1. Chelsea Fletcher
February 2014
INST 6031.02

2. Overview
When students are using technology as a tool or a
support for communicating with others, they are in
an active role rather than the passive role of recipient
of information transmitted by a teacher, textbook, or
broadcast. The student is actively making choices
about how to generate, obtain, manipulate, or display
information.

3. Important Fact #1
One of the most important benefits of technology in
the classroom is that it is preparing students to work
effectively in this 21st century.

4. Important Fact #2
Effective technology integration must happen across
the curriculum in ways that research shows deepen
and enhance the learning process.

5. Important Fact #3
Technology also changes the way teachers teach,
offering educators effective ways to reach different
types of learners and assess student understanding
through multiple means.

6. Important Fact #4
Teachers are now using SMART boards, interactive
whiteboards, projectors, and other visual aids to teach
the lesson. Using these items in the classroom to
facilitate instruction causes the students to become
engaged, more motivated, and more excited about
learning (“Effects of Technology”).

7. Important Fact #5
The teacher is no longer the center of attention as the
dispenser of information, but rather plays the role of
the facilitator setting project goals and providing
guidelines and resources, moving from student to
student or group to group, providing suggestions and
support for student activity. As students work on
their technology-supported products, the teacher
rotates through the room, looking over shoulders,
asking about the reasons for various design choices,
and suggesting resources that might be used (“Effects
of Technology”).

8. Important Fact #6
Technologies support meaningful learning when they
fulfill a learning need—when interactions with
technologies are learner initiated and learner
controlled and when interactions with the
technologies are conceptually and intellectually
engaging.

9. Important Fact #8
Technology as information vehicle for exploring
knowledge to support learning by constructing:
for accessing needed information
for comparing perspectives, beliefs, and worldviews

10. Important Fact #9
Technology can also consist of any reliable technique
or method for engaging learning, such as cognitive
learning strategies and critical thinking skills.

11. Conclusion
However, technology should not replace traditional
classroom style, unless it is online like this class, but
rather act as an asset to help students learn more
effectively.