The world is changing. It is getting both smaller and bigger at the same time. Our world shrinks as technologies now allow us to communicate around the world. The spread of information now available to us expands our view of the world. As a result of that the ability to communicate globally and the information expansion affects educational change. Most educators might not want to change, but the change is always there. The challenge is to prepare the children of today for the world.

After 20 years, teacher still act as a facilitator or coach. This will provide contextual learning environments that engage students in collaborative activities that will require communications and access to information that only technology can provide. In the very near future we will have a keyboardless computer. Voice software is already proving to be effective in its implementation and it’s like a matter of years before the keyboard will be removed from many, if not most computer environments. Computers are smaller in size and are now wearable.  Also we can look for interactive video technologies that allow parents to play a more role in their children's education like watching a class presentation via online video.

One must keep in mind that there are countless ways technology may develop during the next several decades. Knowing exactly what these developments will be or where they will lead is not only impossible, it is unimportant. It is the recognition of what is possible that educators must consider. It is important that educators have a sense of where the world is headed. Only then will they be able to adequately prepare current and future students to survive in this changing world. We must always keep in mind that a good driver doesn't watch the car's hood while they are motoring down the road. Instead, a good driver carefully watches the road ahead, looking for the obstacles and challenges that lie before them. It is time that education quit watching its hood and start looking at the road ahead.

Written Report

          

                                                                                             

 EDUCATIONAL TECHNOLOGY II

                                 

Discussant: SANTOS, MARIBEL F.

Course, Yr. & Sec.: BSEd-TLE 3A

Date: December 18, 2011

I.                   OBJECTIVES

1. To identify and discuss the fact that supports the computer as the teacher’s handy-tool

2. To appreciate the significance of computer as a tool for teaching and learning process.

3. To classify the capabilities of a computer that the teacher can employ.

II.                INTRODUCTION

Education is the key that opens doors to a range of possibilities for advancement, for the benefit of both the individual and the country. Educated and skilled people are a necessary ingredient of democratic societies and developing countries. More than ever before, technology has become an essential component of the teaching and learning process. The demands on the learners have increased because they must acquire the knowledge, skills, and attitudes required by the economy on a broader sense. Since the teacher is the key to these changes, the teachers are required to be in the frontline of innovation, continually seeking out new and better ways of using modern technology as a tool.

III.             LEARNING CONTENT

The Computer as the Teacher’s Tool

      In this lesson, we shall again look at the computer, but this time from another perspective, the computer as the teacher’s handy-tool. It can in fact support the constructivist and social constructivist paradigms of constructivist learning.

Constructivist was introduced by Piaget (1981) and Bruner (1990). They gave stress to knowledge discovery of new meaning/concepts/principles in the learning process. Various strategies have been suggested to foster knowledge discovery, among these, is making students engaged in gathering unorganized information from which they can induce ideas and principles. Students are also asked to apply discovered knowledge to new situations, a process for making their knowledge applicable to real life situations.

While knowledge is constructed by the individual learner in constructivism, knowledge can also be socially constructed. Social constructivism. This is an effort to show that the construction of knowledge is governed by social, historical and cultural contexts. In effect, this is to ay that the learner who interprets knowledge has a predetermined point of view according to the social perspectives of the community or society he lives in.

The psychologist Vygotsky stressed that learning is affected by social influences. He therefore suggested the interactive process in learning. The more capable adult (teacher or parent) or classmate can aid or complement what the learner sees in a given class project. In addition, Dewey sees language as a medium for social coordination and adaptation. For Dewey human learning is really human languaging that occurs when students socially share, build and agree upon meanings and knowledge.

Learning Framework	Constructivism	Social Constructivism
Assumption	Knowledge is constructed by the individual.	Knowledge is constructed within a social context.
Definition of Learning	Students build their own learning.	Students build knowledge influenced by the social context.
Learning Strategies	Gather unorganized information to create new concept/principle	Exchange and share from ideas, stimulates thinking.
General Orientation	Personal discovery of knowledge.	Students discuss and discover meanings
Example	8*5-8+8+8+8+8	Two alternative job offers option 1-8 hrs/day for 6days/week Option 2-9 hrs/day for 5 days/week

The Computer’s Capabilities

Given its present-day speed, flexibility and sophistication, the computer can provide access to information, foster creative social knowledge building, and enhance the communication of the achieved project package. Without the computer, today’s learners may still be assuming the tedious task of low-level information gathering, building and new knew knowledge packaging. But this is not so, since the modern computer can help teacher-and-students to focus on more high level cognitive tasks.

Based on the two learning theories, the teacher can employ the computer as a/an:

·         As an information tool

·         A communication tool

·         A constructive tool

·         As co-constructive tool

·        A situating tool

Informative tool

The computer can provide vast amounts of information in various forms, such as text, graphics, sound and video. Even multimedia encyclopedias are today available on the internet.

The internet itself provides and enormous database from which user can access global information resources that includes the latest news, weather forecasts, airline schedule, sports development, entertainment news and features, as well as educational information directly useful to learners. The internet on education can be sourced for kinds of educational resources on the internet.

Along the constructivist point of view, it is not enough for learners to download relevant information using the computer as an information tool. Students can use gathered information for composition or presentation projects as may be assigned by the teacher. Given the fact that the internet can serve as a channel for global communication, the computer can very well be the key tool for video teleconferencing sessions.

Constructive Tool 

The computer itself can be used for manipulating information, visualizing one’s understanding and building new knowledge. The Microsoft Word computer program itself is a desktop publishing software that allows uses to organize and present their ideas in attractive formats.

Co-constructive Tools 

Students can use constructive tools to work cooperatively and construct a shared understanding of new knowledge. On ways of co-constructive is the use of the electronic whiteboard where students may post notices to a shared document/whiteboard. Students may also co-edit the same document from their homes.

The Computer-Supported International Learning Environments (CSILE) is an example of an integrated environment developed by the Ontario Institute for studied in Education. Within CSILE, students can enter their ideas in notes and respond to each other’s ideas. Manifest in the student-generated database are higher level thinking processes-explaining, problem solving/finding, expertise and development, literacy improvement.

Situating Tool

By means of virtual reality (RS) extension systems, the computer can create 3-D images on display to give the user the feeling that are situated in a virtual environment. A flight simulation program is an example of situating tool which places the user in a simulated flying environment. Multi-User domains or Dungeons (MUDs) MUD Object Oriented (MOOs), and Multi-User Shared hallucination (MUSHs) are example of situating systems MUDs and MOOs are text-based virtual reality environments on the Internet. When users log on to a MOO environment, they may interact with the virtual reality (such as by writing on a notice board) through simple text based commands. A school-to-school or classroom-to-classroom environment is possible whereby the user can choose to talk around the campus, talk with other users who are logged to the same. To caution users, the computer as a situating tool is news and still undergoing further research and development.

IV. Vocabulary Words

1.    Enormous -  extraordinarily large in size or extent or amount or power or degree

2.    Tedious -  Involving tedium; tiresome from continuance, prolixity, slowness, 

3.    Paradigm -One that serves as a pattern or model.

4.    Sophistication - To cause to become less natural, especially to make less naive and worldlier.

5.    Teleconferencing - A conference held among people in different locations by means of telecommunications equipment, such as closed-circuit television.

V.       Summary

While knowledge is constructed by the individual learner in constructivism, knowledge can also be socially constructed. Since the modern computer can help teacher-and-students to focus on more high level cognitive tasks, it can also use as a tool for teaching.  According to the two theories, there are four capabilities of a computer that can use by the teacher which are Informative tool, Situating Tool, Co-constructive Tools, and Constructive Tool.

VI.       Conclusion and recommendation

The use of technology for teaching nowadays is gaining popularity in the Philippines since there is availability of equipment. And Earth Science is a subject that doesn’t get too much attention in the Philippines since most of the time it’s given only to the students of higher sections. In this study the researcher decided to create a study about the use of one method of teaching, it is the use of computer system. Unlike the traditional teaching which provide passive explanation for the learners. In computer aided teaching the learner’s allow to explore the application of there skills.

VI.          Post Test

_____1. Who introduced Constructivism?

_____2. It is one of the capabilities of a computer that gives information through internet.

______3. One of capabilities that work cooperatively and construct a shared understanding of new knowledge.

______4. This tool is by means of Virtual reality system.

______5. This tool allows you to manipulate information, visualizing one’s understanding and building new knowledge.

Key to Correction

1.    Piaget and Vygotsky

2.    Informative tool

3.    Co-constructive tool

4.    Situating tool

5.    Constructive tool

VII.         Reference

Educational Technology II by Paz Lucido

Story Board

Slide 1	Title : THE COMPUTER AS TEACHER’S TOOL Discussant: Santos Maribel F. Course, Yr. & Sec.: BSE-TLE 3A
Slide 2	Introduction
Slide 3	Definition of Constructivism
Slide 4	Persons introduced Constructivism
Slide 5	Continuation of slide 4
Slide 6	Summary of the two learning perspectives (table)
Slide 7	Continuation of slide 6 (table)
Slide 8	Continuation of slide 7 (table)
Slide 9	Sub Topic: Computer’s Capabilities
Slide 10	Introduction
Slide 11	Informative tool
Slide 12	Definition of informative tool
Slide 13	Constructive tool
Slide 14	Definition of constructive tool
Slide 15	Co-constructive tool
Slide 16	Definition of co-constructive tool
Slide 17	Continuation of slide 16
Slide 18	Situating tool
Slide 19	Definition of situating tool
Slide 20	Reference: Educational Technology II