Teaching & Learning with Technology Essay Example for Free

Teaching Learning with Technology Essay From learning theories to technology tools, what do you find to be the most challenging aspect of teaching and learning with technology? What do you find to be the most beneficial? From learning theories to technology tools the most challenging aspect of teaching and learning with technology has been the expanding rapid modern technologies themselves. Teachers are required to learn how to use these technologies in their classroom daily. While new technologies are growing the challenge has been to insure that teachers training needs are met. Communication and information technology can provide more effective and flexible hardware/software for professional development for teachers, improve pre-and in-service training and connect teachers to the global teacher community. The most beneficial aspect of teaching and learning with technology from leaning theories to technology tools has been the integration of technology into pre-service teacher education programs from the constructivist and behaviorist perspective for the aim of improving student learning and pre-service teacher training. Technology tools allow us to better serve the diverse learning styles of our students and educate them for a wider range of intelligence. Everybody has different learning styles for meaningful learning but teachers cannot represent all the styles in a traditional classroom environment. However, with the flexibility and help of the technologies, we can design learning environments in which students are assisted in managing and constructing their own representations of knowledge in their minds. You have read about and discussed various technologies throughout this course. What technology tool intrigues you the most, when it comes to teaching and learning? Why? The technology tool that intrigues me the most when it comes to teaching and learning was the RSS feeds. I had never heard of these feeds and was fascinated at how much information can be gleaned for the Dangerously Irrelevant feed. It keeps me a breasted of the new trends and ideas that are being employed on a district-wide level and the challenges / rewards these present to School superintendents, principals as well as teachers and parents. In Week Two, you discussed principles of instructional design. Summarize briefly how these principles can support you in assessing the effectiveness of learning technologies. Instructional Design Theory provides detailed prescription on how to organize teaching and learning at the global (curricula), lesson and task level. Most work is also grounded in some learning theory. Despite and also because of the level of details these approaches attempt to formalize instruction their practical use is often debated. Some argument against reading much instructional design theory is that a good teacher with good practice intuitively knows and uses things like Gagnes steps. The Dynamic Instructional Design Model uses the elements necessary to design effective instruction. The internal feedback feature loops occur with each step of the process for continual self-examinations, feedback and corrections. You read about various learning theories in Week One. Describe how these theories influence teaching and learning with technology. There are three main categories of learning theory: behaviorism, cognitivism, and constructivism. Behaviorism focuses only on the objectively observable aspects of learning. Cognitive theories look beyond behavior to explain brain-based learning. And constructivism views learning as a process in which the learner actively constructs or builds new ideas or concepts. These theories influence teaching and learning with technology when by blended learning takes place. Knowing that today’s learners are wired differently at all times, teachers are directing students’ natural online proclivity towards schoolwork. The new trend of blended learning as it applies to the various theories is the combining computers and all technologies with basic teaching styles. Reverse teaching, flip teaching, or reverse instruction all means the same as student conducted research, watch video, participate in collaborative online discussions, power point presentations and the use Web. 2 tools at home and at school both in K-12 schools, colleges and universities and distance learning programs. In Week One, you reviewed the outcomes of your degree program, identified which one(s) intrigued you the most, and explained how the outcome(s) you selected would contribute to your career. I was intrigued in Week one that through technology I am able to create, design, and evolve a program that is individualized instructions so that my students can learn at their own pace. Technology becomes the means by which I can personalize my instructions daily. I will also be sure that by following the standards of the National Educational Technology Standards for Teachers Project I will meet the requirements necessary to be prepared to utilize technologies in my classrooms. Which of these your Program Learning Outcomes do you feel you’ve grown closer to achieving? Which ones do you still find unfamiliar? I have grown closer to the Flipped classroom. The flipped classroom is a technology enabled teaching technique. â€Å"The Flip† saves content creation time while delivering engaging videos, Wi-Fi and other good assessment tools. I am also closer to the Goggle maps as a learning outcome tool for teaching literature. I am most unfamiliar with the Smartphone and other tablet devices (I-Pad, I-Pod) as technology tools for learning outcomes.