Running head: TECHNOLOGY IN THE CLASSROOM 1

Technology in the Classroom

Deborah Bishop
Liberty University



June 20, 2014
TECHNOLOGY IN THE CLASSROOM 2

Abstract
Todays classroom environment integrates an abundance of educational choices for teachers and
students. Higher order thinking skills, communication skills, and interactive tools for all subjects,
association skills, and Core Standards, combine the center for all learning focuses for training the
students minds to transfer information to knowledge, with students gaining more knowledge
simultaneously that ever.
Technology integration is definitely apart of most classrooms environment, but how to best
integrate it into the classroom for effective use. Once the teacher began to use computers, iPads,
Smart Boards, e-Readers, Language Masters, and iPhones in their classrooms, they saw
academic progression and motivation to learn from the students. These devices helped the
teacher with the use of hands-on techniques and audio/visual aids with these devices for student
learning. It just not a process that reaps benefits overnight, but it includes a step by step process,
with trial and error procedures.
This paper was a combination of research study from various books and/or articles to show how
technology in the classroom transmitted an effective environment for student and teacher
efficacy. The positive influence of technology reflected teacher instruction and student learning
involvements through professional development training and the excitement of learning, using
technology as a featured tool.
Keywords: technology integration, instructional technology, teaching methods


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Technology in the classroom was a futuristic vision in the past. Today, technology is an
important tool that is necessary in the learning environment. Educators that involved technology
in their day-to-day plans, for information, real world situations, literacy, mathematics, social
studies, science, and assessments, was able to establish enthusiasm, experienced world escapades
on the web and had an orchestrated approach of learning new ideas with the use of technology.
Organizing the classroom with technology
The methods of classroom organization were significant. Technology at its best was used
to help organize their classrooms for the beginning of the school year. McDonald & Hershman
(2010), in their book, Classrooms That Spark! Recharge and Revive Your Teaching (2
nd
Edition)
stated, Take some time to think about an organization structure for your digital files. This
structure should be logical and easy to find each file (p.5).
External back-up systems helped these educators take their files with them and did not
use their storage space on their hard drives. Therefore, the information that they needed when
they were not in the classroom, was always with them. This external back up system, also kept
the hard drive from crashing. The external back up system was a small disk was very portable
and labeling it made it easy to find their information.
Teachers with more than one hard copy of important papers that they wanted to retain
would do as McDonald et al., (2010) (p. 6, last para.) expressed, Take the pile of keepers and
separate them into categories by themselves example:
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Subject areas This folder was comprised of units of lesson plans needed for
teaching throughout the year.
English as a Second Language/English Language Learner This was a two-fold
folder, in that it had the names of students that were English Language Learners
and information of what reading levels they were on, and if they were scheduled
in other classroom settings for the day. It also had the previous years county and
states assessments, so that the teacher would have a clear understanding on what
the student weaknesses and strengths were.
Classroom management Classroom management is critical in the classroom, so
the teachers devised 3 management plans and let the students vote on which one
they would like to use. The students also added to the plans, if they deemed it
necessary. The teachers found that letting the students be a part of the
development of the classroom rules, would give them a sense of ownership in the
classroom.
Assessment Tools The assessment tools were copies of assessments and where
they were found on the computers.
Learning and thinking centers The learning and thinking centers were strategic
learning computer games, research computer resources for different units, email
set-ups for each student for guided use when emailing each other and the teacher,
writing tools for developing writing techniques, and strategic math lessons for
students that needed extra tutorials. This folder was upgraded monthly.
Thematic units This folder stored lesson plans all the units that the teacher
taught.
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Bulletin boards (p. 6) The bulletin board folder featured ideas for students work
to be displayed in the classroom and the hall.
Collaborating lessons with technology
When educators went into a classroom environment, teachers learned how they, as
educators and students, communicated and collaborated with other teachers and students around
the globe through the computer or the Internet. They used the web to find out different methods
of teaching and learning. The students used face time tools on the Internet to see real-time
instruction and learning skills and collaborated immediately after each lesson. An example that
the author of this paper used in their classroom was, if the students were studying information on
Shakespeare and wanted to feel the environment that Shakespeare lived in at the time of his
writings, the students would face time a student in London and the student in London would go
to Shakespeares setting and display it on a face time device, or on a tool such as Camtasia.
Camtasias display of any setting, with voice, video, and word/sentence capture, was a tool that
students exchanged with other students all over the world, without being there. This was
definitely a real-life experience. The London student would communicate with the students and
answer probing questions, plus the students were able to understand the cultures of education in
United States, (South Carolina) and the United Kingdom, (London).
According to Inan, Lowther, Ross, & Strahl, (2010) (Student computer use and classroom
activities section 4.1, para. 2), In a related study by the author found that students most
commonly used word processing and Internet during classroom activities. They also found that
teacher proficiency on these two computer applications was similarly very high. The study also
showed that the teachers were facilitators and the students were motivated, which meant that
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technology was the source of information and research of the students involved. The students
were motivated because they were able to explore deeper into a lesson that they were given and
the use of the keyboard was just an asset to the word processing skills. They were able to look up
words on their computers to find definitions and to see what parts of speech was applicable to the
sentence structure that they were using, The students were also able to use the Internet to look
up the topics that they were researching information on, without leaving the classroom. This was
a very strong combination of word processing skills and the Internet.
What does this means to todays and future classrooms? Technology forced students to
be self-regulative learners, but with enriching, challenging, and excited minds. The author of this
paper found that the self-regulative practice was and is still used in the Montessori Method of
teaching today. This was from observing the authors grandsons Montessori classroom. When
students learn through the process of researching information, they absorb more information and
it transfers to knowledge.
This study also found that teachers that used Instructional Technology Center, (ITC) and
other tools for instructing students repeatedly recycled the same procedures. They saw that
classroom teachers of students five to eight years old, could not concentrate on just the
orchestration of these methods, but had to consider syncing these tools with other teaching tools
and fulfilling all the other characteristics and duties of the classroom teacher. Therefore,
repetitive procedures for teaching of methods were consistently used in teaching the younger
child. This in a short term is called rote teaching.


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Computers in the educational environment
Chesnek, (2001) found that, Computers equipped with high-quality instructional
programs could expand student knowledge by enabling them to visualize abstract ideas in ways
that were once difficult to imagine (Abstract, para. 1). Educators and the author of this paper
also found that educating students with abstract information, without visuals or tactile tools,
made transferring information to understanding challenging. This included kindergarten students
to adults. The unimaginable to the imaginable was seen in the classrooms. In other words,
students had a visual and or auditory method of places around the world, when using technology.
Game-based learning, became educational tools and were synthesized in the effectiveness of
teaching. The motivation level in students rose and the understanding of the content of the
subject matter was achieved.
In the article by Hermans, Tondeur, Van Braak, & Valcke, (2008) they did a study that
concluded that educator philosophies about instruction substantial determinant of why teachers
implemented computers into their classroom educational, environment. They alleged that,
Though the reported classroom use of ICT can hardly be described as innovative in nature,
constructivist teacher beliefs were found to be a strong predictor of classroom use. In contrast,
traditional teacher beliefs seem to have a negative impact on the integrated classroom use of
computers (5.Discussion and conclusions. para. 1). The author of this paper thinks that some
teachers have anxiety when asked to use the computer or other technical devices. So they do not
use the devices and their classroom environments are often mind-numbing. The teachers have
these anxieties because it is new to them and the lack of training was no help. Some think back
when computers were new in the development of programs and the Disc Operating System,
(DOS). This was a data transferring system that transferred data from the hard copy to a floppy
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disk. They thought of how hard it was to understand this system and the computer lingo.
However, some constructive educators that used the computer more because of their problem
based teaching methods. They enjoyed the challenge of learning and teaching new ideas. They
also found out that the computer industry has made this tool more users friendly.
Primary teachers believe in an environment full of books as tools for learning to read.
Books were more accessible for most primary students and they could take them home to read to
and be read to by their parents or siblings. Books are just as important as technology. The more
children read, their vocabulary increased, books aroused their imagination, and nurtured the
childrens curiosity. Books were used for hands on tools because the students needed to learn to
read from books and could not always get to a computer. The school did not throw away all of
the books for learning and know that they still exist in the book stores today. Plus, there was
some information that can only be found in books. When computers and books were added to
the educational environment, they provided a rich and exhilarating variety of learning aides, but
the combination of the two began a process of preparing the students for a world full of learning.
Reading and technology
In Reading and Technology: Telecommunications in the Reading Classroom by
Rickelman, & Henk, (1990) the authors explained why reading was so important in the world of
technology. All technical devices required one to be able to read the information when using the
web. One needed to be able to have the knowledge of figuring out what key words to use for
provoking the computer to find information. The author of this papers example of this idea was,
a student that was working on a project on finding where bears lived in the Rocky Mountains.
They needed to know what key words to use to find the information. Thus, reading was not the
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only brain instrument they needed, but they to also know how to influence the information for
their purposes. Rickelman & Henk, (1990) in their article stated, Teachers in the future will be
responsible for fostering students who are both literate and technically competent (p. 419, last
sentence).
Technical tools for learning
The authors Prieto, Villagra - Sobrino, Jorrin-Abellan, Martinez-Mones, & Dimitriadis,
(2011) of the article Recurrent Routines: Analyzing and supporting orchestration in technology-
enhanced primary classrooms, conducted a qualitative field study, using five classrooms of a
primary school in Spain, with students ranging from 6 to 8 years old ( Abstract, line 6). They
found that their students learned collaboratively. The students lessons were more informative
and enriched by these learning tools. The students were also learning parts of the computer, how
to research information, how to use the keyboard, different features of the web, such as face
time, and how to use the word processing skills of the computer. This was unheard of when the
author of this paper started teaching, 1970 to be exact.
With Camtasia, the author of this paper discovered that one could upload Camtasia
Studio to iTunes to reverse the dynamics of classroom teaching. Lesson plans were detailed so
that there was no room for unanswered questions. There was a professional development course,
twice a month, in order to keep the educators up to date on new techniques, programs and for
solving problems that the teachers could not solve alone. Although there was professional
development, if the teacher was absent, she/he was able to go on Camtasia to see the entire staff
development. However, if she/he had any questions, then they were addressed at a later time.
The interactive whiteboard was another technical tool that was used at least three times
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per week. This board served as a game-based assessment piece and a tool for use when there
were activities on the internet that needed the students involvement, which brought about
collaborative results. The combination of the dry erase whiteboard with the Liquid Crystal
Display (LCD) projector, that is the type of panel that is used on the projector, powered by
computer software, which synced the computer with the projector, became a computer shown on
the whiteboard for all the students to see and use. Lessons were engaging and motivational and
the author of this paper was able to see the increase of participation with every student. The
game-based tools were games such as Jeopardy, use with any subject, matching activities,
sentence structure, mapping games, for social studies and reading, www.brainpopjr, and many
more. However, the instructional tools on the whiteboard brought magic to the classroom. The
visuals they displayed gave the students a clear understanding of subject matter. The use of the
Internet and face time with students in other schools across the country brought the development
of more projects for sharing and learning Google earth let the students explore real time across
all continents on virtual field trips.
Starfall.com was used for emergent readers, but was used on the computer, not the
interactive whiteboard. This interactive tool helped students with sounds, letters, building
sentences to reading, especially for the English for Speakers of Other Languages, (ESOL)
students. It included books, and word play of sounds to help students on beginning, middle and
ending sounds. The amazement on their faces was astounding! Students progression in reading
was on the upswing! The multi-sensory, hands-on learning tool showed how students grasped
content and had fun while doing so.
There were also recorded lessons for substitute teachers to use, so that the students would
not miss any lesson time because of a teacher being absent. This was sometimes used for
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students absences also. Documentation of student success and progress was right there for the
parents to see during conference time. Although a parental consent form was needed for videoing
a student given at the beginning of the school year, or when a new student was brought into this
teachers classroom.
The Language Master was a tool that was used for the ESOL students. This technology
was a machine that used a card with a strip on it, which the teacher could record their voice. On
the same card, the teacher could paste a picture description of a word and write the word on the
same device. The student would have an audio and visual of the word. The author of this paper
also used it for spelling words, sentences, and let the students use it to record and make their own
word and picture recording. The students were fascinated with this tool also.
Students were grouped and assigned activities in reading, social studies and science,
using videos to use to show a project or research and their findings. They created poems for the
class to read and stories with their illustrations. All of this was first done on the computer, and
then shown to the class and parents on the interactive whiteboard. The parents looked forward to
coming to PTA meetings, when they could come to the author of this papers classroom, because
they loved seeing their childrens work in action. This brought about smiles for all and more
teachers came on board for this process, even the teachers that thought it was too difficult with
all the other work they thought they had to do. The fact that the work was recorded and saved, let
teachers go back to review and improve any lesson. This tool was amazing! Most of all,
behavioral problems became almost nonexistent in the author of this papers classroom.


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Technology in writing
Students were given email addresses, with parental consent, to use in the classroom only.
The teacher had censored the emails if they went beyond the classroom, the teacher and other
students in that class. This was the start of writing skills that they eased into without any
difficulties. They would critique their emails and send them back and collaborate in groups their
findings. However the teacher would use the findings on the interactive board and remove the
names, so that the student would not be embarrassed if there were mistakes.
After the second grade students learned rhyming words, the teacher put them to the task
of finding four rhyming words and writing a poem. They were given a lesson on how to place
background pictures in their poems and the results were spectacular. They wrote so many poems
after that, that the teacher had them to make booklets of their poems.
Creating a Webpage
The teachers at the author of this page had to create a webpage. However, the author
decided to bring the students in on this creation, so that they would be able to see the process of
the setting up this webpage. This was a basic webpage and it showed classroom boards, with
students work, announcements, fun days, and any field trip photos that they wanted to involve.
The camera or iPad was always with the teacher on a field trip. The webpage was an assignment
given to all of the teachers in this school. One could go to the districts webpage and look for the
name of the school, then the teachers name. Clicking on the teachers name in the school would
pull up the classrooms webpage. The assignments and announcements were updated weekly.
The parents loved seeing their childs name, if their child received an award, or made the
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Principals or Honor Roll. They also received awards for accomplishments of most read books,
with emphasis on the passing of a test of the book.
Conclusion/Summary
Technology is not a new tool or concept in the educational environment. For there are
different types of technology, starting long ago with the pencil and has improved to the use of
other tools as the computer, iPad, iPod, Language Master, e-Readers, and such as the Nook, from
Barnes and Noble. They are essential parts of the worlds culture and should be the same in the
classroom. The author of this paper thinks by integrating the computer and its many usages in the
classroom environment, it affords a variety of methods to keep the students motivated and poised
for the syncing all types of educational materials for future use. It offers educators and students
opportunities that were unheard of and impossible in the past. With the communication skills,
writing skills, collaborative skills, and presentation skills that it helps to establish for educators
and students, the advantages of its use are astounding.
Technology has enhanced the core curriculum, improved highly effective teaching
presentations, provided visuals, and supported demonstrations for not only educators, but for
administrative use, student assignments, and student presentations. It has speed up research time,
enlightened visuals that were not able to be seen in the past, it has broadened the minds of
students and teachers, around the world, and it has found a way to show that gaming can be an
important learning tool.
The diversity of global studies, through technology, has brought many cultures into the
classroom setting. Through multiple subjects, it has expanded the creative opportunities in the
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student minds to bring relevance of the concepts that are unseen to clear vision, through face
time interactions. All of these technical tools were used for the enhancement of student
expectations in the learning environment and without them, the students in the classrooms of
today and the future would be stuck in a world they may not ever experience.














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References
Chesnek, M. (2001). Technology in the classroom. The National Academies in Focus, 1(1), 23.
Retrieved from http://search.proquest.com/docview/211023120?accountid=12085.
Hermans, R., Tondeur, J., Van Braak, J. & Valcke, M. (2008). The impact of primary school
teachers educational beliefs on the classroom use of computers. Elsevier B V
publications. NX Amsterdam, The Netherlands.
Inan, F., Lowther, D. Ross, S., & Strahl, D. (2010). Pattern of classroom activities during
students use of computers: Relations between instructional strategies and computer
applications. Elsevier B V publications. NX Amsterdam, The Netherlands.
McDonald, E., & Hershman, D. (2010). Technology in the Classroom! Recharge and Revive
Your Teaching, (2
nd
Edition). New Jersey: Jossey-Bash. Hoboken.
Morgan, R. & Olivares, K. (2012). Quick Hints for Teaching with Technology: Successful
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(2011). Recurrent routines: Analyzing and supporting orchestration in technology-
enhanced primary classrooms. Elsevier B V publications. NX Amsterdam, The
Netherlands. p. 1214-1227.
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Reading Classroom. Wiley on behalf of the International Reading Association. p. 418-
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