Over the past few years I have a growing interest in the way teachers have had to adapt their styles to how they deliver/facilitate their content and feedback. Speaking from an IT/computing background, providing students with electronic content is the norm. However for those colleagues or subjects that technology assisted learning isn’t the default, what hurdles have these teachers had to overcome to keep their learners engaged or even keep their subject relevant? On the other hand what are the, now, expectations for learners when using technology in their educations when, in the past, paper and pen were the standard form.
With the role of technology being an ever so increasing factor for teachers to consider in their classrooms’, is technology supporting learning or hindering academic development? From a student point of view, students feel generally positive about the use of technology in their lessons ‘Eighty-three percent of the students believe technology use in classrooms does assist them in doing well in life.’ (Hoffmann & Ramirez, 2018) For teachers, however, it can be a different story, with new technology being released every other month, ‘A paradigm shift is required for teachers to effectively integrate mobile devices in classroom learning. Simply owning mobile technologies does not guarantee effective use in education by students and teachers. Teachers must have supportive training on the pedagogy of integrating these devices as well as useful strategies for classroom management that will enable the teachers to feel confident in their classroom instructional environment.’ (Christensen & Knezek, 2016)
Christensen, R., & Knezek, G. (2016). Relationship of mobilelearning readiness to teacher proficiency in classroom technology integration. 13th International Conference on Cognition and Exploratory Learning in Digital Age, (pp. 303-306).
Hoffmann, M. M., & Ramirez, A. Y. (2018). Students' attitudes toward teacher use of technology in classrooms. 21st Century Learning & Multicultural Education, 51-56.