Essay on "Instructional Technology Enhances Learning"

Essay 12 pages (3747 words) Sources: 12

[EXCERPT] . . . .

Instructional Technology Enhances Learning

Mission and Vision Statement

Being a teacher I believe that when it comes to the use of technology for the benefit of children in a classroom, we should use it not only to teach the students the basic computer skills (Massachusetts Software Council Inc., 1998) or the usual drill-and-practice exercises that have been used since the 1980s but to also help them in understanding the actual value that education can have in one's life and how it could change a society as a whole.

Therefore the use of technology especially in a school or classroom should be encourages in a manner that would better the quality of teaching by implementing new and effective teaching strategies and help in eliminating the things that reduce the chances of quality education being delivered to the students (Dexter, 2002).

Following is the vision that I have regarding the technology plan for this classroom:

It should be understood by the administration of school that technology is not used as something extra or apart from the regular course of the class rather it should be integrated in the education system in such a manner that it would help in achieving the goals of the course. It needs to be understood by the staff that technology is not just a beneficial add-on in the education system rather that in order to keep up with the changing world technology needs to be adopted to maintain and improve the quality of education being delivered to the students (Dexter, 2002).

It needs to be understood by people that in order to ensure that the positive things being taught to the students will be used by them once they enter the practical world and technology can go a long way in making this possible (Dexter, 2002).

Therefore, technology needs to be infused, integrated and recognized as a very important part of the course plan of a class (Dexter, 2002).

The things that I will be focusing on with regards to this technology plan are what kinds of technology will I be implementing to achieve the curriculum goals? How I am going to implement this technology? How will I need to develop and adjust my own teaching skills in order to not only integrate the technology in class but to also take maximum benefit from it (Dexter, 2002)?

Section Two: Communications Plan

With the help of the technology plan it will become a lot easier for the parents of the students in my class to keep an eye on the progress of their child in the school (International Society for Technology in Education, 2002).

How this plan will work is the way that since in today's world a lot of parents use internet and therefore have email ids, so regular information will be sent to the parents through emails about their children. The parents will also have the option to limit the amount of information being received through the emails (International Society for Technology in Education, 2002).

The parents who don't have an email id will be contacted through the phone whenever they need to be contacted about the performance of their child (International Society for Technology in Education, 2002).

The School Managers that are made use of at the district level will be used in the technology plan for my class as well. These managers will enable me to contact all or a particular number of parents with the help of an auto-dialling phone message system. The messages can be recorded on the machine with information or queries about the students and later on sent to all the parents that it concerns (International Society for Technology in Education, 2002).

There are online grading systems that are being used by the many secondary as well as elementary schools and the one that has been standardized by the district is Easy Grade Pro-however, there are a very few teachers who are making use of this system. I will be using this system in my technology plan for the class to grade the performance of my students (International Society for Technology in Education, 2002).

The importance of motivating children regarding the work done by them and the achievements made by them is often ignored by the parents as well as the teachers. I will be making use of the Web in order to publish the achievements of my students online. This will not only help me in motivating the students to do better but will also give the world an opportunity to see how the students in my class and school are doing (International Society for Technology in Education, 2002).

I will be making use of the tools that are now being given in a lot of schools to enable the students and the parents to communicate with the teachers online. This will not only enable the parents to keep a close look at the performance of the kids in the class but will also allow the students to communicate with me in case they have some confusions or queries about their homework or coursework (International Society for Technology in Education, 2002).

E-Rate is being used by the school which acts as a source to fund the eligible services. Therefore, I too will be making use of E-Rate in my technology plan for the class as this will help me with the telephone service, internet and the cellular service.

Rationale:

It is the strategic goal of XYZ School to enhance the communication between the stakeholders. The Technology Audit being used by the school requires that the parents access the internet in order to get to know about the performance of their children in a timely manner. There are also many researches that have been conducted on the communication among the parents and the teachers which suggests that the timely communication among the parents and teachers improves the quality of education being given to the students and this also helps the parents and teachers in finding out how well the technology is being used by the students and to what extent are they benefiting from it and what else could be done to enhance the level of education (NCES, 2002; NEIRTEC, 2002).

It is our plan to increase the use of XYZ Online Student Information System (OSIS) by the parents. The school also plans on shifting from SASIxp student information system to Aeries as, Aeries not only allows you to grade the performance of the students online but it will also enable the parents to view the performance of their kids online (NCES, 2002; NEIRTEC, 2002).

Therefore, I will be integrating Aeries in the technology plan for my class the moment that the school starts using it. A baseline will be established by us regarding the number of parents using Aeries in 2010-2011 and it is after this that we will be monitoring and reporting the annual usage (NCES, 2002; NEIRTEC, 2002).

I will be making use of a web-based interface for the interim as well as course grade for my class. At the moment this will be done by using OASIS however, the moment that Aeries is implemented in the school I will shift from Easy Grade Pro-grading system to Aeries grading. The parent use baseline data will be established (NCES, 2002; NEIRTEC, 2002).

For the purpose of collecting the data regarding attendance, discipline and demographics a web-based interface will be established by me (NCES, 2002; NEIRTEC, 2002).

I will also make efforts to encourage the administration of the school to provide the other staff members with the training on the usage of web-based interfaces as this will help me communicate the performance of my students in other courses to their parents (NCES, 2002; NEIRTEC, 2002).

I will also be encouraging the administration of the school to form a Website Standards team that will help in keeping the staff up-to-date about the schools web site (NCES, 2002; NEIRTEC, 2002).

When it comes to the safety of the students regarding the content that is posted about them on the internet a web content filter is used by the district. This software scans the information before it gets posted on the internet and sees the chances of any student getting bullied due to the information. This web content filter will be used by me in the technology plan as well as, I want the student to feel comfortable and motivated when it comes to the use of technology and not grow a negative attitude towards it (NCES, 2002; NEIRTEC, 2002).

Section Three: Integrating Instructional Technology

In this section I will basically be evaluating the hardware and the software being used by the teachers in our school with regards to the technology and the kind of impact that had on the quality of education being provided to the students.

My basic focus in making this plan is to strengthen the collaboration between home and school, improve the quality of teaching which would ultimately improve the quality if learning. It is my basic focus… READ MORE

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