Individual Research Project Summary Internet and the Classroom

My research Project was Internet and the Classroom. When technology tools are integrated into the K-12 and university classrooms, learning can be extended in powerful ways. The internet and multimedia provides students and teachers with access to up-to-date information, ways to collaborate with students, teachers, and experts around the world, and opportunities for expressing understanding via images, sound, and text.

The effective use of technology can help change the current educational paradigm from teacher-centered instruction to student-centered instruction. The new paradigm includes multi-sensory stimulation, collaborative work, information exchange, active, inquiry based learning in an authentic, real world context.

Technology is transforming education. Teachers have access to more information, more ways to interact and collaborate, more approaches to instruction than ever before. Combining the boom in instructional technology and constructivism, teachers are providing students with activities like the webquest, virtual field trips, and online activities that require research and evaluation of digital information.

A framework for improving student achievement called Understanding by Design (UbD) helps teachers clarify learning goals, devise assessments, and craft effective and engaging learning activities.

The following technology tools are ways that educators are using technology in classrooms: The Smart Board which is an interactive whiteboard linked to a computer where users write directly on the whiteboard and see their writing displayed on the computer's monitor. A Student Response System is a tool used to promote active learning in the classroom. Students respond to questions posed by the instructor using a small handheld that looks like a TV remote control. The use of digital cameras in the classroom can enhance the leaning environment as a writing prompt, to illustrate the steps in a procedure, to record a field trip, to create class books, to capture classroom activities for newsletter, webpage, and student portfolios. Weblogs are used as collaborative spaces where students read stories then use a blog to answer questions and create meaningful content for audiences wider than just a teacher and a small group of peers. They learn to negotiate knowledge in real and relevant ways, preparing then for the connected work they will find once they graduate.

Technology is here to stay and teachers need to provide the children of the 21st century with a technology rich classroom with best teaching practices for optimal student learning.