Technology In The 21st Century Students

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The 21st century student is a generation that has grown up with some form of technology always available for their use. Therefore earning them the nickname the digital natives. This technology includes computers, IPads, internet, mobile phones, and video games. They are becoming increasingly comfortable using these technologies for interacting with information and each other. The manner in which new information and communication technologies are being used suggests that children today are creating understands and knowledge in new and different ways. Such knowledge is reflective of constructivist understanding about how humans learn (Spires, Lee, Turner, and Johnson, 2008). Constructivism is closely tied to progressivism and is based on …show more content…

Prensky (2001) claims that when planning lessons, teachers have ignored “digital natives”, who are accustomed to playing computer games and who are skilled in multitasking, parallel processing, graphic awareness, and random access (Thota and Negreiros, 2015). Teachers need to adapt their techniques and integrate technology in their curriculum to meet the challenges of educating “digital natives” and dismiss such claims. Dockstader (1999) states several important reasons for integrating technology: (a) correctly designed, more depth into the content-area curriculum is possible; (b) in the information age, there is an intrinsic need to learn technology; (c) students are motivated by technology, thus increasing academic engagement time; (d) while working in more depth with the content, students are able to move beyond knowledge and comprehension to application and analysis of information; (e) students learn where to find information in an information rich world; (f) computer skills should not be taught in isolation; (g) students develop computer literacy by applying various computer skills as part of the learning process. Now that we understand the importance of technology integration in the classroom, we will look at what types of technology can allow for the success of the 21st century

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