Using Contemporary Instructional Software to Engage "Digital Natives"

                        Teachers can address students’ needs from various learning backgrounds, when they choose to utilize instructional software in their lesson plans. This was shown in the “Schools Use Games for Learning and Assessments” video (http://www.edutopia.org/computer-simulations-games-virtual-learning-video). This will help to engage “Digital Natives” in participating and learning new concepts more effectively. Bloom’s Taxonomy’s higher-order of learning can be implemented in instructions, because various levels of difficulty can be administered to age and cognitively appropriate standards. This order addresses the learning levels in these categories: Knowledge, Comprehension, Application, Analysis, Synthesis, and Evaluation. Each level of learning can be incorporated, and/or introduced in various software programs.

          The benefits of using technology as a teaching tool, is the advantage of remedial, and specific interventions being targeted through the use of video games and instructional software programs. Often students lack the background knowledge to grasp the concept that is being presented in class. Let’s face it our students come from various backgrounds and socioeconomic statuses. Therefore creating the right circumstances or situational examples to create some type of familiarity for them to connect to can be close to impossible in some situations, Integrating Educational Technology into Teaching, Robyler and Doering states, “Teachers simply cannot give students access to the resources or situations that stimulation can (89).” Not only are these factors important starting points for instruction, but realizing the multiple intelligences each student has must be taken under consideration. The hands on, and interactive activities allows students to start on an even turf. Therefore, the students are using basic skills that help to enhance higher level learning on a more common ground, so mostly all students can be successful. Another good reason to use technology in the classroom is equally important for students who are gifted, as the video Digital Youth Portrait: Sam (http://www.edutopia.org/digital-generation-profile-sam-video) brought out. It conveys that this population of students can have an opportunity to experience enrichment lessons that help to inspire, and accommodate for boredom by releasing the student to creativity.

          In an ideal technology situation, there would be a lot of advantages for using instructional software to enhance students’ learning. I can recall a virtual frog dissecting website that I had came across a few years ago. This site was interactive and allowed students to practice, and take their time finding the correct parts of the frog, before the assessment. Therefore the student can work at his/her own pace to study, and submit the test at the given time. I thought this was excellent, especially thinking back to my own nightmare of dissecting a real frog, and the smell…. Well, let’s just say it was very unpleasant for me. In the textbook, Roblyer and Doering brought out, “Many school systems are finding dissections of animals on a computer screen to be much less expensive and just as instructional as using real frogs or cats (89).” Also, virtual labs can be essential to science teachers, especially when dealing with certain formulas that can be dangerous or impractical for classroom use.