The Learning Return on Our Educational Technology Investment

Getting an education is the main goal for everyone, although it is easy to obtain there are some obstacles to it. One of the main obstacles students face at the beginning of their education is standardized tests. Schools have started to adopt this type of tests as their main way to evaluate students’ intelligence and teachers’ effectiveness to educate the students. The way students used to learn has changed, in order to get them ready for the tests they have to spend much of the school time preparing for it instead of learning something they can use in their future life. According to Bruce Jacobs in No Child Left Behind's Emphasis on 'Teaching to the Test' Undermines Quality Teaching, a 2007 study by the University of Maryland teachers were put in much pressure and had thoughts to teach the test […]. This shows that teachers have also been affected by standardized tests in a way they have more pressure to make students pass. Having teachers ‘teach the test’ means their way to educate has been corrupted. In most cases when teachers’ ability to educate has been changed leads them to practice methods not convenient for scholars. One of these methods is memorization, in Relying on High-Stakes Standardized Tests to Evaluate Schools and Teachers: A Bad Idea by Hani Morgan describes how students start to adapt to an “inferior type of learning, based on memorization and recall students gain when teachers

Technology in the classroom is important for teachers, parents, and students alike, because technology use has become a necessary skill for survival in today’s vastly expanding technology driven global economy. Research has shown an increase in student’s success rates when exposed to technology in the classroom. Also technology has opened lines of communication between educators and parents to keep students on track, and help teachers educate better.

The Board of Education for the Rowan Salisbury Schools are fully aware of how twenty-first century technologies can affect the manner in which our teachers teach and our students learn. It is the goal of the district to provide a safe and nurturing atmosphere that is technologically rich. Providing every student and employee with access to these tools is meant to enhance and improve the learning experience that will ultimately improve the academic achievements of all of our students. The use of the District’s resources are not a right, but come with responsibilities for proper care and use of all district owned technology. The Board also reserves the right to place restrictions on the proper care and use of its devices.

This article was in support of implementing technology into our school classrooms. It states that educational technology is pertinent to providing our kids with the skills that they will need to be successful in the twenty-first Century.

The biggest problem with today’s education is how rapid technology is advancing. So rapid, in fact, that schools are attempting to keep up, but are sadly falling short. Teachers are being required to incorporate new technology into their everyday methods of teaching. The use of IPads or laptops in classrooms can be helpful to both teachers and students(edreform online classes)”. If a teacher is not overly familiar with the new devices, then the students will lose what little time they have to learn. As a teacher is attempting to fix technical problems in one class, the class that has a tech savvy teacher will be advancing far ahead. On the other hand, if a classroom is full of students who are very unfamiliar with the technology will have to be taught how to operate it, which wastes valuable time. In today’s society technology usage is so much more widespread than it was just five years ago. The new toys can allow schools to broaden their curriculum. Since most work can be done on a single device, kids can work at their own pace and potentially reach heights they could never reach with book, pen, and paper. The benefits of this new tech greatly outweigh the downsides. The biggest problem with technology in classrooms is their lack of use. So few schools have jumped on board with these programs, and therefore are holding their kids back. These products are readily available, but “the use of new technology

Thesis Statement: The author elicits the idea that technology integrated into the classroom in many ways and forms regardless of financial restraints on districts is beneficial to the

According to So and Kim (2009), teacher training and a support system with integrating technology in the instructional practice should be structured in a holistic way so that they can see the connection. Through assessment based on a full deliberation of interrelationships between content, pedagogy, and technology, teachers can anticipate constructive sound effects of technology integrated task through student academic performances. Papert, Vygotsky, Dewey and Piaget’s social constructivism (SC) principles

Marina Umaschi Bers, professor at the Eliot-Pearson Department of Child Study and Human Development and adjunct professor in the Computer Science Department at Tufts University, explains in her book Blocks to Robots: Learning with Technology in the Early Childhood Classroom some of the benefits of using technology in classrooms. Bers bases her ideas in the constructivist approach, a method used "to developing and evaluating educational programs that make use of technologies with the purpose of learning" (13). I am convinced that the ideas of the constructivist method have been applied on the American educational system because it addresses and supports many of the changes that schools have applied in classrooms. To make more understandable the ideas of the constructivist method, Bers adds the following

Providing resource classrooms with sufficient technology can help all students learn in a much more productive forum.

Technology has revolutionized the human experience by changing the way one learns. Technology can best be defined as a tool that supports and promotes human learning. This can be seen through the usage of calculators, tablets (example: iPad), Smart Boards, video cameras, and, of course, the computer. These are all innovations that can have a profound impact on classroom learning. Although there are some schools that have a strict policy that technology should be removed from the modern day classroom, other schools believe that integrating technology into the classroom helps prepare our students for the elaborate world they will face going forward. Throughout this essay, I will be focusing on the technology policy and how it has a positive

Technology is no longer considered to be a special event by students, but is expected to be integrated into the classroom (Koeber 2005). Even with many districts trying to push 21st century technology into the classroom mainly failures still exist. These failures range from lack of achievement increases (Oxford 2006) to struggles with overall plans created by school districts (Owen 2004). The use of technology must be integrated into the classroom. However, many stakeholders that are on the outside looking in do not understand how complex this process can be on teachers and the school districts (Windschitle 2002).

April Chamberlain (2014), education guru on education productivity stated that, “Education is evolving due to the impact of the Internet. We cannot teach our students in the same manner in which we were taught. Change is necessary to engage students not in the curriculum we are responsible for teaching, but in school. Period.” For this analysis, SIATech High School, will be used as evidence that there is an educational return on investment using innovation, sustainability efforts, and Six Sigma processes when seeking and saving funding for the budget restricted atmosphere of education. Also, while aligning the importance of providing a quality service and education to students through innovative learning and teaching techniques that will help save on costs that will be invested back into the classroom. Return on investment in education is not only measured monetarily. Education leaders do not typically pursue an economic return on spending, however metrics like student learning and graduation rates are imperative data points that need to be collected in order to determine and apply for funding and grants to increase funding (Frank & Hovey, 2014).

As we navigate through the 21st century, technology in the classroom is becoming further predominant. iPads are replacing our textbooks, and we can research any desired topic on our smartphones. The impact that technology has had on today’s schools has been utterly momentous. Educators have now seen firsthand the numerous benefits of technology in the classroom. According to a study by IT Trade Association CompTIA, around 75 percent of educators have come to the conclusion that technology has a positive impact on the education process. Educators have also recognized the significance of developing these technological skills in students so they will be prepared to enter the workforce after they graduate (Cox). By incorporating technology in the classroom, teachers are setting our students up for a successful life outside of school. The increase of technology has even changed how teachers teach along with how

They allow the leaner to use it for representation and expression of what they know. Learners of any age or culture can use the tools for analyzing the world, accessing information, and interpreting and organizing personal knowledge. With an increased emphasis on more teacher discretion over teaching and learning, constructivism in the classroom has a potential to increase. The basic relationship between teacher and students is changing because technology gives learners control over their own learning, which are the primary tenets of constructivism. The use of technology can have a great effect of schools. It enables every student to gain control of there own learning (International).

However, many educators have misunderstood the concept of constructivist teaching (Baviskar et al, 2009). In Huffman et al (2003) studies, technology was engaged as a useful constructivist tool to assist teachers to create a constructivist learning environment. However, confounding factors found in the study for example, the step by step instructions interaction between the teacher, students and the technology did not create any new learning or knowledge for the students. Baviskar et al (2009) highlighted that by using group works in the classroom as a constructivist educational tool, may not necessarily be constructivist