Philosophy

Using Technology in education

It is often said that students are active learners and as a result they learn by bringing into
their own experiences to life. It is based on their experiences through which they learn. How can
teachers cater to these students who are active learners? By using technology while educating.
Technology can be defined as the creation and use of technical means to interact with ones
environment. The use of technology in education have many advantages among these advantages
are: It allows students to become technologically competent, technology is use as a tool to
enhance learning by relating to real-world and hands on experiences and it also prepare students
for their future workplace.
The presence of technology in a class can make students over enthuse and as a result
create chaos in a class. While on the other hand technology can be present in a class and yet the
class is just as normal as a class without technology. This can only happen if management
guideline of this class is considered. Among these guidelines that can be considered are: time and
use of assessment and feedback.
To manage a technological class the amount of time students get to interact with the
technology should be considered. Because if students get too little time to interact with the
technology the students will not get the full benefit of using it. This can leave students with
incomplete knowledge of a specific topic. While on the other hand if students are given too much
time they can finish the task give or what they were instructed to do and idle or do other things
that are not relevant to the topic. As a result the time given to use the technology should be
considered.

Assessment and feedback should always be a very important guideline in a technology

class. If students know that at the end of interacting with the technology they will be assessed
students will always do their best to learn from each interaction with the technology and this will
result in students learning from each interaction. The teacher should always give students
feedback on each interaction so that students can identify their weak area and strong areas. And
maintain their strong area and work to improve their weak areas.
Students do not become 21st century learners on their own. They need learning
opportunities that challenge them to utilize 21st century fluencies which is technology. The
following Guidelines can be used to facilitate the twenty first century learners: Knowledge
building, Real problem solving and innovation and Collaboration.
Knowledge building happens when students do more than reproduce what they have
learned: they go beyond knowledge reproduction to generate ideas and understandings that are
new to them. Activities that require knowledge building ask students
to interpret, analyze, synthesize, or evaluate information or ideas. In the process of building
knowledge learning activity does requires students to build knowledge by interpreting,
analyzing, synthesizing, or evaluating information.
Real problem solving and innovation in traditional schooling, students academic
activities are often separate from what they see and do in the world outside school. True problem
solving requires students to work on solving real problems, and challenges them to complete
tasks for which they do not already know a response or solution. For the result of this problem
solving to be considered innovative it must require students to implement their ideas, designs or
solutions for audiences outside the classroom.

Collaboration is to challenge students to the highest level of collaboration, students need

to have shared responsibility for their work, and participate in learning activities that require
students to make substantive decisions together. These features help students learn the important
collaboration skills of negotiation, agreement on what must be done, distribution of tasks,
listening to the ideas of others, and integration of ideas into a coherent whole.