Lesson 2: Roles of Technology for Teaching and Learning

Lesson Outcomes

1. Identified roles of technology in teaching and learning

2. Appreciated the value of technology in supporting student learning

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 4t" 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?

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 uses 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 the
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 of 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 is 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 Shirly (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 around technology 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 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

3. Technology upgrades learners' higher-order-thinking skills: critical thinking, problem

solving and creativity

Twenty-first century learning requires the development of higher-order-thinking skills.

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 can 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 critical thinking. The
Internet 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 this 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