Teaching and Learning with Technological Media

     Teaching and learning with technological media greatly enhances the efficiency and retention of desired skills, knowledge and behaviors when properly utilized as a means of  facilitating the process. Technological media allows a practitioner to more effectively asses learners, quickly give feedback, tailor a lesson to their needs, dynamically engage learners and more effectively teach them the items students need more help on and it allows the instructor to quickly breeze by things the learners already know. From my experience, this leads to an objective increase in student content mastery and greatly eliminates downtime, busy work and disengagement. On top of this the use of adaptive curriculum further aids the instructors differentiate learning when the learner is too far behind or too ahead of the rest of the class. I have taught science for six years and from my experience, the use of media has greatly simplified my job as a teacher and transformed my role into that of a learning facilitator and I have seen the students become more engaged and motivated in their work. All this has culminated into higher scores on standardized tests, higher student learning perception and satisfaction and less work for me. 

     There are a plethora of great learning apps and software out there that I've used, but couple of apps I'd like to give credit to is Nearpod and Oddessy.  Nearpod allows me to poll my students before a lesson to gauge how much time I need to spend on the particular concept, it allows me to quiz them to see at what level they've masted what I just presented them and it lets students respond to questions in a variety of ways using media. It keeps students engaged, on their toes, while letting them be creative. At the same time I can closely monitor their progress. Oddessy is an adaptive curriculum software that allows me to differentiate learning to students on either end of the learning bell curve. The software is engaging, game like and tailors to each students needs, while moving at their pace. 

     The use of learning applications and software is available to us thanks to computing, the world wide web, projection and audio technologies. There has been an evolution since the invention of these innovative media and we are definitely the beneficiaries of all that research and design. While I was writing about the wonders of apps and software, I realized that without these media, none of what I just spoke of would be possible. I took for granted the computer, internet, projector, speakers and smart board I used in my class everyday to deliver the the material, which led to greater student content mastery!