Foundations of Educational Technology

Rosy Omonga

LTEC 5030

Dr. Tai- Yi

10/30/2022
 The goal of this section is to outline frequent difficulties large businesses encounter when

seeking to integrate technological learning to enhance the abilities of their employees and to

suggest viable solutions. Researchers in educational technology as well as present and future

instructors should find the examination of these topics to be helpful (Bitner, & Bitner, 2002). The

difficulties to technology integration that are external (extrinsic) to the teacher are introduced in

the first section of the study, including resources, support, and training availability. The report

then outlines the obstacles, which include people's attitudes and beliefs, aversion to technology,

and knowledge and skill gaps. The following section includes views from throughout the world

on the issue of technology integration.

Key Barriers to Success Involved in Achieving the Goal

External Barriers

First obstacles to successful technology integration are caused by variables outside the

control of persons using technology. To address external hurdles, institutional changes must be

implemented, and most advancements are incremental. Even while there is mounting evidence

that first-order hurdles are being addressed in the United States, more work is still required to

fully overcome these difficulties. This section outlines some of the external obstacles to the

incorporation of technology in the classroom and offers solutions.

We start by talking about problems with inadequate technology or connectivity,

sometimes known as the "access restriction." The use of educational technology is impractical if

a teacher's staff lacks sufficient computers and a quick internet connection. It is quite challenging
for instructors to integrate technology into existing lessons when access is inconsistent (Spector,

2016). Due to the challenge of having insufficient technological training, effective use of

educational technologies for literacy may require more frequent computer-based training than the

organization is now able to deliver (Smith, et.al, 2021). The most common excuse for the low

adoption of technology in the classroom is a lack of adequate professional development and

training. Teachers won't be able to fully exploit new technology if they aren't given enough

professional development in using them. We explore the support constraint-related factors in our

final section. Teachers in today's classrooms said they feel more at ease utilizing software, using

the technology in the classroom, and doing internet searches (Jonassen, et.al 2008). However,

because technology is always changing, it is essential for teachers to keep up with it.

In the absence of the money necessary to provide ongoing technological training,

institutions will continue to cite a significant barrier to technology adoption: a lack of

professional development. Technology integration barriers include those linked to peer support,

administrative support, and inadequate technical support (Ertmer, 1999). Teachers require

greater technical support to use the new technology in the early stages of a project, which may be

provided by hiring information technology and educational technology specialists. As students

become more skilled at the technical skills required for the new technology, their needs may

evolve to include administrative and peer support to help design and implement new uses for the

technology. This is done in an effort to better equip learners. This kind of assistance can be given

in professional learning groups through regular discussions about domain-relevant technological

applications (Lin & Spector, 2017).

One finds startling examples of failures and accomplishments while examining the

development of educational technology in many nations. For instance, progress in Africa can
differ from that in other nations in Europe and North America. One of the company's current

biggest issues is trying to work with and assist a variety of institutions to provide teachers with

enough professional development and technology support (Olsen & Tikkanen, 2018).

Internal Barriers

We shall first talk about the attitudes and convictions of educators. The function and

efficacy of technology deployment are greatly influenced by attitudes and beliefs. Businesses'

and educators' attitudes and beliefs about pedagogy in general and educational technology in

particular will eventually affect how they employ technology (Lin & Spector, 2017). Given the

abundance of instructional technology available, it is essential that teachers feel comfortable with

and confident in their use of it. Many of today's instructors grew up without access to

technologies like the personal computer or the internet, whereas today's children have grown up

in a world where computers are pervasive (Allen, Jacovina, & McNamara, 2016). Sticking to

traditional teaching techniques allows teachers who are less tech savvy to keep control in the

classroom and avoid having to prepare for the difficulties of instructing digital natives in a digital

world.

Key Factors for Implementation Plan

There are several tactics that educators and researchers might employ to promote

technology integration now because it will inevitably happen that classroom technology will be

adopted more widely over time. The use of technology in the classroom should be decided upon

by the instructor. It can be disheartening and depressing for teachers to feel as though they have

lost the ability to instruct in the style that best suits them because teaching is a very

individualized experience. Since no single instructional technology will be perfect for all
teachers, educators should be able to select the one with which they feel the most comfortable

(Spector & Yuen, 2016).

While it is imperative that instructors have autonomy in selecting the educational

technology they use, this comes with the burden of having to sort through the plethora of

possibilities. A second strategy for encouraging technology use in the classroom is to advocate

for improved management of the existing devices. Teachers should be able to discover and use

technologies that have undergone substantial testing quickly within a specific learning domain.

In fact, this book might be a helpful resource for teachers looking for such technologies.

Teachers will save time and feel less burdened with a more effective set-up of educational

devices that have empirical basis.

Relationships among the Key Factors

A flexible understanding of how to exploit the affordances of various pedagogies for

particular content issues is a requirement for effective educators in addition to domain expertise.

Since various unique technologies have emerged over the past few decades, educators have a

wealth of technological resources at their disposal to improve the effectiveness of their

instruction. Promoting these knowledge domains is therefore a goal; it is obvious that the

majority of these knowledge domains are currently highly stressed throughout teacher

preparation and professional development.

However, learning on the points where technological knowledge and content/pedagogical

knowledge converge is less common and more specialized. Take writing instruction as an

illustration. Successful writing teachers use purposeful writing practice and feedback to teach
writing skills and tactics (requiring topic knowledge), which is an example of pedagogical

content knowledge.

Changes Implementing the Plan.

It is advised that initial teacher preparation and continuing professional development

programs pay more attention to the use of computers and smartphones in regular classes in order

to avoid negative effects, strengthen positive ones, and make clear which changes are brought on

by the implementation of online education. Computer literacy for in-service teachers has to

receive special attention.

The tendencies will become more prevalent in the learning tailored instruction. For

students, personalized learning (PL) has been around for a while, grown in popularity, and is

used in conjunction with project-based learning (PBL). Students can receive instruction in ways

that they can grasp thanks to personalized learning (Adams & Burns, 1999).

connectivity,

in-service Personalized
training learning (PL

socio-cultural,
educational,
knowledge
and
domains
technological
connections

Pedagogical
technology on a
content
large scale,
knowledge
Reflection

Despite the significant challenges that learning administrators, teachers, and other

educators face in incorporating technology, there are exciting new educational tools that are

becoming more and more accessible and that provide teachers innovative new ways to teach

students the material. Research on them shows that the reading and writing technologies can

greatly raise pupils' performance. The efforts made to incorporate new educational tools into the

classroom will be rewarded, notwithstanding any potential difficulties (Morel & Spector, 2022).

These resources were created and developed using the course curriculum, the instructor's

suggestions, the standard class materials used by the instructor, and the course textbook. Other

materials include images from the textbook, PowerPoint slides created by the textbook publisher

(changed by the course teacher), and brief snippets from unidentified animated flicks to facilitate

online learning.
 References

Adams, S., & Burns, M. (1999). Connecting Student Learning & Technology.

Allen, L. K., Jacovina, M. E., & McNamara, D. S. (2016). Computer-Based Writing

Instruction. Grantee Submission.

Bitner, N., & Bitner, J. O. E. (2002). Integrating technology into the classroom: Eight keys to

success. Journal of technology and teacher education, 10(1), 95-100.

Ertmer, P. A. (1999). Addressing first-and second-order barriers to change: Strategies for

technology integration. Educational technology research and development, 47(4), 47-61.

Jonassen, D., Spector, M. J., Driscoll, M., Merrill, M. D., van Merrienboer, J., & Driscoll, M. P.

(2008). Handbook of research on educational communications and technology: a project

of the association for educational communications and technology. Routledge.

Lin, L., & Spector, J. M. (2017). Sciences of Learning and Instructional Design. Taylor &

Francis.

Mann, L., Chang, R., Chandrasekaran, S., Coddington, A., Daniel, S., Cook, E., ... & Smith, T.

D. (2021). From problem-based learning to practice-based education: A framework for

shaping future engineers. European Journal of Engineering Education, 46(1), 27-47.

Morel, G. M., & Spector, J. M. (2022). Foundations of Educational Technology: Integrative

Approaches and Interdisciplinary Perspectives. Taylor & Francis.

Olsen, D. S., & Tikkanen, T. (2018). The developing field of workplace learning and the

contribution of PIAAC. International Journal of lifelong education, 37(5), 546-559.

Spector, J. M., & Yuen, A. H. (2016). Educational technology program and project evaluation.

Routledge.