Technology Provides Enhanced Capabilities for Educating Learners

Technology provides enhanced capabilities for educating learners, and schools should embrace these capabilities to reshape education and to prepare students for the changing world. Collins & Halverson (2009) identify these enhanced capabilities as “just-in-time” learning, customization, learner control, interaction, scaffolding, games & simulation, multimedia, publication, and reflection. These nine enhanced capabilities were aligned with established learning theories, to link the Collins & Halverson (2009) model with Prensky‟s (2008) claim that the role of technology in the classroom can be defined as the tools used to support students teaching themselves. The purpose of this alignment was to support the thesis that technology provides enhanced capabilities for educating learners. The development of this thesis aids the stakeholders of education technology in understanding that technology does indeed provide enhanced capabilities for educating learners. Industry leaders such as DLP are specifically interested in how to use this framework to influence student-centered designs of tomorrow’s technologies.

Collins, Allan, & Halverson, Richard. (2009). Rethinking Education in the Age of Technology: The Digital Revolution and Schooling in America. New York, NY: Teachers College Press.

Prensky, Mark. (2008). The Role of Technology in teaching and the classroom. Educational Technology, Nov-Dec 2008. Retrieved May 3, 2010 from http://www.marcprensky.com/writing/Prensky-The_Role_of_Technology-ET-11-12-08.pdf

Leave a Reply