The+Technology


 * The Technology **

Computers are here to stay, so it is vital that we learn to use then in our teaching. According to Kravitz (2004, p. 21) ICT based learning is paramount to the future of our schools. Technology should not and will not take the place of teachers, computers and other ICT equipment are tools just like pencils, paper and textbooks, and to that end they are tool that are now a part of our everyday world.

As mentioned the two pieces of technologies that will be focused on are the internet and the Interactive White Board (IWB). It must be said that even in this era of great and new technological advances that one of the most remarkable pieces of ICT hardware to become available to education in recent years is the interactive whiteboard. This piece of equipment alone has the power to completely revolutionise the way that teachers teach, and learners learn.

//**The Interactive**//  //**Whiteboard (IWB**//) 

As its name suggest is based upon the traditional whiteboard that is widely used in many primary classrooms, where the user writes upon a whiteboard with a white board marker and can then rub it off again for further use. The interactive whiteboard looks very similar to its traditional counterpart, and some makes of board even allow the user to write directly on them with a white board marker, that’s about where the similarities end. The IWB is connected to a computer or laptop through a long cable via a serial or USB port, and the computer or laptop’s screen image is projected onto the board through a data projector. When the IWB is calibrated to work with the computer or laptop, the user touches the relevant parts of the projected image on the whiteboard and the computer or laptop responds in the same way that it would if the user was controlling it with a mouse. This means that the teacher or child can stand at the front of the class and can demonstrate a concept or idea (Williams & Easingwood 2004, p.45).

//**The Internet **//

The Internet is a large collection of interconnected networks from around the globe connected by communication lines (such as telephone lines) and routing hardware. These networks allow information to be transferred between computers all around the world.

The most popular Internet service and probably one that most people associate with is the Internet is the World Wide Web (www). The World Wide Web allows people to look at information in hyper-text using ‘Hyper Text Transfer Protocol’ which is a very user-friendly accessible way of looking at information from around the world. Each page of information on the www has its own unique address which makes it possible both for individual users and Internet search engines to find information. Within the hypertext on www pages are ‘hyper-links’; text or images which, when clicked on with a mouse will let the user move from page to page of information.

Once you are connected to the Internet, you can use an Internet “browser” to look for information on the World Wide Web. The two most widely used Internet browsers are Netscape and Internet Explorer. Although they are slightly different in appearance, they basically do the same thing (Australasian Legal Information Institute (n.d))

Introduction How the technologies were used in lessons