Even when we claim that both students and educators exploit educational technology to boost teaching and learning, we are far from reality. We all use technological potential partially when it comes to education.
Teachers using presentations for explaining materials, students using smartphones for passing tests, both teachers and students using apps to track students’ progress, students using PowerPoint presentation services and other similar platforms for homework assignments, and so on.
This means we hardly use even half of the possibilities the technologies grant us with. We need to look deeper and aim to Engage, enhance and extend with Educational technology. Let’s look closer at what that means in the context of education.
1. Engage – Motivate Students
When we talk about engagement, we have in mind the relations between teachers, technologies and students, that end in fruitful educational results. With the means of technologies, the teacher should be able to inspire the students and motivate them to learn and succeed in the aimed field.
If we engage with educational technology, this results in:
- concentration on the assignment with less distraction
- motivation to start and proceed through the study process
- shifting from passive to active learning.
By using technological means properly, teachers manage to catch the attention of students who will never study along with the plain curriculum. Presenting an interesting task, with devices to be exploited, rewards promised, and state of the things influenced with the task and its completion, the teacher can engage more and more students to learn and succeed without must, threat, or even beg.
2. Enhance – Deepen the Knowledge
Why are we so after technologies in education? They broaden our horizons and deliver an understanding of things in a way that nothing else will do. Modern challenges should be covered in modern means. That is why technologies are the best solution in education and many other cases. Else you will stay behind the concept, the understanding, and the progress in general.
Enhancement with educational technology allow us to:
- bring students to a deeper and more sophisticated understanding of the content
- tailor a way for students to catch the meaning of simple and difficult concepts and processes
- make students display their gained knowledge and skills most effectively and practically, that won’t be possible without technologies.
When the teacher enhances the educational process with technologies in the proper way, they easily understand the aim and targets of the studying and strive to succeed with practical tools at hand. Technological means deliver not only a deeper understanding of the subject but a bigger platform to express their understanding and apply the skills.
3. Extend – Apply in Real Life
We often see the educational process as a separate part of our life, both routine and life way in general. This way we limit ourselves from the deeper meaning of the educational process. It is not only about schooling, doing homework, completing the assignments, and some other simple educational processes. It is about extending the educational process to everyday life, applying and developing knowledge and skills in practice, realizing the vitality of education through covering life challenges, and so on.
When we extend with educational technologies, we mean to:
- learn more than curriculum proposes and out of the class and school day
- apply school knowledge and skills in everyday life
- gain the idea from the teacher and keep on learning without the teacher but only technological tools at hands.
We have to leave back the times and experience of gaining only theoretical knowledge. Instead, both students and teachers should aim at practical skills, those we can apply in everyday life, those we will become successful with, those we can make our lives easier with.
When extending educational means and targets with technological tools we result in more vital and efficient learning. This way we can understand the theory, perfecting the practical sides of the study process, and we will certainly apply it in real life.
Final Words
With the modern technological potential and tools available, it is easy to apply technologies in the educational process. The point is not the number or name of tools teachers and students exploit but how they use technologies, their aim, and potential outcomes.
Teachers and students have to gain the most out of technological education to be able to get motivated to study process and positive outcomes, gain deeper knowledge and practical skills and bring everything in real life. Technologies build a bridge between educational and real-life and a successful future, the better you exploit them, the steadier the bridge will be, the more rewarding outcomes are waiting both for teachers and students.
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