THE USE OF INSTRUCTIONAL TECHNOLOGY IN THE CLASSROOM

Muhammad Farkhan Fauzi

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In this latest century, technology has strong bond with advancement, improvement, and progress. On the other side, the lack of technology stirs feelings towards a practice as antiquated, ineffective, and clumsy. The classroom has not been exempt from this general thinking. Over the past thirty years, instructional technology is being integrated into the classroom at alarming rates. As fast as integration has been, the development of new technologies has even been faster. The literature in the area of instructional technology is vast and sometimes overwhelming. Often times, articles will focus on how to integrate technology into the classroom and the recommendation of new technologies. A significant amount of research on instructional technology is associated with faculty competency and teaching effectiveness. In evaluating the use of any teaching style, educators will often use Benjamin Bloom’s Taxonomy as a beginning point of planning. Certain principles of human cognitive learning are well-established to be used by educators wanting to teach in ways most likely to produce learning. Three of these principles according to Joseph Lowman are that “It is better for college students to be active seekers than passive recipients of learning; For students to be fully engaged in learning, their attention must be focused on the material;” and “Students learn images as well as words, and images are more easily remembered, especially if the images are vivid and emotionally tinged.” All three of these principles touch upon the use of technology in the classroom. Using these principles, instructors have sought technological means to increase learning. Early literature in this area first looked at whether any technology in the classroom was beneficial. Despite this early argument on whether technology in the classroom is good or bad, technological advancements occurred and students demanded use in the classroom. Between grades 6 and 12, ninety percent of students have been found to use computers on a daily basis according to the Geneva Logic Report. Recent trends in literature on technology in the classroom focus more on teacher effectiveness and proficiency in using technology. Since the 1920s, film, radio, television, and microcomputers began to be used as teaching tools. These first cousins to modern technology reveal the insistent quest by educators for increased productivity and efficiency in teaching. However, this quest does not often originate, according to Larry Cuban, with the picture of how technology has been thrust open teachers, who must be reactive in being forced to implement it. Technology and its evaluation is often the duty of individual instructors, including those that are not in disciplines that would normally utilize technology. For example, how does a teacher in English literature know what technology will be beneficial and if using technology, how to actually make it effective in increasing Lowman’s principles of human cognitive learning. Moreover, it is not technology itself that may be bad, but how it is utilized by teachers.

Not all new technology is good and the adoption of technology because it is new is not a desirable action. A teacher should look at a new technology and ask how it fits in their learning objectives not the other way around where new technology is received and then a teacher tries to
3 fit it into class. For example, Cynthia Lanius stated that she was once told by a teacher that “all our students are getting laptops and now we are desperate to figure out something for them to do on them.” Use of technology in the classroom needs to be a proactive practice by educators. Early articles and research asked whether certain kinds of computer-based activities improved student learning. According to James Kulik, studies did find improvements in student scores on tests related to material covered in computer-assisted instructional packages. But these studies do not help educators understand how technologies might, or might not, help to support cognitive learning and the kind of analysis by students that is desired. Moreover, newer articles continue along this trend. There are several articles on what technologies should be used in the classroom. Often times, these advocate one particular platform, usually the “it” technology. For example, in perusing the articles online by date, there was a movement from computers, to online course management, to now gaming and digital books. See Nagel, David (2010) 6 Technologies That Will Shape Education. These articles also ignore how a specific technology fits into the larger goal of cognitive learning. In order to be effective, innovative and robust technologies must be used to support the desired outcome of teachers. In a larger sense, a change in an educational environment by the use of new technology must take into account simultaneous changes in curriculum, time and space constraints, and a range of other logistical and social factors (Margaret Honey, Katherine McMillan Culp, and Fred Carrigg). As a result, researchers are increasingly asking questions about how technology is integrated into educational settings; how new electronic resources are interpreted and adapted by their users; how best to match technological capacities with students' learning needs; and how technological change can interact with and support changes in many other parts of the educational process, such as assessment, administration, communication, and curriculum development. In selecting what technology will be the most useful in achieving individual or department goals, Cynthia Roberts establishes a framework for a change process that can be utilized by educators for the purpose of the selection as well as successful implementation of educational technologies. Her four step process includes strategic analysis, strategy making, strategic plan design, and strategic plan implementation. During the planning and preparation of the use of technology and before moving on the stage of implementation, the following is a list of lessons and advice by Andrew Sackville (2003):

• Do not dismiss the chance to review/ adopt innovations simply because you don’t want tomake a fool of yourself

• Spend time thinking. Search for alternative ideas and don’t restrict your search to your own discipline or employment sector. Think outside the box.

• Be skeptical. Do your homework and ask questions – where does the innovation come from? Who stands to benefit from it?

• Find out as much as you can about the idea. Ask the big educational questions. How will it support our students’ learning? How will my colleagues accept the suggestion?

• Work out possible consequences of introducing an innovative teaching practice. Will it be accessible to all students? Will some be disadvantaged if we adopt this teaching method or this technology?

• Identify likely change agents, early adopters – work with them.

• Avoid telling people exactly what to do and how to do it. Instead, describe the end resultsyou are looking for, and ask them to generate their own ideas for how to approach it.

• Challenge staff members to be more innovative by encouraging them to question how things are done.

• Encourage experimentation. When faced with a tough challenge, ask others to brainstorm options or changes that could succeed where current practice fails. Allow them to try new things.

• Be prepared to change your mind. As you evaluate the success or otherwise of your innovation, be prepared to abandon it if necessary.

Once technology is selected for implementation, its use can be a necessary evil or a useful tool in the classroom. According to Edward Tufte, “If your words or images are not on point, making them dance in color won’t make them relevant. Audience boredom is usually a content failure, not a decoration failure.” Although selection of a good technology is the first step, use of it by instructors will dictate its effectiveness in the classroom. According to Cynthia Lanius, this aspect of instructional technologies is often overlooked. The reality is that teachers tend to be less technology savvy than the very students that they are teaching. As such, teachers often desire to utilize technology, but lack proficiency in the actual use. Presentations are often botched because the teacher is unfamiliar with the technology. Additionally, teachers may attempt to use, for example, collaborative technology, but because of their lack of proficiency, they do not utilize the benefits of the technology. As such, the process becomes troublesome for the teacher and “more trouble than it’s worth.” The majority of articles that are against the use of technology in the classroom do not actually focus on the technology, but rather, its effective use of teachers. Microsoft PowerPoint tends to be at the forefront of the literature on this subject. Some say that PowerPoint is a great slide manager, but rather than supplementing a presentation, teachers have mistakenly used it as a substitute for a presentation. In other words, PowerPoint cannot create a good presentation. The teacher uses PowerPoint to create a good presentation. Just like the overhead projector before it, PowerPoint will not turn a bad presentation into a good one, and it will not convert an ineffective presenter into an effective one. If effective use of technology is a problem, how can it be improved? As part of Roberts’ fourth step, strategic plan implementation, educators should be instructed on the capabilities and use of the technology. Teachers should also brainstorm together on how to use the technology themselves and how to utilize it effectively in the classroom.

Complaints on technology in the classroom often focus on using technology merely because it is novel and innovative or the misuse of technology by instructors. These two problems can be overcome with planning and forethought. In selecting technology during the
5 strategic analysis and planning phases, educators need to be proactive and contemplate how the change will positively increase learning. Also, educators must factor into the adoption analysis, the ease of use of the technology. Once adoption of a technology occurs, the desired effect of increased learning can only be achieved if teachers understand the technology and understand how to manipulate it. Through proper selection and training, technology in the classroom can improve student learning and comprehension. 

References :

Bloom, Benjamin (1956). Taxonomy of Educational Objectives, Handbook I: The Cognitive Domain. New York: David McKay Co Inc.Classroom Technology and Teacher-Student Interaction. 2007 GenevaLogic Report.

Cuban, Larry (1986) Teachers and Machines: The Classroom Use of Technology Since 1920. Teachers college Press. Kulik, James (2003) Effects of Using Instructional Technology in Elementary and secondary Schools: What Controlled Evaluation Studies Say. SRI International, May 2003. http://www.sri.com/policy/csted/reports/sandt/it/Kulik_ITinK-12_Main_Report.pdf

Lanius, Cynthia (2004) PowerPoint, Not Your Grandmother’s Presentations, but is it Evil? Cell Biology Education, Fall 2004. Lowman, Joseph (1995) Mastering the Techniques of Teaching. 2nd ed.

Jossey-Bass. Margaret Honey, Katherine McMillan Culp, and Fred Carrigg (1999) Perspectives on
Technology and Education Research: Lessons from the Past and Present. The Secretary's Conference on Educational Technology 1999. http://www2.ed.gov/rschstat/eval/tech/techconf99/whitepapers/paper1.html Nagel, David (2010) 6 Technologies That Will Shape Education. The Journal. http://thejournal.com/Articles/2010/04/13/6-Technologies-That-Will-Shape-Education.asp

Roberts, Cynthia (2008) Implementing Educational Technology in Higher Education: A
Strategic Approach, The Journal of Educators Online. http://www.thejeo.com/Volume5Number1/RobertsPaper.pdf

Sackville, Andrew (2003). The emperor’s new clothes: Navigating Innovations in Teaching and Learning, British Journal of Sociology of Education. http://www.iutconference.org/2009/pdf/Sackville_The%20EmperorsNew%20Clothes%20.pdf Tufte, Edward (2003) PowerPoint is Evil: Power Corrupts. PowerPoint Corrupts Absolutely. Wired Magazine 2003, September http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/11.09/ppt2.html