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Teaching with Technology
by Jasen Leathers
Over the past ten years schools have become increasingly wired to the world via the World Wide Web. For the first time in the history of education, students now have unprecedented access to information that was never before available. Students, with only a few clicks of the mouse, can take virtual field trips to any location in the world, read newspapers from all over the globe, do complex scientific simulations, locate and investigate places with interactive maps, and be only few clicks away from information that would have taken days to locate through traditional means. According to studies done by The Pew Internet & American Life Project (2001), 17 million youth, ages 12 through 17, use the Internet for a variety of pursuits ( that represents 73% of those in this age bracket). Further research done by Corporation for Public Broadcasting (2003) indicates that one in five children log onto the Internet at home every day for educational purposes.
Based on research done by the National School Boards Foundation (2003); teachers use the Internet in the following ways in their classroom, 74% use the Internet for information searching, 72% of teachers use the Internet for teacher research, 38% for lesson planning, 18% demonstrations and presentations, and only 8% use the Internet for student projects. The data suggests that teachers are not providing students with direct instruction on how to use the Internet as a critical 21 st Century tool. Teachers appear to be using the Internet to assist their traditional teaching modalities and pedagogy.
Today teachers must begin to develop pedagogically sound technology learning environments that allow for student learning. Recent research has found teachers do not have the needed skills to develop these types of learning opportunities for students. According to the U.S. Department of Education (1999), less than 20% of American teachers feel adequately equipped with the skills necessary to integrate technology into their classrooms. Without the ability to construct meaningful student learning environments with computers, teachers tend to create lesions and activities that lack deeper meaning that allow for students to create and construct their own learning and understanding.
According to Grappling’s Technology and Learning Spectrum teachers needed to move out of the computer literacy mode and into a more concrete model that fosters student comprehension and understanding. Student achievement and a well designed technology lesion can be seen when the lesion moves more towards a transforming use. This area of the spectrum allows for technology and computer use to be secondary to the material being processed by the student. In the transforming area Student roles are expand to included explorers, producers of knowledge, communicators and self directed learners. Through the use of technology students are able to accomplish these tasks that would not have been achievable without technologies role.