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Technology is changing the ways teachers teach and students learn.
Technology can open up the classroom and provide opportunities for
students and teachers to share, discuss, and exchange ideas with
larger communities of learners. Technology can enhance and invigorate
education and make schools more exciting and richer learning environments.
How does this translate into improved student achievement? The answers
may not be as concrete as a score on a multiple-choice test, but
evidence does exist to indicate that technology positively impacts
teaching and learning.
Chris Dede
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reports that effective technology-enhanced pedagogical strategies
can result in at least four improvements in education outcomes:
- increased learner motivation
- mastery of advanced topics
- students acting as experts do
- better results on standardized tests
While student scores may rise on conventional achievement tests, these
results do not occur immediately, and only after both teachers and
students move beyond learning about technology to its effective integration
into the learning environment. Also, conventional achievement tests
do not measure the full impact of technology.
In reviewing benefits culled from the Apple Classroom of Tomorrow™
studies, John Kosakowski
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reports that students explored and represented information dynamically
and in many forms—communicating effectively about complex processes.
Students became more confident and more socially aware. They worked
well together but were also independent learners and self-starters.
Students involved in this long-term, technology-intensive program
used technology routinely and appropriately. They also demonstrated
increased writing skills, a better understanding and broader view
of math, the ability to teach others, and greater problem-solving
and critical-thinking skills.
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Dr.
Chris Dede is the Timothy E. Wirth Professor in Learning
Technologies at Harvard University's Graduate School of Education.
His fundamental interest centers on the expansion of human
capabilities for knowledge creation, sharing, and mastery
that emerging technologies enable. He currently works in the
areas of virtual reality and creating technology-based educational
materials for students with learning disabilities.
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