Sunday, February 22, 2015

Integrating Instructional Technology

Integrating Instructional Technology 
            Teachers are incorporating technology into their curriculum for students to have a better understanding of each lesson. Technology is becoming a great source for teachers to help them gain and maintain students attention at all times. As they are implementing different technology tools to help facilitate and enhance instruction in class, students are fascinated while learning new lessons and how to use the different tools. "Technology can also consist of any reliable technique or method for engaging learning, such as cognitive learning, strategies and critical thinking skills." (Bacon, Pearson Allyn, Crismond, D., Hall, Prentice, Howland, J., Jonassen, D., Marra, R.M.) The technology tools that will help me and my students to better facilitate and enhance instructions in the classroom while using a teacher computer and a projector. Also web tools such as, readwritethink.org, bubbl.us and storybird.com. These tools will help students better understand any lecture, lesson and activity while having fun as they are engaging with one another and enjoying using technology.
Bubbl.us
Technology in the classrooms is becoming a great source to teach lessons in a much more exciting way, that students are becoming more involved in classroom activities and lessons. Bubbl.us is a great web tool that will help teachers teach students how to brainstorm and learn how to organize important information gathered from any resources into a graphic organizer. This tool will help students organize and sort important information into major topics. As well as helping teacher teach students about science by making it fun and exciting. I will implement this tool into my lesson when teaching students about volcanoes. It will help them organize the correct information into the right spot of the graphic organizer. This tool will also make it much easier for students when they start writing their paper about what they learned on "Volcanoes."

Readwritethink
            To better help students understand literature by using technology as it will involve students to participate more into classroom activities, lectures, lessons and classroom discussions. The "ReadWriteThink" web tool will help facilitate and enhance instruction in class as it will guide students to better understand the story, by helping them organize information gathered from different sources about the story and characters. I will use this tool when teaching my students about literature, as we will first read the story about "The Three Little Pigs" as a group, then let students explore the web to collect information . As students demonstrate the understanding of the story, teachers can see the collaboration among each other that shows that they comprehend what they read and it will be much easier for them to apply the information into the graphic organizer.
Storybird
            The "Storybird" is a web tool that will facilitate and enhance instruction in the classroom environment.  As it will help students gain interest into reading, sharing and creating their own books. They will also express themselves by using their imaginations on creative writing and develop many skills such as reading comprehension, vocabulary and reading fluency. I will incorporate this tool into my curriculum as it will help students become more involved in reading and writing. Every student will have the opportunity to create their own books, help each other out while creating their stories and will have the opportunity to share it with each other. This tool provides everyone access to read many different books and have the ability to comment on any book.

Pros and Cons of using Technology to Facilitate Learning
            Technology is becoming very important now in days. There are pros and cons of using technology to facilitate learning in classrooms. Many teachers are becoming to incorporate it into their curriculums because it has help them teach their lessons successfully and engaged students through many different activities. As students are becoming more involved because teachers have changed the way they teach by making it interesting and fun. " Integration of technology in schools has changed today's education and also the way teacher and students use their classrooms." (Sahakov, Roman) "Negative aspects that have come with the rise of technology, such as students ease of access to materials and the constant lure of plagiarism." (Davidr)
Wired and Wireless Classrooms 
 Wired or wireless is still a technology tool, the only difference is that wired has to be a desktop computer that is used only connected with wires to gain access to electricity and network. Wireless is a laptop, iPad or phone that has access to the internet by WiFi without having to use a wire. The pros and cons about wired and wireless is that wireless is more expensive, it takes less space and can be taken anywhere. The wired takes up more space and does not have access to WiFi. Wired devices have more storage space a 100 MB per second network transmission capacity at each port, than a wireless that does not have a lot of storage space and only has a 15MB. ( Fielding, Randall) With this being said I will try to have both kinds of devices in my classrooms in case my students need to store more information and also make it more convenient for students to take the laptops anywhere. This two access methods will impact my teaching and students learning by everyone having access to the network at all times and being able to work as a team to help each other out.
Conclusion
            Technology is the key to success in and out of school. It has enhanced everyone's lifestyle in such ways that it has helped everyone gain and developed many different skills. It's becoming to be teachers number one resource to provide students with the necessary knowledge and to grow the skills required to succeed in life. Students are engaged into lectures, activities and lessons because teacher are making it much more interesting and fun as they integrate different technology tools that are helping to better facilitate and enhance instruction in classrooms.





References
Bacon, Pearson Allyn, Crismond, D., Hall, Prentice, Howland, J., Jonassen, D., Marra, R.M.. "How Does Technology Facilitate Learning?" Education.com. July 20, 2010. February 22, 2015. Retrieved from http://www.education.com/reference/article/how-does-technology-facilitate-learning/ 
Davidr. "Pros and Cons of Technology in Education." WriteCheck. November 19, 2011. February 22, 2015. Retrieved from http://www.edudemic.com/education-technology-pros-cons/
Field, Randall. "Wired Versus Wireless." Technology in School Computer Networks. DesignShare.com. December, 1999. February 22, 2015. Retrieved from http://www.designshare.com/Research/Wired/Wired1.htm
Sahakov, Roman. "2 Pros and 2 Cons to Education Technology" Edudemic Connecting Education & Technology. January 15, 2014. February 22, 2015. Retrieved from http://www.edudemic.com/education-technology-pros-cons/

"TIM Arizona Technology Integration Matrix.:" Arizona K12 center, 2012. February 22, 2015. Retrieved from www.azk12.org/tim/

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