Lesson 3: Roles of Technology for Teaching and Learning

LESSON OUTCOMES
1. Identify roles of technology in teaching and learning.
2. Appreciate the value of technology in supporting student learning.
INTRODUCTION
Are students of today interested to use technology in order to learn? Do teachers have the skills to
use technology to enhance their teaching? With the 4th Industrial Revolution, nobody can deny the influence
of technology in our lives. As future teachers of the 21st century, it is high time that you prepare yourselves
to integrate technology in your classrooms. Using technology is a tool and a catalyst for change. What then
are the roles of technology for teaching and learning?
LESSON CONTENT
As teaching and learning go together, let us explore what would be the roles of technology for
teachers and teaching and for learners and learning. According to Stosic (2015), educational technology has
three domains:
1. Technology as a tutor. Together with the teacher, technology can support the teacher to teach
another person or technology when programmed by the teacher can be a tutor on its own. The
teacher will simply switch on or switch off radio programs, television programs or play DVDs, or
CDs that contain educational programs. There are on-line tutorial educational programs, too.
2. Technology as a teaching tool. Like a tutor, technology is a teaching tool, but can never replace a
teacher. This is like the handyman, which is just there to be reached. Like any other tool, it is being
used to facilitate and lighten the work of the teacher. It will be good if the teacher can also create
or develop technology tools that are needed in the classroom.
3. Technology as a learning tool. While the teacher utilizes technology as the tool for teaching,
likewise it is an effective tool for learning. As a learning tool, it makes learning easy and effective,
it can produce learning outcomes that call for technology-assisted teaching. Even the teachers who
are teaching can utilize similar tools for learning. As a learning tool, it is very interesting that even
the elderly use these tools for learning for life.
A. For Teachers and Teaching
There are numerous roles that technology plays in the job of teachers. As a tool, technology has
opened wider avenues in management of resources and management of learning. Likewise, it has
modernized the teaching-learning environment in schools. Here are some examples of myriad of roles that
technology can do for teachers and teaching.
1. Technology provides enormous support to the teacher as the facilitator of learning. It
transforms a passive classroom to an active and interactive one, with audio-visual aids, charts and
models, smart classrooms, e-learning classrooms which motivate and increase attention level of
learners. Many of these can be searched on the web.
2. Technology has modernized the teaching-learning environment. the teachers are assisted and
supplemented with appropriately structured instructional materials for daily activities. There are
varied available technology-driven resources which can be utilized for remedial lesson or activities.
Likewise, there are also a lot of technology-driven resources that can be used for enrichment
purposes. You may search for the examples on the web.
3. Technology improves teaching-learning process and ways of teaching. This will make the act
of teaching more efficient and effective. There are arrays of teaching methods and strategies that
can use technology which are found compatible with learning styles. The multiple intelligence
theory of Howard Gardner tells us that there is a genius in every child. This implies that there must
be varied ways of teaching as there are many varied ways of learning. All the learning styles can
find support from technology, so that teaching will be more effective and efficient.
4. Technology opens new fields in educational researches. The areas of teaching testing and
evaluation are enhanced by technologies for teaching and learning. Current educational researchers
will no longer find difficulty in interpreting tests, assessment and other evaluation results. There
are available programs that can analyze and interpret results with speed and accuracy. Reference
retrieval is also hastened because many of the research materials are in digital form. Technology
has also provided access to big data that can be processed for problem solving and inquiry.
5. Technology adds to the competence of teachers and inculcates scientific outlook. Through the
utilization of theories of learning and intelligence which are explained in references uploaded in
the net, the teachers are encouraged to imbibe skills to source these information with speed and
accuracy.
6. Technology supports teacher professional development. With the demand of continuing
professional development for teachers, the availability technology provides alternative way of
attending professional development online. For those who are involved as providers of continuing
professional development like trainers, facilitators or organizers, they can level up or enhance their
delivery systems with the support of technology tools

B. For Learners and Learning

1. Support learners to learn how to learn on their own. All teachers fully understand that subject
matter or content is a means to achieve the learning outcomes. There are three categories of
knowledge according to Egbert (2009): declarative knowledge, structural knowledge, and
procedural knowledge.
a. Declarative knowledge consists of the discrete pieces of information that answers the
questions what, who, when, and where. It is often learned through memorization of facts, drills,
and practice. It can be learned by simple mnemonics or conceptual maps. Declarative
knowledge is the fundamental knowledge necessary for students to achieve more complex
higher order thinking such as critical thinking and creativity, inquiry, and production.
b. Structural knowledge consists of facts or pieces of declarative knowledge put together to
attain some form of meaning. An example of declarative knowledge is “pencil”. The idea that
evolved from a pencil is an understanding that: “it is something used to write.” This is referred
to as structural knowledge. It can be presented by concept maps, categorization or
classification.
c. Procedural knowledge is knowledge in action or the knowledge of how to do something. It is
based. on facts but learned through the process of procedural knowledge. Examples include
how to drive a car, how to use a cell phone, or how to speak English. Procedural knowledge is
indicated by a performance task or graphical representation of a. concept.
The traditional sources of knowledge are printed books, modules, and journals. Other sources are
primary sources such as information taken from research. However, knowledge or content can be
learned in many ways.
But how can technology support the learning of declarative, structural, or procedural knowledge?
To teach content, time is always an issue of teachers. Oftentimes, we hear teachers say: “Too many
things to teach, too little time to do.” Technology may be the answer, however the challenge is for
teachers to use technology to learn the technology first. As a facilitator of learning, the teacher can
guide the students to look. for the resources and to utilized them appropriately. There are varied
programs that can be used by students off-line or on-line for students. What should be necessary i's that
the students are engaged, the tasks should focus on questions like how, why and which in addition to
who, what, when and where.
2. Technology enhances learners’ communication skills through social interactions. This is
commonly described as the transmittal of information from one person to another as single
individual or groups of individuals. According to Shiny (2003) in Egbert (2009), there are three
basic communication patterns:
a. Point to point two-way or one-to-one like Internet chat, phone, conversation, or even face-
to-face conversation.
b. One-to-many outbound like a lecture, or television. There is no social interaction.
c. Many-to-many like group discussion, buzz session, heads together. This kind of interaction
provides opportunities for social interaction.
Social interaction occurs in two ways where the participants ask for clarification, argue, challenge
each other and work towards common understanding. Social interaction through communication occurs
through technology (directly between two persons via email, a cell phone or other communication,
technology). It can also occur ground like students discussing about a problem posed by a software
program or with support of technology like teachers and students interacting about the worksheet
printed from a website. In all the three modalities, communication occurs, and technology is involved.
For this particular role, what are the benefits derived from technology supported communication?
a. Enables any teacher to guide the learners virtually and making learning unlimited because
communication and social interaction go it beyond a school day or a school environment.
b. Enhances students’ freedom to express and exchange ideas freely without the snooping
eyes of the teacher face to face.
c. Enables learners to construct meaning from joint experiences between the two or more
participants in communication.
d. Help learners solve problems from multiple sources since there is limitless sources of
information that the teacher can direct or refer to the learners.
e. Teaches learners to communicate with politeness, taking turns in sending information and
giving appropriate feedback.
f. Enhances collaboration by using communication strategies with wider community and
individuals in a borderless learning environment.
g. Develops critical thinking, problem solving and creativity throughout the communication
There are several technology tools and software programs that you will learn in the coming
modules.
3. Technology upgrades learners’ high order thinking skills: critical thinking, problem solving
and creativity.
Twenty-first century learning requires the development thinking skill.
Technology has a great role to play in the development and enhancement of these skills, Let’s
discuss this in the lesson.
 Critical thinking is part of the cluster of higher order thinking skills. It refers to the ability to
interpret, explain, analyze, evaluate, infer and self‑ regulate in order to make good decisions. With
the use of technology, one will be able to evaluate the credibility of the source, ask appropriate
questions, become open-minded, defend a position on an issue and draw conclusion with caution.
All of these competencies are covered by Bloom’s Taxonomy of Analysis, Synthesis and
Evaluation.
Teachers play a significant role in supporting learners with technology. How?
As a role model, teachers should display and practice critical thinking processes, so that the
learners can imitate them. Here are some ways that teachers ca n do to develop critical thinking.
a. Ask the right questions. Most often teachers ask questions to find out if the students can
simply repeat the information from the lesson. Although these are necessary questions like
what, who, when and where, these do not develop critical thinking. Critical thinking
questions should ask for clarity, accuracy, precision, relevance, depth, breadth and logic.
Clarity: Here are some examples: Can you give examples of ...
Accuracy: What pieces of evidence support your claim?
Precision: Exactly how much ...
Breadth: What do you think will the other group say about the issue?
b. Use critical thinking tasks with appropriate level of challenge. Teachers should be mindful
of the readiness of the students. Students who have higher ability may find the task too
easy, thus getting bored early, while those who have low ability may find the task too
difficult. Thus, there is a need to have activities that are appropriate for the learners. These
can be determined by interview, observations and other forms to determine the level of
readiness.
What are some simple ways that teachers should do?
1. Vary the questions asked.
2. Introduce new technologies.
3. Modify the learners' grouping.
4. Modify the critical thinking task.
5. Encourage curiosity
By nature learners are curious. They ask lots of questions all the time, Why is the sky blue?
Why do I have to learn geometry? How do people choose what will they become in the future?
Can robots solve the problems of climate change? How?
These questions will lead to critical thinking, but some of these questions cannot be answered
by the teacher., The unanswered questions are avoided or answered unsatisfactorily. Sometimes
teachers shut down the question that curtails the first step in criticql thinking. The inte et as a
problem solving and research tool can help find answers to the questions.
Creativity is characterized as involving the ability to think flexibly, fluently, originally, and
elaborately (Guildford, 1986 & Torrance, 1974 in Egbert, 2009). flexibly means able to use many
points of view while fluently means able to generate many ideas. Originally implies being able to
generate new ideas and elaborately means able to add details. Creativity is not merely a set of
technical skills, but it also involves feelings, beliefs, knowledge and motivation.
 Seven Creative Strategies (Osborn, 1963). These have been simplified into fewer categories.
To be creative, one can use any of these strategies.
1. Substitute - Find something else to replace to do what it does.
2. Combine - Blend two things that do not usually go together.
3. Adapt - Look for other ways ths can be used.
4. Modify/Magnify/ Minify - Make a change, enlarge, decrease.
5. Put to another use - Find other uses.
6. Eliminate - Reduce, remove.
7. Reverse - Turn upside-down, inside out, front-side back.
All together, the strategies will be labelled as SCAMPER. What should teacher do to support
student creativity? Here are some suggestions:
1. Provide an enriched environment,
2. Teach creative thinking strategies.
3. Allow learners to show what they can do.
4. Use creativity with technology.
Further, teachers can do the following to develop and enhance critical thinking, problem
solving and creativity. As a future teacher, try these suggestions
1. Encourage students to find and use information from variety of sources both on-line and
off-line.
2. Assist students to compare information from different sources.
3. Allow student to reflect through different delivery modes like writing, speaking, or
drawing.
4. Use real experiences and material to draw tentative decisions.
5. Involve students in creating and questioning assessment.
To do these, the teacher should see to it that right questions are asked, student's tasks should be
appropriate to the levels of challenge and curiosity is encouraged.
There are several critical thinking tools and technology software that can support critical
thinking skills. Some of these you will encounter in the succeeding modules:
1. Encourages digital production projects
2. Popularizes e-learning modalities
3. Enhances global awareness and citizenship