ROLES

OF
EDUCATIONAL
TECHNOLOGY
At the end of the chapter, students are
expected to:
• Infer the roles of educational
technology in 21st century classroom,
based on research findings.
The Four Pillars Of Education And The
21st Century Skills
Learning to learn enables one to
address coping with situations that need
knowledge, greater intellectual
curiosity, shapes the mental faculties
and enables one to make judgement on
the things and situations they
experienced.
Learning to do equips one with
certain skills to undertake certain tasks
to be productive and competent. The
learner puts into action what they
learned and the task is translated to
actual manipulation or productivity.
Learning to do does not stop at this
point but, a learner should do the task
over and over again to attain skills
leading to an efficient performance
Technology is applied along with the
task of doing something.
Learning to live together provides
the individual the potential for
harmonious relationship with people
around them. It also emphasizes the
idea about unity in diversity in terms of
race, religion and personal beliefs.
The last pillar, Learning to be, gives
an individual a picture of what he plans
to be after certain periods in his
lifetime. The learners outlook about
himself may vary from time to time as
he realizes certain episodes in his life.
 ELEMENTS FOR USING
TECHNOLOGY IN EDUCATION
Element 1. Motivation

• Gaining Learners Attention

According to learning theorist,
Robert Gagne, gaining the learner’s
attention is a critical first event in
providing optimal conditions for
instruction.
Although other aspects of instruction
must direct this attention toward
meaningful learning, the visual and
interactive features of many technology
resources seem to help focus students’
attention and encourage them to spend
more time to learning task (Pask-
McCartney, 1989 Summers, 1990-1991).
Substantial empirical evidence indicates
that teachers frequently capitalize on
the novelty and television-like
attraction of computers and multimedia
to achieve the essential instructional
goal of capturing and holding students’
attention.
• Encouraging the Learner
through Production Work
Production work makes learning
more meaningful to students. The
teachers often try to engage them in
creating their own technology-based
products. This strategy has been used
effectively with word processing (Tibbs,
1989; Franklin, 1991),
Hypermedia (Volker, 1992; LaRoue
1990), computer-generated art
(Buchholz, 1991), and
telecommunications (Taylor; 1989
Marcus, 1995. Students seems to like
the activities because they promote
creativity self-expression, and feelings
of self-efficacy and result in
professional looking products they can
view with pride.
• Increasing Perceptions of
Learner Control
Many students are motivated by
feeling, they are in control of their own
learning (Amone & Grabowski, 1991;
Relan, 1992).
Learner control seems to have special
implications for at risk students and
others who have experienced academic
failure. When students perceive
themselves as in control of their
learning, the result has been called
intrinsic motivation on being motivated
by the awareness that they are learning.
This finding, reported from the earliest
users of computer-based materials, is
considered as one of the most
potentially powerful reasons for using
technology resources as motivational
aids.
However, when learning paths become
complex (with hypertext environments
and interactive videodisk applications),
students with weak learning skills seem
to profit most when teachers simply
structure to the activities (Kozma, 1991,
1994; McNeil & Nelson, 1991).
• Technology Use As Motivation
Motivating students to learn more
has assumed greater importance in
recent years as we recognize strong
come relations between dropping out of
school and undesirable outcomes such
as criminal activity. The drive to keep
students in school is an urgent national
priority.
Technology has an important role to
play in achieving this goal. Kozma and
Croniger (1992) described several ways
in which technology might help to
address to cognitive, motivational and
social needs of at-risk students; Bialo
and Slivin (1989) listed several software
packages hat were either designed or
adapted to appeal to these kind of
students technology based methods
Have successfully promoted several
kinds of motivational strategies that
may be used individually or in
combination.
Element 2. Unique Instructional
Capabilities

They set the use of technology in

molding the individual to meet the
demands of the 21st century through the
following:
• Linking learners to information sources
(Learning to know).
• Helping learners visualize problems and
solution (Learning to do)
• Tracking learners’ progress (Learning to
be)
• Linking learners to learning tools.
• Linking Learners to information
sources
Through hypertext systems, as seen
on many Internet Web pages, students
can select a keyboard from screen and
get pointers from several other and with
information on the same topic. These
lead to other related sources and forming
an endless chain information.
Kozma (1991, 1994) reports that when
little research has focused on hypertext
to date, preliminary findings suggest that
hypertext learning environment “both
calls and develops skills in addition to
those used with prescribed books and
reference materials”. Computers handle
the logistics of this complex activity.
• Enabling Learners Visualize
Problems and Solutions
Kozma (1991) also reports that
interactive visual media (videodisc
application) seen to have unique
instructional capabilities for topics that
involve social situations or problem
solving. He notes that these media
provide powerful visual means
“representing social situation and tasks
such as interpersonal problem solving,
for language learning, or moral
Decision making”. The growing number
of videodisc from CD-ROM products
designed for these kinds of topics (the
AIDS videodisc from. News, Computer
Curriculum Corporation’s Success
Maker) confirms that designers and
educators are recognizing and exploiting
these unique and powerful qualities.
• Tracking Learners’ Progress
Students’ progress can be recorded
and reported in many ways. Preparing a
portfolio on class accomplishment can be
recorded in a log book or in a electronic
diary. A system of recording students’
progress can be done through computers
program which can be availed of by both
the students and the parents within and
after a grading period.
• Linking Learners to Learning
Tools
There are many ways by which the
learners can use technology to link with
information needed in their lessons and
in solving problems for lifelong learning.
Several computer programs enable
students to solve statistical data,
researchers about different topics and
other data related to their interests
ranging from humanities, the arts,
communication history and many more.
Element 3. Support for New
Instructional Approaches
The educational system is struggling
to revamp its instructional goals and
methods in preparation for the complex
demands of life in the technology-driven
21st century (SCANS Report, 1992).
Educators are beginning to look at
technology resources to help make these
new directions at once feasible and
motivational to students. Several new
instructional initiatives can benefit from
applications of technology:
• Cooperative Learning. Cooperative
learning demonstrates the value of
small-groups with members coming
from different learning abilities. Many
technology-based activities lend
themselves to cooperative, small-group
work: development of hypermedia
products and special-purpose data
based and research projects using
online and offline database and
videodisc and multimedia.
• Shared Intelligence. An emerging
definition for intelligence is termed
shared intelligence or distributed
intelligence. According to some
theorists, the capabilities afforded by
new technologies make the concept of
intelligence as something that resides in
each person’s head too restrictive.
“Intellectual partnership with computers
suggests the possibility that resources
enable and shape activity and do not
reside in one or another agent but are
genuinely distributed between persons,
situation and tools” (Polin, 1992)
• Problem Solving and Higher-level
Skills
Students can solve problems and
represent their knowledge be engaging in
higher level skills. Problem solving can be
done by:
 Sensing the problem
Researching the problem
Formulating the problem
Finding the alternatives
Choosing the solution
Building acceptance
Element 4. Increased Teacher
Productive

• Freeing time to work with students by

helping with production and record
keeping tasks
• Providing more accurate information
quickly
• Allowing teachers to produce better-
looking more “student-friendly”
materials quickly.
 Using technology resources can help
teachers cope with their growing
paperwork load. Teachers and
organizations realized that they spend
less time on record keeping and
preparation so they can spend more time
analyzing student needs and having direct
contact with students. Teacher can be
more productive through training in
technology-based methods and access
accurate information that may help them
meet individual needs.
• Technology Literacy
Soloman (1995) says that
“Technology for students is about
economic competitiveness”. The
International Society for Technology in
Education (ISTE), the group that
collaborated with the National Council for
the Accreditation of Teacher Education
(NCATE) to developed the National
Education Technology (NET) for K-12
students.
Standards for all students are shown in
table 4.1; standards specific for each
grade level are also available. Both sets of
standards are recognizing that technology
skills are becoming required job skills.
• Information Literacy
Although information literacy skills
may be simply a subset of the
technology literacy skills, some
educators think they are so important
that they should receive special
emphasis (Truett, 1996; Roblyer, 1998).
Johnson and Eisenberg (1996)
introduced the “Big Six” skills namely, 1)
Task Definition, 2) Information-seeking
strategies, 3) Location and access, 4)
Use of information, 5) Synthesis, 6)
Evaluation. The information explosion
fostered by the Internet has made the Big
Six skills more important to learning and
more involved with technology.
However, Roblyer (1998) notes that
students seems to find the first three skills-
the ones requiring use of technology
procedures-more enjoyable and easier to do.
It is the application and analysis tasks that
present the most difficulty. However all
these skills appear likely to be essential
ones. These skills are also emphasized in the
21st century skills information, media, and
technology skills
• Visual Literacy
Visual literacy is considered as
subset of technology literacy.
Christopherson (1997) & Roblyer (1998),
emphasized the need for improved visual
skills so many people are heavily using
images on visual communications.
Christopherson (1997) affirmed that a
visually messages; communicate more
effectively through applying the basic
principles and concepts of visual design;
produce visual messages using the
computer and other technology; and use
visual thinking to conceptualize
solutions to problems. Roblyer (1998)
reports on research that correlates visual
literacy skills to higher scores on
intelligence test and to later success in
more technical vocational areas such as
engineering.
Christopherson observes that “students
with visual communication skills are
more marketable” but these skills will
soon be required rather than merely
desirable. These reports create a
powerful reason for teachers to integrate
technology at early levels into students’
communication methods.