Effective use of technology to improve student classroom performance

¶ … Technology to Improve Student Performance in Any Classroom

Course Title: Technology in Administration

When we talk about education and classrooms, we should first remember how the process of education started. The first stage was the development of language, then the development of methods to pass on the techniques of agriculture from father to son, followed by the need of the kings to record their history for posterity. This was done in various forms and languages, and had probably continued undisturbed for hundreds of years, till the advent of the desk-tops in the 1980s. Then the process of language, education and resultant communication changed, and we have continuous, new usage to which the computer is being put. Examinations to which the public can appear and want to appear are gradually shifting to the computer. This has also led to the development of the universal dominance of English over other languages. At the same time, a stage has come where all individuals who want to be educated, and apply their educational knowledge to practical purposes, have to learn the usage of computers. The faster they learn the computer, the better it is for education as they get into touch with the world-wide, largest source of information - the Internet. At the same time, the computer also helps the process of their education, as it is like an advance drawing tool which can translate their thoughts into lines and pictures reflecting the thoughts. The versatile nature of computers also makes it possible to draw new images and edit them much easier than on paper. The computer also can store a lot of information which can be easily passed on to many children in an unchanged format. This is probably why the usage of new technology has become essential in today's classrooms.

The Effective Use of Technology to Improve Student Performance in Any Classroom

We all know that the technological world is changing very fast and this change is affecting all activities of human beings. In this exercise we are trying to study the impact of the technological changes on the process of education and this study is not on the education at a high level, but also on education at lower levels - even at the lowest classes in school. The general aim of using technological changes should ultimately lead to improvement of student achievement as that is the only correct method of evaluating the quality of education. For this purpose there was a research on the effectiveness of educational technology by the Educational Testing Services. This study showed that basic use of computers and that meant using computers for drill and practice software like teaching of addition and subtraction is certainly effective for the students. (Technology's Impact)

The situation changes when the use of computers is at a higher level, like the Internet for exchange of information does not show any clear results. It is clear that when the instructions become more complex and sophisticated; the evaluation of the effectiveness of computer technology becomes more difficult. At the same time, the computer is patient at levels much more than human beings and this leads to situations where the students find it easier to continue. One of the important studies on this has been conducted by RAND and the study was presented by the researcher, James Kulik. He has worked for more than a decade on the subject using computers for the purpose of instruction. The total report presented by him is based on the total summary of more than 500 individual studies, and all these studies were done on computer-based education. Ultimately he came to several conclusions based on the studies. The first and the most important of these is that it was seen in general that students end up learning more in less time when the instructions are computer based, than when they are not. The second positive aspect is that students end up liking the computer more as also their classes when computers are used, than when the computers are not used. At the same time, the impact of computers was not always positive, and in as many as 34 studies, the main determining factor was the attitude of the students. In all these studies, the computers did not end up having any significant impact on the entire process of education. (Technology's Impact) further study was done by the Software Publishers Association through an independent consulting firm. This summed up 176 studies that were undertaken from 1990 to 1995 about the effectiveness of technology in schools. The summary of the report showed that technology rich environments had a positive effect regarding the performance of the students, and the performance was not affected by the subject that was concerned. The effect was on both regular and special need students. One of the major areas that benefited was in the writing of the students. Students working on word processors make the students finding great ease in editing their writing, and this in turn improves the quality of their writing. This also improves the quality of their making criticisms and editing work written by others, and this can be done over a complete computer network. As a result, the entire qualities of writing by entire groups improve. (Technology's Impact)

It is well-known that desktop computers have had a high impact on education, and even the hand held computers have now started entering the classrooms. This is called the personal digital assistant or PDA. PDA is portable and that helps the students from going to laboratories and also allows the keyboards to be collected for a fraction of the cost of a desktop computer that would otherwise have to be purchased. One of the schools where these devices have been tried out is the Metropolitan School of Wayne Township in Indianapolis, in. The students write essays, notes, ideas, directions and lessons on the PDA. They also review the questions given to them with the use of the word processing software on the PDA. This helps them in deciding which lesson to use and also help each other by transferring data from the computer of one student to another. The students also use the notepad feature on the PDA and transfer their own hand written notes to the computer by using the specially formatted word processing software. They also use their PDAs to send their daily homework to the teacher through beaming to the teacher. This helps the teacher in correcting them, and also the students who do not have a computer at home. The PDAs are taken home by the students and used by them for their homework which is of course clear. (PDA Handhelds: Improving Student Performance)

Good teachers can create certain places where the information for the class can be stored and this can ensure that students do not loose the course contents, contain a weekly surprise, and even the picture of the teacher so that teacher can be recognized by even those at the back of the class. This site can make clear complex ideas; provide graphics to the students so that they can continue their studies outside the class through the Internet. The questions can be controversial or complex so that the students can respond to them. The students can be given different roles in the class according to their special abilities. (Ideas for Using Technology to Enhance Teaching and Learning)

This sort of proper use of technology encourages students to explore new frontiers of knowledge and as a result produce better quality of work. This has also been reported by Beatrice Berman and others at the American Institute for Research in Washington DC. This has been described in a recent report regarding implementation, effectiveness and the role of technology. Research has found that forth graders who were connected online had significant higher scores on two of nine learning measures. When these students moved on to the sixth grade, the success was on four of the nine measures. Thus researchers have found that increase in technology had a general and positive impact on the education imparted by the schools. This led to increased motivation and improvements in the performance in academic areas. The improvement also reflected in areas of teacher turnover, higher student attendance and higher test scores than similar schools. The usage of technology had also led to a lowering of disciplinary incidents. (Technology's Impact)

Teachers regularly give out a lot of information to students through handouts, tests and class notes. Computers can help in the building up of these notes. There are many word processing programs and information available on the Internet that helps teachers to develop more professional material for the students. (Using the Computer for Personal Productivity) the guiding principle is that every student is capable of learning mathematics and statistics if they are helped to overcome the obstacles that they face. For most of the students the main stopping factor is anxiety, and it is the job of the teacher to remove the anxiety. The use of computers help the students make mistakes without directly facing the teachers and this reduces their tension. This also helps other students who vary in learning style, and the computers help the teacher present the material in different styles. (Improving Student Performance by Reducing Anxiety)

One of the simplest technologies that can be used is through Email, which supplies individual written answers to questions and replies from the teachers to the students. The replies received from the students can then be built into different files for the students, though this will require applying some high level Email software. Again the Email from the students can be made more sophisticated by asking the students to reply to questions finally forming a web page. This helps the students become more focused in their studies. The responses to the form sent out can be collected by the teacher in a file on the server, but this requires higher technology. This method helps the computer itself analyze and evaluate the responses given by the students. This can be used with multiple choice answers which can reply the results directly to the students. In case, the multiple choice use is not feasible, then short answers can be collected for evaluation by the teacher or the teaching assistant. These sorts of quizzes help the student evaluate themselves, and decide whether they are ready for a particular course. Sometimes, the quizzes let the students decide whether they are ready for a particular course or not. This can be combined with checking the databases of the students by the teachers and this may give indications to the teacher that the student is not well prepared, and this may help the teachers take some other decisions. (Improving Assessment with Technology)

Another school where the exercise has been carried out is the Christopher Columbus Intermediate School. And the results have been astounding. The students of the school have led the area in terms of the proportion of students who have passed the practice administrations of New Jersey's Early Warning Test. There have also been other indications through the proportion of students who passed for the ninth grade honors program when compared to the students from any other city school. The school ended up having the best attendance record for both the students and the faculty. The change was noted by the students and this resulted in the school having the highest number of students coming in and the lowest numbers going out over the period of 1993 to 1995. The entire project was sponsored by the state of Indiana as also the Lilly Endowment and Ameritech. The scheme supplied the participating students with computers at home and access to the school through modems. (Technology's Impact)

The schools under this program were compared with others who were not involved on the project. This was at the classroom level and took into account seven classrooms under the project and three outside the project. The classes under the project showed a great improvement in all writing, a great improvement in their understanding of mathematics as also being able to execute it, an improvement in their skills with the computer, an improvement in their ability to teach other students, a better skill at solving of problems and thinking critically. This led to them having more of self-confidence and esteem. The scores were standardized and the results were spread over all classes and schools as also subjects that the students were involved with. Obviously, the effect was higher for students who had been with the program for a longer period.