Educational Technology Essays - Education, Distance Education

Educational Technology The best method for improving educational standards is to utilize every tool available, including state-of-the-art technology. Computers and the Internet have expanded the way in which information can be delivered to the students of today. Today's networking technologies provide a valuable opportunity to practice new learning techniques. Educators are discovering that computers are facilitating learning. Computer based communications, or Telecommunications, can offer many educational opportunities; therefore, educators will need to adapt current teaching methods to incorporate this new media into the classroom. Computers have made a fundamental impact in most industries, providing a competitive advantage that has come to be essential to many businesses. Therefore, schools must also use technology to improve the educational process. School systems often consider purchasing a computer network, and justify its purchase by applying it to routine administrative tasks, such as attendance records and grading. While these tasks are very important, they only show a small part of what technology can do for a school. Technology must go further than simply keeping attendance; it must focus on keeping students interested and productive. Since computers and the Internet have expanded in such a way in which education can be delivered to students, it is currently possible to engage in "distance education through the Internet. Distance education involves audio and video links between teachers and students in remote areas. Video conferencing allows groups to communicate with each other. Desktop video conferencing promises to bring students together from geographic and cultural distances, face to face via computer. Not only will the teacher talk to the students, but the students will be able to interact with each other. This will make students more interested and fascinated with learning. Not only does the Internet and video conferencing help education, but new programs designed for educational purposes are being developed. Dictionaries, encyclopedias and atlases that a student can access from his own computer can be a definite advantage. For example, instead of looking for a particular country and simply finding out where it is in a regular atlas, that can type in the name of that country, and not only will they find out where it is faster, but they will obtain more information about that particular country. Instead of having volumes and volumes of heavy encyclopedias, technology has enabled companies to place all of these massive books onto one small CD. This CD is much simpler than the unpleasant job of flipping page by page just to read about an uninteresting topic, such as history. Writing reports on a type-writer was a displeasing method to write term papers; especially if that student runs out of white-out. Certain programs offer a spell-checker, thesaurus, and other helpful features, which make writing that term-paper easier. These particular programs are only a few of the educational resources available to students. Most educational boards should be open to any new idea that technology has to offer. It would not be fair for a student in a particular city to receive a better education than another student in a different city. Technology is not meant to replace teachers, but is there to serve students to make tedious tasks easier. Therefore, this technology should be available to every student, wherever they may live. In doing this, it not only needs the support of teachers and educators, but it also requires support from communities. However, technology can not work by itself. Teachers must take a position in designing a tech-powered classroom curriculum, devoting time to become familiar with the new available resources. Technology can also improve writing with the use of new word processing programs that provide easy to use tools that are not normally available in the classroom. Technology is able to help students in a variety of ways. By making learning more enjoyable, students will want to learn and will not see education as such a difficult responsibility.