ADED 380 Educational Technologies-The Instructional Process

1.)What were you doing when you were using educational technologies at your best - as a student or as an instructor

2.)What principles should guide your approach for integrating technologies into teaching and learning

3.)When & how can you expect the use of educational technologies to be effective.

Effective use of educational technologies in educational environment ensures that there is an increase of productivity the instructional process. It is imperative that the top management of a school should ensure that teachers are provided with constant support for the use of technology in the classroom. Educational technology is defined as the use of electronic or digital and other materials in bid to support teaching and learning (Saettler, & Saettler, 2004). It should be noted that technology itself does not support learning but rather the tutors who use the educational technologies can make tremendous strides in ensuring that learning is effective. This paper focuses in when and how the use educational technologies can be expected to be effective.

The technology has been a gold mine in terms of creating a pool of wealth when it comes to information for students. Educational technologies can be effective depending on how a tutor applies it in a classroom setting. This means that the tutors should ensure that they motivate the learners in the use of educational technology. The tutors hold the greatest responsibility in ensuring that the effectiveness of the educational technology is realized through their experience (Prensky, & Heppell, 2010).

A tutor who is depicted to have minute knowledge on the educational technologies, will make the students have less interest in realizing their roles in the use of educational technologies. Consequently, it should be noted that the educational technologies such as the computer do not by themselves make the nature of teaching to change, it is a tutors’ handling of the educational technology while teaching that will make the use of educational technologies effective (Lowe, and Holton, Elwood 2005). With the above knowledge, tutors should be able to show prowess in the use of educational technologies. Also they should keep the students up to speed to what the use educational technologies aim at achieving.

As pointed out by Wang and Braman, (2009), learning is said to be permanent when individuals learn a similar environment that depicts real life situation. Also, learning can be permanent when learners use actual application and experience. At present, learning is made effective where a myriad of activities in the learning process and instructional processes are associated with real life application which are strengthened by the use of educational technologies. Educational technologies have the advantage of being organized and altered at any time so as to suit the ever changing learning process needs. It is without a doubt that educational technologies stimulate learning by provoking student’s interest and stimulate learning.

This is where students are assisted in connecting new information with old knowledge and they are able to connect the subject through comparison with the real life experiences. When the use of educational technology is customized to reflect the happenings in the society, students will be in a position to evaluate the necessary information that they require to meet the needs of the society. Case in point, if it is a class that deals with the issue of concerning racism, it is imperative that a tutor can use the educational technologies such as the projector to showcase videos of some example of racism. This way, students will be in a position to describe the world in the way they observe and that such information will assist them in facilitating comprehension thus making the educational technologies effective.

References

Lowe, J. S., & Holton,Elwood F., I.,II. (2005). A theory of effective computer-based instruction for adults. Human Resource Development Review, 4(2), 159-188. Retrieved from https://search.proquest.com/docview/221814973?accountid=45049

Prensky, M., & Heppell, S. (2010). Teaching digital natives (1st ed.). Thousand Oaks: Corwin Press.

Saettler, L., & Saettler, L. (2004). The evolution of American educational technology (1st ed., p. 468). IAP.

Wang, Y., & Braman, J. (2009). Extending the classroom through second life. Journal of Information Systems Education, 20(2), 235-247. Retrieved from https://search.proquest.com/docview/200117116?accountid=45049.