"What is Educational Technology?"

• also called Learning Technology the study and ethical practice of facilitating learning and improving performance by creating, using and managing appropriate technological processes and resources. Includes other systems used in the process of developing human capability.

• 

  Technology gadgets

Technology is just a tool. In terms of getting the kids working together and motivating them, the teacher is the most important.

Bill Gates

Some Lessons You need to know in Educational Technology 2:

• IT Enters A New Learning Environment
• Higher Thinking Skills through IT-Based Projects
• The Computer as a Teacher's Tool
• Information Technology in Support of Student-Centered Learning
• Cooperative Learning with the Computer

☞IT Enters A New Learning EnvironmenT☜

There are four useful models of school learning that is ideal and helpful to achieving instructional goals through preferred application of educational technology. These are the models of:

Conceptual Models of Learning

• Meaningful Learning
• Discovery learning
• Generative Learning and 
• Constructivism

✎What is Meaningful Learning?

• It is learning with a purpose, learning which allows those who engage in it to attach more meaning to the world around them, learning in which things make more sense.

Rote Learning vs Meaningful Learning

• Rote learning is information that is primarily memorized.
• meaningful learning gives focus to new experience departs from that is related to what the learners already knows.

New experience departs from the learning of a sequence of words but attention to meaning. It assumes that:

☞Students already have some knowledge that is relevant to new learning.

☞Students are wiling to perform class work to find connections between what they already know and what they can learn.

✎What is Discovery Learning?

• Discovery Learning is a method of inquiry-based instruction, discovery learning believes that it is best for learners to discover facts and relationships for themselves.

Discovery learning is differentiated from reception learning in which ideas are presented directly to students in a well organized way, such as through detailed set of instructions to complete an experiment or task. 

✎What is Generative Learning?

• Style of learning that incorporates existing knowledge with new ideas based on experimentation and open-mindedness. This style of learning encourages individual and teamcreativity, resulting in a new way of viewing old methods.

Generative learning strategies can be broken down into four elements:

• recall: involves the learner pulling information from long term memory. 
• integration: involves the learner to integrating new knowledge with prior knowledge. 
• organization: involves the learner relating prior knowledge to new ideas and concepts in meaningful ways. 
• elaboration: involves the connection of new material to information or ideas already in the learner's mind.

“The generative model is a model of teaching of comprehension and the learning of the types of relations that learners must construct between stored knowledge, memories of experience, and new information for comprehension to occur, Wittrock, 1991.”

✎What is Constructivism?

This theory states that learning is an active process of creating meaning from different experiences. In other words, students will learn best by by trying to make sense of something on their own with the teacher as a guide to help them along the way.

The most accepted principles constructivism are:

• Learning consists in what a person can actively assemble for himself and not what he can receive passively.
• The role of learning is to help the individual live/adapt to his personal world.

Two principles in turn lead to three practical implications:

• The learner is directly responsible for learning. 
• The context of meaningful learning consists in the learner “connecting” his school activity with real life.
• The purpose of education is the acquisition of practical and personal knowledge, not abstract or universal truths.

There is One common in all of the Four Learning Domains:

✎The Learners:

• are active, purposeful learners.
• set personal goals and strategies to achieve these goals.
• make their learning experience meaningful and relevant to their lives.
• seek to build an understanding of their personal worlds so they can work/live productively.
• build on what they already know in order to interpret and respond to new experiences.

✎Reflection:

• As a teacher and future teachers we need to know the Models of Learning so that we can determine the abilities of our students. It is part of our responsibility to developed the learning ability of our students.
• Now a days, many students focus on rote learning or memorization. They set aside on the improvement of the HOTS so this models of learning can help us to supply the appropriate activities to develop their learning abilities.

☞Higher Thinking Skills through IT-Based☜

Key Elements of a constructivist approach:

• The teacher creating the learning environment.
• The teacher giving students the tool
• The teacher facilitating learning.

The four IT-based projects conducive to develop higher thinking skills and creativity among learners.

✎RESOURCE-BASED PROJECTS

• Resource-based learning is student-centered. Students are actively involved and more accountable for their own learning.

The teacher steps out of the traditional role of being an context expert and information provider, and instead lets the students find their own facts and information.The general flows of events in resource-based projects are:

• The teacher determines the topic for the examination of class.
• The teacher presents the problem to the class.
• The students find information on the problem/questions.
• Students organize their information in response to the problem/questions.

TRADITIONAL VS RESOURCE-BASED LEARNING

Traditional learning model	Resource-based learning model
Teacher is expert and information provides	Teacher is a guide and facilitator
Textbook is key source of information	Sources are varied(print, video. Internet, etc.)
Focus on facts Information is packaged In neat parcels	Focus on learning inquiry, quest, or discovery
The product is the be-all and end-all of learning	Emphasis on process
Assessment is quantitative	Assessment is quantitative and qualitative.

✎SIMPLE CREATION

Three kinds of skills/abilities:

• Analyzing- distinguishing similarities and differences/ seeing the project as a problem to be solved.
• Synthesizing- making spontaneous connections among ideas, does generating interesting or new ideas.
• Promoting- selling of a new ideas to allow the public to test the ideas themselves.

The five key task to develop creativity:

• Define the task- clarify the goal of the completed project to the student.
• Brainstorm- the students themselves will be allowed to generate their own ideas on the project. Rather than shoot down ideas, the teacher encourages ideas exchange.
• Judge the ideas- the students themselves make an appraisal for or against any idea. Only when students are completely off check should the teacher intervene.
• Act- the students do their work with the teacher a facilitator.
• Adopt flexibility- the students should be allowed to shift gears and not follow an action path rigidly.

✎GUIDED HYPERMEDIA PROJECTS

The production of self-made multimedia projects can be approached into different ways:

• Instructive tools- such as in the production by students of a power point presentation of a selective topic. 
• Constructive tools- such as when students do a multi-media presentation (with text, graphs, photos, audio narration, interviews, video clips, etc. to simulate a television news show.

✎WEB-BASED PROJECTS

Students can be made to create and post web pages on a given topic. But creating new pages, even single page web pages, maybe tool sophisticated and time consuming fort the average student. 

It should be said, however, that posting of web pages in the Internet allows the students (now the web page creator) a wider audience. They can also be linked with other related sites in the Internet. But as of now, this creativity project maybe to ambitious as a tool in the teaching-learning process.

✎Reflection:

• As the technology boost every second, teacher also need to improve. The FOUR IT-based Projects will  help us to bring out the skills, creativity and knowledge of our students and the interaction in classroom will be changed. We need to think the best way to catch their attention  because if we motivate them well we can achieve the outcome that we expected.
• We all know that bookish teacher is boring. Teachers in this century need to upgrade their way of teaching. You will notice that if we have a gadgets or catchy graphics, sounds and material they will be interested. 
• Let them move! We need to let them do the task in their own way because in that case they can easily understand the lesson if we let them practice and engage in a active learning process. 

“Students shouldn't be focused on acquiring information or submitting to other people’s ideas; education should be concerned with constructing new knowledge.”

☞The Computer as the Teacher's Tool ☜

✎Constructivist

• Constructivism as a paradigm or worldview posits that learning is an active, constructive process. The learner is an information constructor. People actively construct or create their own subjective representations of objective reality. New information is linked to to prior knowledge, thus mental representations are subjective.

✎Social Constructivism

• Social Constructivism (Vygotsky) - The perspective that learning and development is a social, collaborative activity. 
• Social Constructivism emphasizes the importance of culture and context in understanding what occurs in society and constructing knowledge based on this understanding (Derry, 1999;McMahon, 1997). This perspective is closely associated with many contemporary theories, most notably the developmental theories of Vygotsky and Bruner, and Bandura's social cognitive theory (Shunk, 2000). 

Learning Framework	Constructivism	Social Constructivism
Assumption	Knowledge is constructed by the individual.	Knowledge is constructed within a social context.
Definition of Learning	Students build their own learning.	Students build knowledge influenced by the social context.
Learning Strategies	Gather unorganized information to create new concept/principle	Exchange and share from ideas, stimulates thinking.
General Orientation	Personal discovery of knowledge.	Students discuss and discover meanings
Example	8*5-8+8+8+8+8	Two alternative job offers option 1-8 hrs/day for 6days/week Option 2-9 hrs/day for 5 days/week

✎The Computer’s Capabilities

Given its present-day speed, flexibility and sophistication, the computer can provide access to information, foster creative social knowledge building, and enhance the communication of the achieved project package.

Based on the two learning theories, the teacher can employ the computer as a/an:

• As an information tool
• A communication tool
• A constructive tool
• As co-constructive tool
• A situating tool

Informative tool

The computer can provide vast amounts of information in various forms, such as text, graphics, sound and video. Even multimedia encyclopedias are today available on the internet.

Constructive Tool

The computer itself can be used for manipulating information, visualizing one’s understanding and building new knowledge. The Microsoft Word computer program itself is a desktop publishing software that allows uses to organize and present their ideas in attractive formats.

Co-constructive Tools

Students can use constructive tools to work cooperatively and construct a shared understanding of new knowledge. On ways of co-constructive is the use of the electronic whiteboard where students may post notices to a shared document/whiteboard. Students may also co-edit the same document from their homes.

Situating Tool

By means of virtual reality (RS) extension systems, the computer can create 3-D images on display to give the user the feeling that are situated in a virtual environment. A flight simulation program is an example of situating tool which places the user in a simulated flying environment.

✎Reflection:

• Constructivist & Social Constructivism are really important in teaching. We need to be more creative and active teacher so that our students will gain their knowledge through their own experience and by applying their skills. 
• Using the Computer's Capabilities, we can make our topic interesting and lively. Students can use their HOTS in the activity that we prepared. We can also developed their skills by let them engage to the active learning situation.
• As we can observed students are more focused on the new technology now a days, chalk & board was boring for them, but when you used a tools like power point presentation they will be interested. But then we need to secure that the tools that we are using is appropriate and related to the topic. 
• The Educational Technology is really helpful to the teachers as well as to our learner.  

☞Information Technology in Support of Student-Centered Learning☜

The Traditional Classroom

is what we are all most familiar with. It is how most of learned in elementary and secondary school, and this type of learning is still used by most colleges and universities. Traditional learning usually awards credits based on student performance, which is measured through assignments, tests, and exams. These credits can then be put towards a certificate, diploma, or degree, which is to be completed later on. Traditional schools offer a number of different courses, which can satisfy any learner’s needs.

Traditional Classroom

A traditional classroom usually has a number of specific features, including:

• an instructor who delivers information to students
• a number of students who are all physically present in the classroom and regularly meet at a specific time
• student participation in lectures and discussions

"Spoonfeeding in the long run teaches us nothing but the shape of the spoon" - E. M. Forster

The SCL classroom

• A student-centered approach helps students to develop a “can-do” attitude. It is effective, motivating, and enjoyable. This booklet sets out to discuss how this approach can be implemented. It also deals with the problems that may arise.

Student-centered instruction [SCI] is an instructional approach in which students influence the content, activities, materials, and pace of learning. This learning model places the student (learner) in the center of the learning process. The instructor provides students with opportunities to learn independently and from one another and coaches them in the skills they need to do so effectively. The SCI approach includes such techniques as substituting active learning experiences for lectures, assigning open-ended problems and problems requiring critical or creative thinking that cannot be solved by following text examples, involving students in simulations and role plays, and using self-paced and/or cooperative (team-based) learning.

Generally the new school classroom environment is characterized by student individually or in group:

• Performing computer word processing for text or graph presentation
• Preparing power-point presentation
• Searching for information on the internet
• Brainstorming on ideas, problems and project plans
• As needed, the teacher facilitating instruction, also giving individual instruction to serve individual needs.

"People learn more quickly by doing something or seeing something done."
- Gilbert Highet

✎Reflection:

• Traditional Or SCL classroom? This are the questions that some teachers will encounter. Living in this generation that focused on the use of new technology is never easy. We need to progress, we are not saying goodbye to the old way but were adapting and developing much better way of teaching our students that we know it can help us a lot. 
•  For our students now and in the future, we need to think the best way of giving them what they need. So let them explore, discover, do and experienced the topic, let them relate it to their lives, because teaching is not only giving them the knowledge but applying and doing it will be more effective way.
• Some students said that traditional learning was boring, it is more on writing, reading and memorizing and it is way of gaining knowledge so we need to integrate SCL in traditional learning so that it is much better and much effective to the learning of students. 

☞Cooperative Learning with the Computer☜

Cooperative or Collaborative learning 

is learning by small groups of students who work together in a common learning task. It is often also called group learning but to be truly cooperative learning, 5 elements are needed:

• A common goal
• Interdependence
• Interaction
• Individual accountability
• Social skills

From several studies made on cooperative learning, it is manifested that cooperative learning in its true sense is advantageous since it:

• Encourage active learning, while motivating students
• Increases academic performance
• Promotes literacy and language skills
• Improves teacher effectiveness

Cooperative learning and the computer

Researchers have made studies on the learning interaction between the student and the computer. The studies have great value since it has been a long standing fear that the computer may foster student learning in isolation that hinders the development of the student’s social skills.

Components of cooperative learning

Educators are still wary about the computer’s role in cooperative learning. Thus they pose the position that the use of computers do not automatically result in cooperative learning.

Therefore assign the teacher several tasks in order to ensure collaborative learning. These are:

• Assigning students to mixed-ability teams
• Establishing positive interdependence
• Teaching cooperative social skills
• Insuring individual accountability, and
• Helping groups process information

✎Reflection:

• Cooperative learning with computer, sounds interesting right? This kind learning is helpful to the students, they can easily build their confidence, skills and interaction to others. So what are the role of computers in Cooperative Learning? it can be easy access to the information, faster way of doing the activities. 
• This kind of learning is not easy, you need time to think better activities, and it is time consuming but when you execute it right you will get the outcome you want. It will benefited the teacher because she is only a facilitator in this kind of learning, but in that case teachers are responsible to guide them and give them the right instruction.
• We all know that cooperative learning is not implemented by all of the teachers, but i guess when they discover the advantages of this learning for the students & the teachers as well they will also applied it.