Role of Teachers in Educational Technology

                   

            Teachers play a vital role in educational technology. They are expected to be knowledgeable about the content they're teaching. A well-informed lecturer, role model, facilitator, assessor, planner and resource developer is needed in teaching today’s students.

            Of course, the teacher should be very familiar about what he’s lecturing. Being well-informed means that he is updated and open-minded about the changes and discoveries created. How can he facilitate learning if he only depends on outdated materials?

           That’s why a true knowledgeable teacher would use any resources that he will see proven that it is accurate and based from evidence. He isn’t afraid of discovering new things because he puts into his mind that as a tool for education, he will do his best and try new things to enhance students’ learning. Bringing out his best is also bringing out the greatest in his every student. A model who knows how to teach, one who keeps in his mind that his students’ success is also his, gives his best in teaching and unselfishly sacrifice everything he has for their benefit.            

            Another crucial role of teachers is about letting the students learn at their own pace. It means that teachers shouldn’t put too much pressure on students. Learning should be fun. And because of technology, students creatively learn new things that can be easily shared to their classmates. Putting too much pressure on a student will just discourage the students to learn. Instead of wanting to learn, the students bear in their minds that they should get high grades to impress their teacher and for them to avoided their teacher’s scolding. They wouldn’t understand anything.

            Teachers should guide the students in their path of learning. Teachers shouldn’t abandon the students who are having a hard time especially now that technology changes fast. They should be patient and lead the students to an exciting and motivating learning environment.

            The way on how a teacher provides quality instruction is one of things that should be considered first. Technology then, will serve as a tool that provides an improved, creative and motivating environment for students’ learning. That’s why I think that the students who are not that engaged into technology will learn to appreciate that technology improves the way on how teachers explain the lesson. They will surely enjoy the new approach of teaching when they discover by themselves the many benefits of technology.

Image Source: http://haydenwilcox.edublogs.org/2013/05/24/ict-current-trends/

Future of Educational Technology in the Philippines

        New “high tech” devices come out almost every year. And indeed, these gadgets make our lives easier. Technology plays a big role in a child’s learning process. That’s why rapid changes of technology would cause the different roles significant in one’s education, respond differently. Fast changes would certainly affect the teachers’ new approach in teaching, the students’ creative way of learning, the institution’s way on how to develop and improve the teaching and learning process by providing sufficient resources.

        The present situation of educational technology in the Philippines shows that we have a long way to go. A number of students in the city know how to use the computer, but are they completely knowledgeable about it? It is a known fact that the youth today, uses the computer and internet to play games and view their facebook account instead of researching. A lot of resources are provided to us that’s why we are lucky that learning is not limited in school. The problem is that we don’t know how to use technology properly and yet we overuse it.

        In the case of schools situated in rural areas, we can see that the students and teachers are having difficult time learning about technology. Teachers don’t know and are afraid to operate on those technological devices. They also have insufficient resources. And the worst situation they’re in is that they still don’t have the necessary materials such as blackboard, tables, chairs, chalk, etc. A very disappointing fact that they weren’t given the chance and up until now, technology is out of their reach.

        When it comes to educational technology, we are still left behind by other countries and have a long way to go. But it is not impossible that there comes the time when we will improve and develop into a successful country because of technology. But to achieve this, we should all do our part. It should start first with the educators, they should be creative and use multimedia and online resources for students to use and learn from.

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Our Memory for Sounds is Significantly Worse than Our Memory for Visual or Tactile Things

 

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  A journal entitled Achilles’ Ear? Inferior Human Short-Term and Recognition Memory in the Auditory Modality, published by two researchers from the University of Iowa, James Bigelow and Amy Poremba, has shown that the human brain tends to remember things we see or touch better than those things we hear.

Two experiments were conducted to support this claim. In the first experiment testing short-term memory, the participants (undergraduate students from the University of Iowa) were asked to listen to a set of tones through headphones, to look at various shades of red squares, and to feel the vibrations of an aluminum bar. Each set was separated by time delays ranging from one to thirty-two seconds. The result was there is a greater decline of memory for sounds as compared with the squares and the vibrations.

In the second experiment, the participants’ memory using things they encounter on a daily basis was tested. They were asked to listen to audio recordings of dogs barking, to watch silent videos of a basketball game, and to touch common objects such as a coffee mug. A week later, the result was, the participants could hardly remember the sounds they had heard compared with the basketball game video which is nearly equal with their memory for the coffee mug, which implies that our ability to remember what we see is almost equal to our ability to remember what we touch.

This study suggests that the brain may process and store auditory information differently than visual and tactile information not unless we increase our mental repetition or use association techniques to improve our memory.

Reference: Our memory for sounds is significantly worse than our memory for visual or tactile things -- ScienceDaily. (n.d.). Retrieved March 4, 2014, from http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2014/02/140226174439.htm