Posted by Erika Room and Yovana Lázaro
(updated in September 2022)
In recent years, schools have invested heavily in putting technology—especially computers and their associated infrastructure—in the hands of students, teachers, and administrators. Many people involved in education, from legislators to teachers to parents, as well as the general public, want to know what technology exists in schools and how that technology is being used. These are a few of the questions that are typically asked:
- How can technology support the educational vision ?
- What are our technology needs?
- Are our technology goals right for our needs?
Reasons For Bringing Technology Into Schools
The teachers and administrators at our case study sites expressed different reasons for bringing technology into their schools.
Support Thinking Processes
Many teachers at case study schools cited a belief that computer-based technologies could provide support for thinking processes.
In fact, teachers can undergo different situations in class. In more that one opportunity online dictionaries and encyclopedias have been very useful for me when an unexpected word appeared in texts of different styles and even if the context helped you getting the idea, it was definitely better to know the exact definition of the term.
Stimulate Motivation and Self-Esteem
A second frequently cited rationale for introducing technology was to stimulate motivation and self-esteem. Through either personal experience or a review of the literature, many innovators perceived the dramatic effects that technology can have on students’ interest in class activities and their sense of their own capabilities.
Promote Equity
In the case of ShareNet, the districts recognized the wide disparity in the resources available to them and felt that a unifying network could promote a more equitable use of those resources.
In the case of several schools serving students from low-income homes, technology innovators stressed the importance of giving these students the technology tools that would equip them to compete with children coming from more affluent homes where technology is commonplace.
Prepare Students for the Future
Students in our country don’t have an egalitarian access to education. This means that the same happens when we talk about reaching technology opportunities. Thus, one of our missions is to be well prepared to teach students effectively not only to learn with technology but to use it skillfully .
Support Changes in School Structure
Researchers have argued that technology has the potential to dramatically change the way in which our schools are structured–providing pressure to do away with the division of instructional time into small blocks and discrete disciplines and to rethink the way we use physical classrooms and teaching resources (Collins, 1990; Newman, 1990). A number of our sites reported consciously deciding to use technology in order to support changes in school structure. Several district administrators expected technology to free up teacher time by taking over or supporting administrative and routine teaching tasks. The administrators setting up ShareNet expected it to lower boundaries between schools, districts, and even states.
Explore Technology Capabilities
Finally, in several cases, there were individuals who were simply intrigued by new technologies and wanted to explore what they could do. Not surprisingly, the desire to explore technology capabilities was most likely to be a factor in cases where there was an external partner involved in the design, manufacture, or selling of technology products. Although we felt that technology push was one motivation for some implementations, in no case was it the sole motivation.
We as teachers know that technology has become a powerful and useful tool to facilitate our students’ learning not only that but it also has many advantages as well , that is why we consider very important to be updated and do not stop searching about the new tendencies in technology for schools and make our students aware of the new tools too so that they feel more comfortable and secure.
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