The Effective Use of Technology In Education

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Based on what I have read, technology effectiveness is a highly debated and argued topic among educators. There are many myths and misconceptions that even I myself have argued about technology use. For example, I always assumed that because I was a young, new teacher and used technology that most teachers who used technology were new and young like me. According to the article Research dispels common ed-tech myths, this idea is not the case. Veteran teachers are just as likely to use technology as new, young teachers (eSchool News Staff, 2010). A 2009 survey by Grundwald associates, found that as many as 34% of teachers were infrequent technology users compared to 22% who claimed that they used technology frequently, more than a third of their class time. This number is astounding to me. The research in this article seems to argue that even among those who do use technology in the classroom, many use it for tasks such as email, word processing, or games. Very few classrooms seem to be using the technology for actual learning and teaching.

There are critics on both sides of the argument of effective use when it comes to technology. Some argue that test scores have not supported the idea that technology use increases student learning, that this technology movement is simply another bandwagon fad. For example, the New York Times article, Grading the Digital School: In Classroom of Future, Stagnant Scores, discussed a school in the Kyrene School District in Arizona where technology is used frequently in the classroom. One teacher in the article is using technology in a lesson on Shakespeare. Her students are writing blogs, building Facebook pages, and even creating music lists to support the information the...

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...n because of the ability they present to measure student knowledge at any moment. I did not know before using the Technopedia site that there were so many different types of student response systems. I always just imagined the basic student response system with four A, B, C, and D buttons. However, the fact that you can have student response systems that allow for elaboration to open-response questions make this technological tool even more useful and effective. With so much pressure on standardized testing, this tool allows teachers to question and rank the knowledge of each individual student. Furthermore, because of the abilities of current Smartphones, the expensiveness of student response systems goes out the window in a classroom that allows cell phone use. I truly believe that both of these technologies can truly change and positively effect education.

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