Educational Technology and Instructional Pedagogy: Teacher’s perceptions and abilities to integrate technology in the classroom

Abstract

Many teachers leave the educational profession due to many factors. However, a majority of these conditions exist because our educational system and the institutions that prepare educators often fail to give educators the tools to do their job well. Preparatory courses for pre-service teachers, for example, lack the strength needed to ready the degree earners that enter their program with necessary skills to advance, especially when their institution has deficits laterally across the campus in terms of technology awareness, process, and structure. Once educators enter into school districts they are held responsible for student achievement that is not often supported by the latest technology and ever changing technologies that are present in the fields of other professional fields. Schools all around the country must make choices around adequate funding and balancing the needs of standards set forth by a hierarchy of government legislation. It is up to districts and their personnel to ultimately choose how to best meet all the needs and demands placed upon them in order to meet all of the needs of all their students. Technology of everyday life has moved well beyond what educators are taught to and regularly use to support student learning. Technology is being used in education as a tool for learning, collaboration, curriculum development and staff development. The fluent and collaborative use of technology is now as vital a skill as any other taught in the schools, and as such is an integral part of the curriculum whose purpose is to ensure that students enter the workforce fully equipped and completely at ease with the technology currently in use in the workplace.