Concept Map - Highlighting Technology in School Education

You can view my concept map here:
http://www.mywebspiration.com/view/887035a2c468


“I so wish I had a time machine and be a 2 years old just to use all the awesome educational software and tools that makes learning so much more fun, interactive and meaningful for today’s kids.” –Debarati

In my concept map, I highlighted the technology tools that I felt had the potential to improve teaching in classrooms. I grouped the products on the basis of the curriculum and primarily focused on the Pre-K and Elementary sections as I feel that there's immense potential of using technology for the youngest learners. So, what can technology actually accomplish in the classroom and what are the challenges that are presented while we introduce it in the curriculum? That's the theme that I explored through my readings and in the due creation of the concept map.

Technology in classroom stimulates students by making learning fun. Internet allows students and teachers alike in exploring primary concepts and diverse ideas in real time. There's hardly any subject that cannot benefit from the ocean of resources available on the web. In addition, modern software tools can help students to rehearse; self evaluate and improve on subjects where proficiency could be only gained by practice. Tirelessly, the software tools help students to create baseline, track progress and focus in self improvement. Communication tools like emails, web meetings and blogs benefits everyone in the academic community by enabling instantaneous exchange of ideas. The tools that I have discussed in the following sections bring unique value to the classroom by means of the creative ideas that went behind their implementation. However, use of technology alone cannot make an impact unless its intervention is directed by proficient teachers who have the necessary skills and the motivation to use these tools to make a
difference in the classroom.

Preschool-Kindergarten is an amazing period when a child starts taking those newly found steps in his quest to learning. With his mind and faculties in early development stage, he is a bundle of energy trying to make sense of the world around him. This is the time when parents should carefully consider introducing computers. Using a word processing tool would familiarize the child with numbers and alphabets and will also help them to understand the idea of basic sentence formation. There are a variety of software products that could be used in the classroom to enhance the basic skills that they will need as they get ready to read. Dr. Seuss ABC teaches alphabets in a delightful manner with a wealth of animations and outstanding illustrations. Children can click on individual letters, words and phrases to bring them to life. There's also a large set of activities, musical routines and humorous puns that makes learning an amusing experience and does a complete justice to the legacy of Theodor Seuss, the original author of the series.

Among the other software products available at this level, Mickey’s Preschool from Disney deserves a special mention. Children learn alphabets, shapes and blocks while interacting with Mickey and friends and they get a lot of cheerful encouragement as they navigate through individual levels. However, the application that most impressed me is the iWriteWords on iPad. It is a handwriting game that makes the most effective use of the touch screen by letting the kids trace alphabets, numbers and entire words on the iPad screen with their fingers. High quality graphics, multimedia sounds and a combination of eye-pleasing colors makes the challenging experience of learning to write both natural and entertaining.

Technology in Elementary schools should include software that can augment reading skills. Among the products that I audited, I found that ClickN’ READ Phonics is a well-organized and interactive system. It stands out among others due to its ease of use. Every section is accompanied by animated instruction set that makes navigation easy for young students while they can seamlessly progress through successive chapters without much supervision. Most of the learning is through interaction with animated characters that introduces letter sounds, syllables and new words. The package attempts to improve reading efficiently by means of prompt visual recognition. The exercises stress on proper pronunciation and also teach students as how the same letter can sound differently depending on how it is placed within a word. It covers the school curriculum for kindergarten to third grade and can be also accessed over the internet.

As we get to middle school and higher grades, the role of technology shifts. From being a driver of cognitive learning, it switches to a being a productivity agent that guides students and makes them more efficient in their quest of learning. The choice of the products, their maintenance and upgrades and their deployment in classroom demands experience and foresight from educators in the schools systems. Since the procurement of these systems need major capital commitment, the decision to invest in a particular technology must be made with the careful consideration of the school’s learning goals. Software evaluation for a classroom should involve detailed steps including but not limited to auditing a trial version, reviewing documentation, analysis of features and available customizations and a maintenance plan. The evaluation plan can involve forming control groups of students who could give a trial runs and deliver feedbacks on
all aspects of the products.

Among the products that I reviewed for middle school, Destination Math came across as a popular suite of learning package that could be used in home or schools. It is quite comprehensive in coverage and its primary strength lies in its simulations of mathematical concepts that allow students to learn by investigation. Pre-Algebra World is a similar application designed to improve mathematics skills and it also could be quite useful in classrooms and labs. The tool attempts to connect students to mathematical concepts using real-world themes. The relevance of subjects can go a long way in attracting attention and motivating the struggling learners.

Finally, I would like to talk about software systems that can build curriculum for students with special needs. This is one area where technology is almost indispensible and its use in teaching makes a ground breaking difference. Educational technology companies have a wide range of assistive software and other solutions that work with students with varied types of learning disorders. It’s the very existence of these tools that has enabled families and institutions to offer viable options for these special learners. Learning videos play an important role in learning and United Streaming is a video-on-demand service that covers an almost unlimited number of academic subjects. Mind mapping software products provide a visual way of organizing information and is frequently used to train the difficult process of knitting together ideas into paragraphs and chapters. InspirationὉ and KidinspirationὉ help learners to understand relation between words and pictures and shapes their mind for higher level thinking. The Time4Learning website provides an wealth of resources for special need learners including multimedia lessons, text-to-speech capabilities and on-board writing tools. It covers Maths, Arts, Science and Social Studies and is exhaustive in its scope and design. These tools and many others have made assistive technology affordable for special needs students and set a perfect example of how the use of technology can bring the gift of education to the ones who most needs it.