“The technology itself is not transformative. It’s the school, the pedagogy, that is transformative.” - Tanya Byron
Our society today becomes reliant on technology for so many things: staying in touch with family, online research, researching simple questions couldn’t be done today without our technological resources.As education prepares students to be productive members of the society, educational institutions must pay more attention than ever before to information technology. Technology combined with education, prepares you to teach technical skills to students of all ages and levels. Now what is information technology? Information technology is defined as “the development, design, study, implementation and management of computer related information,” For us to analyze the importance of information technology in education, the benefits to teachers and students should be given attention.
Using technology in education can be a great benefit for teachers. They can use technology to spread information to their students such as, class schedules, assignments, or even notes discussed in the previous lessons. The technology may also become a way to teachers to collaborate with one another and have the ability to work together for the betterment of the students. With the use of technology, teachers may also acquire new skills to improve their teaching abilities. Technology makes it possible for teachers to reach more students allowing them to be competent and knowledgeable in the future.
Technology when used inside the classroom can be used as a motivational tool that brings a great impact on their attitudes when it comes to learning. Through technology, students are able to experience situations that a student in the past or even in the future may only just imagine. Using technology in education provides them advanced information which is not yet published in books. It has also been proven that technology helps students achieve in reading, writing and arithmetic. Most of all, students with special needs and disabilities have been able to achieve ways which are not possible. Also those students who didn’t finish high school or college can now be free to continue their education with the help of technology.
Let’s take a look at the roles of technology in learning (according to Jonassen). First, technology serves as tools to support knowledge construction. This represents learners, ideas, understandings and beliefs and also producing organized, multimedia knowledge bases of learners. Second, technology as information vehicles for exploring knowledge to support learning-by-constructing. In here, technology access needed information and compares perspectives, beliefs and world views. Third, technology as context to support learning-by-doing. Technology represents and simulates meaningful real world problems, situations and context. It also represents perspectives, arguments and stories of others and defines a safe, controllable problem space for student thinking. Fourth, technology as a social medium to support learning by conversing. This helps in collaborating with others, discussing, arguing and building consensus among members of a community. Lastly, technology as intellectual partner to support learning-by-reflecting. For helping learners to articulate and represent what they know and for reflecting on what they have learned and how they came to know it.
According to research, when technology is used effectively it indicates increased in students learning, understanding and achievement but also augments motivation to learn, encourages collaborative learning and supports the development of critical thinking and problem-solving skills. Also, proper implementation of technology in the classroom gives students more control of their own learning and tends to move classrooms from teacher-dominated environments to ones that are more learner-centered.
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