believe that it is vital to have technology in the classroom
because that is what our students know and how they can learn the curriculum
that we are trying to get them to master.
The term “digital natives” has been coined by Marc Prensky which
describes the students of today. These
children were born with the internet, instant messaging and the “cyber world”
all around them. Most of us adults over
the age of thirty are “digital immigrants.”
We have had to learn the new technologies and watch them evolve over the
course of our childhood and into adulthood (Prensky, 2006).
Not only do students benefit from
technology, but teachers benefit greatly as well. My own personal classroom has technology
being used from the opening bell to start each class up through the final bell
to end each period. I have my projector
on as the students enter the classroom with a Power Point slide explaining our
daily warm up activity. As the students
are working on the warm up, I am on the computer taking attendance with our
online program eSchool. Whenever I grade
an activity it goes on eSchool as well.
Parents have instant access to their child’s grades online as well as
attachments posted by the teacher which can include any worksheets, review
sheets, notes, or any other educational document being used in the class. As a
teacher who began teaching at the start of the technology craze in 1996, I have
personally benefited by technology making my life easier in planning lessons,
taking attendance, and keeping track of grades.
Think of how a sick child used to obtain
their homework years ago. The parent
would call up to the school and the teachers round up copies of necessary work,
somebody would have to gather all the work and drop it off in the office for
the parent to pickup whenever they were able to make it up to the school. In our case, the parent just clicks on
eSchool and prints off the homework from the comfort of their home while Junior
is able to stay caught-up on his homework without taking off his pajamas. This makes things so much easier for the
students. Instead of being two weeks
behind after an illness, they are often able to do most of the work from home
and bring it with them when they are able to come back. Technology is needed for teachers as well as
the students. With technologies like
eSchool teachers, principals and administrators are able to track student
achievement and vary instruction to help meet individual needs.
If we want our teachers to be effective with
all the great new technologies that are available, we need to make sure that
they are given adequate and valuable training to use the them in the most
efficient and effective manner. Research
says that teachers must have substantial time if they are going to acquire
and, in turn, transfer to the classroom the knowledge and skills necessary to
effectively and completely infuse technology into their curricular areas (Boe,
1989). This time that is necessary is
not just in learning how to apply technology to the curriculum, but also
learning how to apply technology that is used on a daily basis in our school
settings such as online attendance, online grading, and online lesson planning.
Not
only do teachers need time to apply technology to the curriculum, they also need
to learn the basic technologies of a school district such as online grading
programs, online attendance, using LCD projectors in your classroom, utilizing
a web page to provide an inside look to your classroom, and any other
technological area of importance to a district.
Teachers need to be provided quality training, planning time, and
extensive support to improve their comfort levels and implementation of the
various technologies into the curriculum and their daily routines.
My strong belief that technology is a very
important tool in student learning and teaching has been solidified by the U.S. Department of Education’s National Education Technology Plan which was released in January
of 2005. Former U.S. Secretary of
Education, Rod Paige stated that we need to listen to our tech-savvy students
and that teachers are transforming what can be done in schools by using
technology to access primary resources, allowing students to see a wide range
of perspectives, and enhancing the overall learning experience through
multimedia, simulations, and interactive software (U.S. Department of
Education, 2005).
As the learning and
teaching environment has changed, we have been seeing an increase in online
instruction as well as virtual schools.
The online and virtual schools can make classes that were not previously
available to a student accessible in the click of a mouse. Students who live in rural areas and may have
been much more limited in their course selections can have opportunities
available for them that were not before imagined.
"As these encouraging trends develop
and expand over the next decade, facilitated and supported by our ongoing
investment in educational technology..." the report said, "...we may
be well on our way to a new golden age in American education" (U.S. Department of Education, 2005).
It is necessary for
teachers, administrators, and community leaders to back technology in their
districts and understand that the benefits of technology on teaching and
learning have been validated through research as being vital to providing our
students with the highest level of quality education possible.
I conclude by reemphasizing that the benefits of technology in today’s classroom are essential. The learning and teaching environment has changed over the last few years with the influx of technology and we need to adhere to the abundance of research which states that technology can be used effectively to enhance our teaching strategies and student learning. This change in our teaching and learning approach is essential, valuable, and necessary in the competitive global economy that exists in this golden age of information which we have at our finger-tips at a second’s notice. I believe that the Office of Superintendent of Public Instruction for the State of Washington’s web site does a perfect job of summarizing the reasons which I believe solidifies my firm stance that technology is such a valuable and necessary resource in our classroom to aid and improve our teaching and learning strategies. The OSPI’s web site summarizes seven research-based reasons that technology should be used in our instruction. Each of these reasons I agree with whole-heartedly and wrap-up my position by listing:
1. When combined with traditional instruction,
the use of computers can increase student learning in the traditional
curriculum and basic skills area.
2. The integration of computers with
traditional instruction produces higher academic achievement in a variety of
subject areas than does traditional instruction alone.
3. When combined with traditional instruction,
the use of computers can increase
student learning in the traditional curriculum and basic skills area.
4. Students learn more quickly and with
greater retention when learning with the aid of computers.
5. Students like learning with computers and
their attitudes toward learning and school are positively affected by computer
use.
6. The use of computers appears most promising
for low achieving and at-risk students.
7. Effective and adequate teacher training is
an integral element of successful learning programs based or assisted by
technology, (Office of Superintendent of Public Instruction, 2007).
I recommend more research be done on how to
effectively place students in collaborative groups which are designed to use
technology to increase learning. I would
also like to see additional research conducted on what kind of positive impact
technology can have on special education students with a ride array of needs.
REFERENCES
Boe, T. (1989). The
next step for educators and the technology industry: Investing in
teachers. Educational Technology, 29(3), 39-44.
Bain, A., &
Ross, K. (1999). School reengineering
and SAT-1 performance: A case study. International Journal of Education Reform,
9(2), 148-153. Available: http://ctap6.k12.ca.us/downloads/RelevantResearch.pdf
CEO Forum on Education and Technology. (2001). The CEO Forum School Technology and Readiness Report: Key building blocks for student achievement in the 21st century. Available: http://www.ceoforum.org/downloads/report4.pdf.
Fouts, J. T. (2000). Research on computers and education: Past, present and future. Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. Available: http://www.portical.org/fouts.pdf
Prensky, M. (2006). Learning in the Digital Age. Listen to the Natives. Available: http://www.ascd.org/authors/ed_lead/el200512_prensky.html
Scardamalia, M., & Bereiter, C. (1996). Computer support for knowledge-building communities. In T. Kotchmann (Ed.), CSCL: Theory and practice of an emerging paradigm. Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.
Office of Superintendent of Public Instruction (2007). Improving Learning with Technology: What Works. Retrieved December 4, 2007, http://www.k12.wa.us/EdTech/whatworks.aspx
U.S. Department
of Education (2005). National
Education Technology Plan. Washington,
DC: U.S. Government Printing Office. Available: http://www.ed.gov/news/pressreleases/2005/01072005.html.
The National Commission on Excellence in Education, (1983,
April). A Nation at Risk:
The Imperative for Educational Reform, A Report to the Nation and the Secretary of Education United States Department of Education. Available: http://www.ed.gov/pubs/NatAtRisk/recomm.html