Thursday, November 8, 2018

Nov. 8, 2018





Technology in the Classroom

One Person’s Point of View:

By Robert Holl


I have seen many changes impacting how instruction is delivered, and nothing has impacted change more than technology and the internet. As with most change, there have been both positive and negative outcomes. Whether a given change is positive or negative will often depend on one’s own perspective.

My name is Robert Holland my career, upon graduating from college, began as a classroom teacher and then transitioned into various facets of educational publishing. These varied experiences have affected my point of view and influenced my current thinking. However, the last 15 years, during which I founded and grew the Learning A-Z Publishing Company and developed hundreds of classroom resources, have led me to appreciate more fully how technology can assist teachers and improve learning for students.

As a publisher of learning resources and as a former classroom teacher, I have always believed that it is vital to never lose sight of the teacher’s significance in and out of the classroom. I have carefully weighed every product development decision to ensure that it strengthens a teacher’s instructional efficiency and effectiveness.

CLASSROOM TECH: TWO FACES


It seems to me that there are two faces of technology in the classroom. On the one side, I have come to believe that overuse of technology can have a dehumanizing effect. But on the other hand, I also have come to believe that technology can help personalize learning, promote interaction and engagement, and help improve motivation. From my point of view, we should not park students in front of a computer or other device and deliver technology-driven curriculum solutions that place limitations on human connections. This, I believe, would be detrimental to the development of the whole child. But there are countless benefits that support the use of technology in classrooms.

One of the most compelling benefits technology offers is its ability to save teachers time and deliver resources economically. Take, for example, books and other resources needed to build reading skills, grow knowledge, and motivate readers. Today’s teachers can have a library of electronic books delivered directly to their classroom as PDF documents that can be printed and made into low-cost books for their students to read in the classroom or at home.

These same books can be assigned as eBooks to read on any type of device. Teachers can also project these books within whole-class and small-group instructional settings. Never have so many books and other reading resources, in multiple formats, been so readily accessible to teachers and their students – developmentally appropriate books aligned with students’ interest.

Technology-enhanced text resources can have many embedded tools to support and guide the reader. For example, an audio track for listening to the entire text with words and phrases highlighted so the student can follow along can be especially helpful to struggling readers and English language learners. In addition, words that are unknown and difficult to pronounce can be selected for a pronunciation and a definition. EBooks can also have recording features for students to record their reading of text and then play it back to self-monitor fluency. They can also send a recorded reading to their teacher who can then listen and monitor student progress.
Student engagement and interactivity with text can be facilitated by highlighting and other mark-up tools, notetaking and journaling features, as well as embedded prompts for students to respond to as they read. These tools and features can enhance comprehension and free up the teacher to interact more personally with students who need extra help.

Enjoy,
Ms. Nora Sierra
EC Assistant Principal