Shyla Smith

EDU 225
12/6/15
Instructor Clark

Integrating Instructional Technology www.luvteach.weebly.com

The use of technology in the classroom opens doors to places across the street as well as
around the world while not having to venture on a field trip. With this kind of capability
technology brings a multitude of knowledge and learning tools straight to the students. This
accommodates the students learning process by giving them real life pictures and examples, so
the learning occurs practically first-hand. This will help students better understand what concepts
a teacher is explaining with colored, graphic pictures and videos while placing less responsibility
on the teacher to have to color, cut out, or type up for each and every lesson a teacher must cover.
Technology is one of the keys that will enhance student instruction compared to prior teaching
methods.
Laptop
Laptops are a portable way for students to be active or passive in the learning process.
The most popular passive activity [is] note taking (Kay & Lauricella, 2015). This practice
encourages students to become familiar with the most widely used piece of technology in the
business world. This is important since the majority of students use phones and tablets on a daily
basis and are not as familiar with the layout of a laptop. To encourage familiarity with this tool,
students will be expected to take notes regularly and complete virtual assignments. Laptops make
dissecting frogs and exploring the anatomy of living organisms and organs fun and easy, so
students will be more engaged with their learning environment.
SmartBoard
A SmartBoard pairs up with a computer in a teachers classroom to act as an interactive
projector screen. Students are able to play games and review for test and quizzes by answering
questions on a SmartBoard. This makes learning fun and easy while preparing the students for

the expectations of what will be on an upcoming test or quiz. A SmartBoard is appropriate before
the testing stage. Students may also fill in the blanks with the SmartBoard pen from a document
uploaded by the teacher onto the projector or move pictures to the correct spot with the pen, or
hand, on a page made by the teacher. Paperwork can become a class effort and a way for students
to answer questions about lessons. From a science standpoint, students could easily label parts or
an organism. The SmartBoard allows students to act as a group, creating social skills for working
environments, while gaining academic knowledge.
Personal Smart Phones
Smart phones the most portable widely used computer by the United States population.
Most students have one, even at early ages, and become accustomed to their smart phone to the
point that it is practically another limb because it is so frequently used to learn information. If a
student has a smart phone, they are able to navigate through the Internet with ease and control,
especially since their personal smart phone is their own. The students would not have to struggle
to learn how a new device works but instead would be able to access knowledge like they do
throughout the day. Jackson and Obispo found them to be a promising technology for
supporting active learning (2012). Smart phones have the ability to interact with online games
the class can play as a whole, and smart phones are an easy portal for a teacher to communicate
with students in a one way conversation or back and forth on an Internet application.
Pros and Cons of using Technology to Facilitate Learning
Technology is powerful tool, whether used to help or hinder a person. Students with
access to technology are able to benefit greatly by bringing the outside world to their desk chair
and learning about the subjects that stretch across the world. This makes almost all learning
hands-on in the classroom so that students can become familiar to greater degrees than prior

ways of teaching were capable of. The down side is the open door students have to information
not in the curriculum of the school and may be prohibited content. This type of content can be
blocked by certain filters, but the filters do not keep out all negative content and do block some
beneficial content in the learning process.
Wired and Wireless Classrooms
Wired classrooms are more like computer labs where each computer is connected to the
next and all are a part of the same network. Wireless classrooms are that that include laptops and
tablets; each is its own and can be transported around the classroom. A wired classroom is better
fitted for individual work because the computers are stationary while wireless computers can be
moved and used by groups comfortably. Depending on what type of activity a teacher decides to
assign would dictate which type of access method should best be used. Though a wired
classroom could be used for group projects, it would be cramped for students to work and some
students would choose to not engage in the assignment with that as an excuse. And although
portable computers would work for individual work, the school could save money by investing
in less of these and benefit the same equivalency of students through group projects. A down side
to both technologies is that many of these students cannot type as fast as they can write
(Gunter & Gunter, 2014). This is an issue now, but as technology becomes more prominent,
typing will come as second nature to most students in the future.
Conclusion
Technology is well on its way to making information more accessible for students.
Laptops allow students to become acquainted with an important piece of equipment used in their
lives outside school so that they would be better prepared while SmartBoards make what used to
be a general picture on a wall from a projector an interactive image they or the teacher may

manipulate. Smart phones allows students to use previous experience to research and discover
criteria for an assignment with ease so that the assignment on hand is more focused on the lesson
rather than learning a new device and its uses. Technology can be either wired or wireless, and
both have their benefits as well as drawbacks, but as long as a teacher pairs the corresponding
assignments with the proper type of access method, the students will benefit to the greatest
extent. In todays world, students will be experiencing the ability to accomplish the same types
of assignments but with better understanding and representation with the accompanying of
technology.

References
Gunter, G.A. & Gunter, R.A. (8). (2014). Teachers Discovering Computers: Integrating
Technology in a Changing World. Retrieved from http://www.gcumedia.com/digitalresources/cengage/2014/teachers-discovering-computers_integrating-technology-in-achanging-world_ebook_8e.php
Jackson, L.D. & Obispo, S.L. (2012). Is Mobile Technology in the Classroom a Helpful Tool or a
Distraction?: A Report of the University Students Attitudes, Usage Practices, and
Suggestions for Policies. International Journal of Technology, Knowledge, and Society.
Kay, R.H. & Lauricella, S. (2014). Investigating the Benefits and Challenges of Using Laptop
Computers in Higher Education Classrooms. Grand Canyon University. 1499-6677.