Educational
Technology - What Does a Classroom Look Like Today?
By:Josh Leitz
It's an exciting time for education and technology. Educational technology is consistently improving and more common place in the classroom. Google "21st Century Classroom Presentation." You'll find schools moving to a different kind of environment. Is this good? Are there problems with adding interactivity and engaging materials in the classroom?
These questions won't be answered
in this article. This article is going to focus on educational technology.
Technology that is consistently demonstrated at conferences for teachers and
administrators. This article is intended to educate you on what technology is
currently available for schools. We're also going to stick with the 21st
Century Classroom theme.
Document cameras, projectors and
computers are becoming common place in the classroom. Document cameras are an
incredible piece of technology used in education today. The ability to show a
page in a text book or a worksheet up on the board without making a
transparency! Many schools still use transparencies and overhead projectors.
Overhead projectors limit the freedom to adapt to the class and create
real-time learning experiences based on student responses.
Projectors and interactive
whiteboards are a must ever since the Internet became available. Multimedia,
simulations, videos, maps, research, etc... Projectors allow for whole class
learning and engaging discussions that extend from a specific topic or skill.
The interactive whiteboard technology allows the teacher to stay in front of
the classroom notating and controlling the mouse.
Another important educational
technology piece are computers. Computer labs have been common in schools for
sometime. The real concern has been actual "computer access" the students
have throughout the week. Having enough computers and creating a consistent
schedule for the entire school has always been a challenge. An answer to this
challenge has been mobile laptop carts. Imagine a large cart with 25 laptops
shelved, plugged into outlets within the cart. Only the cart needs an external
outlet to power all laptops. This cart is moved from classroom to classroom and
students are assigned a computer number. Instead of scheduling computer time to
the computer lab, teachers are reserving these laptop carts...bringing the
computer lab to them!
Classroom Response Systems or
Voting Response Systems or clickers are becoming a common trend as an added
piece to their educational technology plan. You will be sure to find more
information when you Google "21st Century Classroom Presentation".
These devices allow for true interactivity and engagement within the class as a
whole.
The last piece of any educational
technology plan is the software. Blogs, wikis, games, curriculum software,
reading and math intervention software, etc. are all things students do on the
computers. Once hardware is in place, the question is, "What do the
students do on the computers?" Educational software is such a broad term,
schools constantly are researching software specific to a target group of students:
high school credit recovery, homebound students, before/after school programs,
supplement content to the school's curriculum, state test prep software, etc.
One thing is for certain, educational
technology is constantly improving and classrooms are moving closer and closer
to the 21st Century Classroom.
Josh was a classroom teacher for grades Kindergarten through 8th grade and used The A+nyWhere Learning System® with his 5th & 6th graders in order to differentiate the curriculum and provide appropriate content to his many students with Individualized Education Plans (IEPs). Josh currently meets with schools, assisting in implementation, and training teachers and administrators on various software tools.
Educational Technology
Educational
Technology is improving classroom to be better than common class. In 21
st century classroom, many schools are moving to a different kind of
environment. The educational technology show about consistently demonstrated at
conferences for teachers and administrators. The purpose of this article is
what technology useful and available for schools. Document cameras, projectors
and computers are common in the classroom. Overhead projectors can show a page
in the text book or worksheet upon the projector. The important educational
technology are computers. Computer labs can find in schools for sometime.
Students must have enough computers and they are assigned by computer. The last
piece of educational technology is the software. Blog, wikis, games, curriculum
software and intervention software are all things that students can do by
computers. Students can improve their skills by using educational technology.
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