ROLES AND FUNCTIONS OF EDUCATIONAL TECHNOLOGY IN THE 21ST CENTURY

1. Prepared by:
Flordeliza R. Capacillo

2. Creating a 21st century education
system is about making sure that all
students are prepared to succeed in a
competitive world. It’s about maximizing
the impact of technology to develop
proficiency in 21st century skills, support
innovative teaching and learning, and create
a robust education support systems.
The role of education is to prepare
students to become active, successful, and
contributing members of society.

3. In order to prepare students to play
their role in the 21st century society, the
following can be considered when deciding
how education will look in our schools and
classrooms.
1.) Instruction should be student-centered
In a student-centered instruction,
choice of teaching method and technique
has the learner as the primary
consideration.
In this classroom model, the teacher
would act as a facilitator for the students.

4. Instead of passively receiving
information, the students would gather
information on their own, under the guidance
of their teacher. Learning is about discovery,
not the memorization of facts.
2.) Education should be collaborative
As the word “collaborative” suggest, this
involves groups of students or teachers and
students working together to learn together by
solving a problem, completing a task, or
creating a product.

5. Students should be encouraged to work
together to discover information, piece t
together, and construct meaning. Schools
should also be collaborating with other
educational institutions around the world to
share information and learn about different
practices or methods that have been developed.
3.) Learning should have context
It means exerting effort to extend learning
beyond the class. It also entails effort to bring
outside-the-classroom realities of academic
contexts into the classroom.

6. The teacher can make a point of
helping students to understand how the
skills they are building can be applied in
their lives. Students will be much more
motivated to learn something that they can
see the value in.
We need to take a more general
approach and teach them the skills that are
useful in any situation. Lessons have little
purposes if they do not have any impact in
a student’s life outside of the school.

7. The Role of Technology in 21st
Century Learning
1.) Technology allows for 24/7 access to
information
2.) Constant social interaction, and
3.) Easily created and shared digital
content

8. There is a call for action to integrate
technology as a fundamental building block
into the education in three broad areas:
1.) Use technology comprehensively to
develop proficiency in 21st century skills
Knowledge of core content is necessary,
but no longer sufficient, for success in a
competitive world. Used comprehensively,
technology helps students develop 21st
century skills.

9. 2.) Use technology comprehensively to
support innovative teaching and learning
To keep pace with a changing world,
schools need to offer more rigorous,
relevant and engaging opportunities for
students to learn– and to apply their
knowledge and skills in meaningful ways.
Used comprehensively, technology supports
new, research-based approaches and
promising practices in teaching and
learning.

10. 3.) Use technology comprehensively to
create robust education support systems
To be effective in schools and
classrooms, teachers and administrators
need training, tools and proficiency in 21st
century skills themselves. Used
comprehensively, technology transforms
standards and assessments, curriculum
and instruction, professional
development, learning environments, and
administration.

11. Important Functions of
Educational Technology
1.) Improvement of Teaching
Educational Technology analyses the
process of teaching thoroughly. It tries to
find out the different variables of teaching,
their interlinks, effects upon each other ,
relationships, theories of teaching, phases
of teaching principles of teaching, maxims
of teaching.

12. 2.) Analysis of the Teaching-Learning Process
It tries to find out the different variables
of teaching their interlinks effects upon each
other, relationship. It is also concerned with
various phases of teaching. The principles of
teaching and the maxims of teaching are also
evaluated by it.
3.) Improvement of Learning
It facilitates more and more of learning
in less time. It takes the help of various
empirically established generalizations.

13. 4.) Enhancing Goals of Education
The objectives of educations are being
reviewed and revised with the passage of
time. Educational technology helps in
finding out the right objectives.
Educational Technology helps in
enhancing the right objectives in the light
of the changed circumstances and changed
environment.

14. 5.) Training to Teachers
The changed type of environment with
new curriculum and new materials is to be
handled by the teachers. Right type of
training to he teachers is the need of the
hour.
6.) Development of Curriculum
Curriculum is the total teaching-
learning environment, which has to e
modified and remodelled in the light of
latest thoughts.

15. 7.) Development of Teaching-Learning
Materials
Teaching-learning materials are also as
important as anything else in the teaching-
learning process. They have to be in
accordance with the environment of the
learners. Only right type of materials will
able to modify the behaviour of the learner
suitably making him a fit person for the
society.

16. 8.) Teaching-Learning Strategies
A strategy plays an important role in the
hands of a teacher in every teaching-learning
situation. The strategy has to be the right one,
which should be according to the materials and
is able to bring about effective teaching learning.
9.) Development of Audio-Visual Aids
Audio-Visual aids have always played an
important role in the teaching–learning process.
Computer assisted instructions will help the
learner as well as the teacher to achieve the goals
of education more conveniently.

17. 10.) Help in Overall Improvement
It helps in locating the problems in the
different areas of education. It also helps in
remedying the draw-backs. Educational
technology can revolutionized the whole
process of teaching learning.
11.) Identification of Needs of the Community
It helps in providing equal education
opportunities to backward people,
disadvantaged students and deprived sections
of the society. It tries to improve the
community in every possible way.