From calculators to computers and iPads to smartboards, there is no limit to what technology can be used for or to what it can do. In classrooms, textbooks are a thing of the past. Within the education system we have begun saving more tress by incorporating the use of technology. This way of teaching is known as educational technology. Educational technology can be denoted as “broadly as both hardware and software that support educational goals” (Delgado 405) and “a generic and ambiguous term that has been used to reference computer-assisted instruction (CAI), simulations, games, or laboratory instruments” (Delgado 400). The idea behind the use of these technologies is to “offer a once-unimaginable array of options for tailoring education to each individual student’s academic strengths and weaknesses, interests and motivations, personal preferences, and optimal pace of learning” (Herold 2). Higher roles in the education system believe that technology can help better shape and strengthen the way students learn. They also believe that technology is a preeminent instrument that could be exceedingly useful towards supporting and transforming education. In ways, such as initiating easier means to create instructional materials and composing new practices that will help people learn and work together. (How has Technology …show more content…
To figure out how effective it is, “numerous studies have been conducted on educational technology, with over twenty major reviews done within the last three decades” (Delgado 406). There have been studies done over the different aspects of educational technology such as specific subjects like math and reading, studies on different grade levels that educational technology is distributed in, and the curriculum that is required of different subject matter. Results from a series of twenty-seven studies performed by J. A. Kulik show the mass effect of educational technology on reading. “Results found an overall effect size of +0.41 for reading programs such as Writing to Read, and an average effect size of +0.43 for reading management programs such as Accelerated Reader” (Delgado 407). These results show a modest positive effect that technology has had on the English subject. There are several different ways that technology is being integrated into classrooms that are showing even more positive effects. There are instructional strategies, bring your own device (BYOD), blended learning, flipped learning/flipped classrooms, online learning, and 1-to-1 computing. (Delgado 401-405). These ways of enforcing technology into the classroom have shown outstanding results. For example, “students in 1:1 computing environments exhibited increased academic achievement,