In the Atlanta Independent School District they are changing their old ways and introducing a lot of educational technology into their classrooms. They not only are introducing new technology but they are really researching how to successfully incorporate this into the classrooms. They don’t want to just throw an ipad at a student and tell them to go on a certain application for the day, they really want teacher and student involvement to be key to making educational technology a success in their classrooms. They want students to engage more in the classrooms and teachers to help a lot more one on one with the students. The benefits of having educational technology devices such as iPads, iPod touches, eReaders or any other type of learning device is that teachers can spend more one on one time with the students. You would think it would be opposite, that by introducing a device that a student uses independently in the class would make them engage less, but by introducing the technology accompanied with the teachers knowledge of how to engage will make the Atlanta Independent School district successful.
With the devices, instead of teachers having to stand in the front of a classroom and lecture their students and have student’s participate once in a while, the educational technology brings the students to life.
The students are able to participate one hundred percent by learning hands on. Also the teachers can walk around the classroom and talk to the students one on one and help them a lot more. The teachers go through a training program that teaches them how to engage students with the education technology devices and how to make the learning fun. Its important for teachers to create a fun and safe learning environment so the students will want to learn and ask questions. In the teachers educational technology training they are taught how to keep the mobile learning safe. The devices that the schools purchase can be set to make sure only certain applications or websites are accessed to make sure the devices are only used for education. Also by teachers being able to freely walk around and help the students instead of lecturing in front of them, the teachers are able to monitor the students more closely and help them one on one.It’s very important for schools that are starting to introduce educational technology into their classrooms that they have a training seminar for the teachers. Not only should they be trained ion the new device and become experts on it so they can help their students, but they need to learn how to make the technology integration a success in their classrooms. With the Atlanta Independent School District knowing this key information and helping their teachers become experts on technology integration and how to create a successful learning environment, they will have great success on improving the students test scores, grades and keeping their attention in class. Education technology is great and very beneficial to teacher and students, but it only works if you know how to successfully integrate it into your classrooms.