Meaningful Use Of Technology Research Articles

Increasing Meaningful Assistive Technology Use in the Classrooms

Although personal technology is consistently used by students and teachers, meaningful use of technology for instruction may not be feasible without providing teachers specific training and support. One university is providing workshops, feedback through coursework, and hands-on training to teacher candidates and local area teachers. In addition, the program trains teachers in appropriate uses of the mini-iPad and lends technology, including mini-iPads and switches with wireless interfaces, for the teacher candidates and interns to use in practicum and internship settings.

Conceptualizing the Place of Technology in Curriculum Formation: A View of the Four Pillars of Curriculum Foundations

This is a phenomenological study that calls for the re-visitation of curriculum body of knowledge which dwells on the four major pillars namely; philosophical, historical, sociological and psychological foundations. This library study endeavored to investigate the contribution of technological innovation in the process of enriching knowledge. The place of 'machine' currently plays a role of a facilitator and not as a core foundation from which knowledge can be inferred. As we face the hilltops of the 21 st century, educationists and curriculum developers have no other option except to admit to redefine the concept of technological function as one of the core foundations of education and not just a mere tool to aid learning and teaching transaction. The fact of the matter is that learners need not only to know information; they need to know how information is gathered, identified, transformed and used. To expound this study the following questions benchmarked the exploration: Is there any knowledge in technology or is it simply a machine to facilitate work? How long will it remain to be technology in education and not technology of education? When will the evergreen generation be groomed into a meaningful use of technology? Isn't it high time that we begin thinking of qualifying the technological aspect and give a value it deserves in the constitution of knowledge? In this study I have argued that technology has transcended the role of facilitating knowledge and has indeed become a body of knowledge from which curriculum ought to be anchored.

Beyond Piñatas, Fortune Cookies, and Wooden Shoes: Using the World Wide Web to Help Children Explore the Whole Wide World

The advent of technology and access to the internet through the World Wide Web have stretched the traditional ways of teaching social studies beyond classroom boundaries. This article explores how teachers can create authentic and contextualized cultural studies experiences for young children by integrating social studies and technology. To prepare students for the expanded responsibilities of global citizenship, educators can access technological tools to look beyond token symbols of cultural diversity. Meaningful use of technology can be an effective way to address questions that challenge young learners' understanding of themselves in relation to others, both within their communities and beyond.

Removing obstacles to the pedagogical changes required by Jonassen's vision of authentic technology-enabled learning

Educators have been striving to achieve meaningful technology use in our K-12 classrooms for over 30 years. Yet, despite significant investments of time and money in infrastructure, training, and support ''we have few assurances that [educators] are able to use technology for teaching and learning'' (NEA, 2008, p. 1). In this article, we call for a shift in focus from technology integration (and the tools used to achieve it), to technology-enabled learning (and the pedagogy used to support it). Building on the early work of Jonassen (1996) in which he proposed using technology as cognitive tools, we suggest that future technology integration efforts should focus on helping teachers engage students in authentic technology-enabled learning environments. As such, technology integration is no longer an isolated goal to be achieved separately from pedagogical goals, but simply the means by which students engage in relevant and meaningful interdisciplinary work. Implications for supporting teacher pedagogical change, from a system's perspective, are discussed.

O ENSINO DE LÍNGUA INGLESA E O USO DE PORTAIS DE CONTEÚDO PARA A CONSTRUÇÃO DE AMBIENTES DE APRENDIZAGEM

Defended at the Graduate Program in Education, Faculty of Science and Technology Campus UNESP Presidente Prudente, in February 2011, this research is part of the Information and Communication Technologies and research field. The goal was to establish guiding principles for the creation of English language classes for Basic Education with the inclusion of digital technologies suggested in Portal do Professor (www.portaldoprofessor.mec.gov.br), a virtual environment proposed by Ministerio da Educacao as a space for supporting a collaborative authorship network aimed at continuing education of teachers and at the expansion of exploitation of educational resources to develop various forms of educational work. These principles are suggested in light of the language teaching Communicative Approach to teach foreign guidelines and of the proposals of Constructionism as proposed by Papert. The Parâmetros Curriculares Nacionais de Lingua Estrangeira (Ensino Fundamental e Medio), a Proposta Curricular para EJA (Segundo Segmento do Ensino Fundamental) and the documents that guide the work of the teams that prepare class suggestions for Portal do Professor were also considered. Four principles were set, which are: 1) encourage interdisciplinarity, transdisciplinarity and technologies, 2) work with authentic texts, real and contextualized communication and technologies, 3) expansion of the discursive basis, critical skills and technologies, 4) collaborative work construction of objects of interest, problem solving and technologies. These principles for the preparation of English lessons may boost the contextualized and meaningful use of technology in classes and also guide the work of English language teachers and teacher trainers. 1 Dissertacao orientada pelo Prof. Dr. Klaus Schlunzen Junior.

Beacon Communities Aim To Use Health Information Technology To Transform The Delivery Of Care

The Beacon Community Program, authorized under the 2009 American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA), aims to demonstrate the potential for health information technology to enable local improvements in health care quality, cost efficiency, and population health. If successful, these communitywide efforts will yield important lessons that will assist other communities seeking to harness technology to achieve and sustain health care improvements. This paper highlights key programmatic details that reflect the meaningful use of technology in the fifteen Beacon communities. It describes the innovations they propose and provides insight into current and future challenges.

Florida’s EETT Leveraging Laptops Initiative and Its Impact on Teaching Practices

This study measures changes in teaching practices that occurred during a school year that included laptop implementation and professional development. The changes were documented through direct observations of more than 400 classrooms in more than 50 K–12 schools in 11 Florida districts. Trained observers used two valid observation instruments to measure teaching practices and technology use. The Mantel-Haentzel procedure was used to infer statistical differences between fall and spring observations. Observed percentages, means, standard deviations and effect sizes are provided. Results suggest laptop implementation and professional development can lead to increased student-centered teaching, increased tool-based teaching, and increased meaningful use of technology. This research suggests that laptop implementation coupled with professional development may have an immediate impact on instructional practices.

Exemplary Technology-using Teachers

Exemplary technology-using teachers achieve meaningful technology use in learner-centered, constructive environments despite the presence of both internal and external barriers. In this study, we discuss factors that enabled teachers to overcome these barriers, as identified by 25 winners of statewide technology teacher awards. In addition, we explored teachers perceptions of the relative value of both intrinsic and extrinsic factors that were perceived to play key roles in their success.

Integrating Technology into Teacher Education

Teacher education programs around the nation continue to be challenged to prepare prospective teachers to use technology “meaningfully” in their instruction. This implies that university faculty in teacher education programs must become proficient at technology use and must come to understand content-specific, pedagogical uses of technology for their own instruction. In this article, the authors present a model for technological change driven by the notion of situated practice and communities of discourse in their school of education. They also describe a critical framework for facilitating discourse among teacher education faculty from which understandings of why, when, and how to use technology emerged. Several cases of situated practice are discussed with particular attention to how an understanding of meaningful technology use was negotiated through interactions between faculty and graduate students. Implicit in this model for technological change is a strategy for sustainability. This is elaborated as the authors discuss their results.

Evaluation of a Handheld Data Collection Interface for Science Learning

Despite a rise in the use of handheld computers in classrooms, meaningful learning with personal digital assistant (PDA) technology remains poorly studied. We report results from an evaluation of customized handheld data collection software, the BioKIDS Sequence, which was used during an 8-week biodiversity curriculum unit by 5th and 6th grade students in southeastern Michigan. We provide new information on design decisions and usability of our customized software; discuss learner use and preferences; and report rates of data accuracy. Most students were able to enter simple animal observations using an icon-driven, largely linear interface. The interface helped expand the types of data students were aware of, and allowed them to view and review their entries and flag them as uncertain, factors important in supporting accurate data collection. Other BioKIDS research indicates students were subsequently able to see simple patterns in their data to guide the formulation of future hypotheses, questions, or conclusions. The BioKIDS Sequence and PDA technology therefore represent a meaningful use of technology to support scientific reasoning.