How to Help Teachers Use Technology in the Classroom (5Js approach) Even though in todays world most teachers

are being educated with technological tools, which differentiates them from the former generation, it was reported than only 39% of them had a moderate or frequent use of technology as a classroom tool.

The 5Js Approach

The two basic premises for this approach are: 1. If technology is seen as a teaching and learning tool and its used according to the curricular goals, with the proper assessment, the results will reflect an improvement in students learning and collaboration. 2. If teachers receive the appropriate training they will know how to integrate technology and the content of the area, without focusing on the technology itself but on the core areas of the classroom. Job Related Focus on the core areas of the class not on technology. We should ask the questions, what should students know and be able to do? so then we will select the appropriate technologies to support this objectives and thus achieve the goals, its also very important to always gauge effectiveness for improvement and changes needed. Just enough When using technology to improve students learning process it is not important to know everything about a specific software or technology itself. First of all we only need to know just enough to help our students to complete a task or what they are asked to do. We must not focus on the capacity we have to use technology but on how comfortable we feel using a piece of it. Of course teachers will find problems using technology even if they only know how to use a specific software for a specific task but in those cases they are supposed to make mistakes and try to find solutions to them. Also the teacher can share his knowledge about it and get help from colleagues or the instructor. Some teachers complain about the access students have to computers and hardware in general because sometimes schools have few computers so they feel lost because they cannot work in class the way they did in their training sessions. What a teacher has to do is to learn how to deal with it and find ways to use what he has learned with the resources they have in their schools. They can learn how to implement the principles of collaboration and innovation in the classroom. Just in time

This has to do with the effective use of time for instructing students and having them apply what the teacher has learnt himself. Since both teacher and student have different needs, they should convey a particular use of tech regarding individual instructions. Therefore, the teacher has to support by providing feedback, assistance and as a co-teaching with a teacher that has more knowledge on the tools he wants to implement in the classroom. Finally, the teacher has to be in charge of reducing the time students are exposed to tech in order to avoid losing time that could be used to implement what they have learnt.

Just in case Teachers fear about using technology in the classroom due to the fact that if they decide to use computers in class it would be difficult in some way to have an excellent classroom management. This principle focuses on helping teachers address control issues by carefully planning the classroom activity.The main tenet of Just in case is planning. Teachers have to decide very well the activities for the lesson and how to group students, moreover they have to think about a different activity just in case technology fails.

Just try it This principle is the key to all the ones previously mentioned due to the fact that without its implementation, all development instruction may end up in a waste of time, money and effort. This fifth J focuses on having teachers just try computers in their classroom and ensuring their performance through pressure, monitoring and support. As part of this principle, teachers are expected to keep four strategies into account that will help them to just try technology in their classroom: the first one encourages teachers to focus on the curriculum through technology so that the lesson objectives are actually accomplished instead of teaching how to use the technological tools themselves. Besides, teachers are expected to get instruction only when needed and follow-up support to plan their activities. Third, technology professional development should emphasize on having teachers feel comfortable with the software and finally, they need to plan for technology implementation and have back-up plans just in case things dont go as expected.