European Journal of Open Education and E-learning Studies
ISSN: 2501-9120
ISSN-L: 2501-9120
Available on-line at: www.oapub.org/edu
doi: 10.5281/zenodo.841925
Volume 2│ Issue 1│ 2017
ENRICHING CLASSROOMS WITH TECHNOLOGY
IN THE BASIC SCHOOLS
Karzan Wakil1,2,3,*i
Nsar Qaisar3
Chra Mohammed3
University of Human Development, Iraq
1
Sulaimani Polytechnic University, Iraq
2
Institute of Training and Educational Development in Sulaimani, Iraq
3
Abstract:
Teachers play a significant role in integrating technology in schools, and motivated
teachers reflect higher levels of technology use in their classroom. Learning students,
especially in basic schools, become a new direction of research. The problem is some
education systems for improving teaching process less use technology in the classes. In
this paper, we present role of technology in the classroom for a learning process. We
proposed two classes one of them enriched with technology another one without
technology, after teaching the same subject for both students we take a test. The result
shows that Average of students GPA in classroom technology is 83.3%, but in the
classroom without technology decrease to 60.4%, the result of shows the learning
increased 22.9% by using technology. Besides all students enjoyed in classroom
technology and most of them learned more material with technology. The result of our
paper shows that the classroom technology is more efficient to learn basic school
students.
Keywords: classroom technology, basic schools, educational technology
1. Introduction
Technology developers, school leaders, and reward providers have supported the rapid
progression of technology mixture in schools. A total focus on technology integration
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Karzan Wakil, Nsar Qaisar, Chra Mohammed
ENRICHING CLASSROOMS WITH TECHNOLOGY IN THE BASIC SCHOOLS
required schools to reshape their objectives for educating students and providing
effective professional development for teachers[1].
Allocations for funding technology action have increased due to anecdotal and
research-based findings that support the use of technology in the classroom [2].
Hernández, 2005 highlighted a number of new challenges facing leaders trying to
implement professional development for combining technology. Although there has
been a successful shift toward increased technology integration in schools, not all
educational leaders are convinced about the value of these new tools for instructional
objectives[3]. Fullan, 2011 a well-respected researcher in the field of educational reform,
stated: ever since the first laptop emerged almost 40 years ago technology has been getting the
race over pedagogy . He suggested that technology had its place in the classroom;
however, he explained that owning a laptop for all students would not make them
more intelligent or even more knowledgeable. Regardless of the conflicting perspectives
that exist among educational leaders, technology is still a major part of today’s K-12
classrooms [4].
In the past, teachers provided instruction to students without concern for
technology integration. They now encounter ever-changing expectations about their
responsibility to improve and increase their practices with technology integration.
Guzman and Nussbaum, 2009 stated that a primary necessity for training teachers must
include professional development activities that produce knowledgeable instructors
skilled in technology competencies. Although expectations from stakeholders are high,
key barriers often inhibit the successful integration of technology in the classroom [5].
The primary goal of federal education legislation is to improve student academic
achievement, measured primarily by student performance on state standardized tests.
Secondary goals include the expectation that every student become technologically
literate, that research-based technology-enhanced instructional methods and best
practices be established, and those teachers be encouraged and trained to effectively
integrate technology into the instruction they provide. The directive to integrate
instructional technology into the teaching and learning equation results from the
following fundamental beliefs: (1) that learning can be enhanced through the use of
technology and (2) that students need to develop technology skills in order to become
productive members of society in a competitive global economy [6-7].
Kurdistan Region and Iraq still now not used technology for improving the
classroom, only a few basic schools used technology for learning, this the reason why
Iraqi education system not powerful especially after evolving technology. For solving
this problem, we proposed a scenario for showing performance of classroom
technology in learning in Kurdistan Region.
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ENRICHING CLASSROOMS WITH TECHNOLOGY IN THE BASIC SCHOOLS
The paper is organized as follows: Section 2 explains the background work on
effectiveness learning in classroom technology. The Section 3 prepared research process
for solving issues. In section 4 presents the result of implementation research process.
Section 5 presents concluding remarks and points to future works.
2. Related Work
There are some papers exist for finding the role of technology for learning and enrich
classroom. B. J. Griffiths, 2015 considers a new panorama by seeking the views of
current and former exchange students from the USA and the UK. Data was collected by
interviewing 12 students representing eight universities in the two countries, and an
investigation was conducted using phenomenological principles. While attitudes
varied, the general feeling appeared to be that using technology to teach a class offered
diminishing revenues, to the point where participants were almost uniformly against
the notion of completely online courses [8].
Levy, 2015 argues that classroom practices informed by an understanding of how
the brain learns will always be more advantageous than approaches based on
observations about students’ changing technology habits. Technology and forms of
media are always changing, but the fundamentals of teaching students to be great
critical thinkers have not changed much at all over time. Whether writing an appellate
brief, synthesizing a line of cases, or solving a complex issue for a client, it will always
demand an ability to shut out distractions and focus strongly on that task at hand [9].
Martin, 2014 in the results of a survey given to 48 elementary schools in the
biggest school district in a Southeastern USA, conducted by university faculty to assess
the use of SMART Boards and hands-on experiences, the objectives of which were to
identify preparedness of elementary classroom teachers in teaching elementary science,
in using SMART Boards and in using manipulative for teaching in the elementary
Science classroom, as well as to identify frequency with which primary classroom
instructors use SMART Boards or manipulative and reasons for using or not using
SMART Boards and/or manipulative in the elementary Science classroom. This result
helps us how improving classroom by using technology [10].
In [11] determined the usefulness of the printed textbook in the science
classroom as opposed to the e-text that is becoming the norm in many classrooms.
While technology continues to improve and develop, students may struggle to be more
successful in the academic classroom without teacher guidance in the use of this
technology. Further research is needed to determine how to educate students using best
practices when the use of an e-text is required. With more time and practice, there is the
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Karzan Wakil, Nsar Qaisar, Chra Mohammed
ENRICHING CLASSROOMS WITH TECHNOLOGY IN THE BASIC SCHOOLS
possibility that students may be successful using the e-text, just as they are now with
the printed textbook.
The majority of the studied California elementary school classrooms in this study
provided their students with less outdoor air ventilation than specified in current State
guidelines. Higher VRs in classrooms were associated consistently with decreased
illness absence, although small sample sizes made this association somewhat less
certain in some school districts. Keeping VRs below recommended levels in classrooms
saves energy and money but, if the associations seen here are causal, has unrecognized
but much larger costs from increased health difficulties and illness absence among
students. Growing VRs above the recommended minimum levels, even up to 15 L/secperson or higher, may additional substantially decrease illness absence. It may be
advantageous to students, their families, and school districts, and also highly cost
effective, for VRs in elementary school classrooms to substantially better current
recommended ventilation guidelines [12].
McDowell, 2013 was to compare differences and similarities between how
teachers in the 21st CMC program and non-participants acquired and applied new
knowledge and skills for integrating technology in the classroom environment. This
study also examined how participants described their use of professional development
activities and their beliefs about integrating technology in the classroom environment
[13].
In another work, Rehm and Smith in their research provide ABSEL as a key
location and central repository for information on ways to enhance student learning
through the proper integration of technology. Unfortunately, this provides and
incomplete view of the potential for technology uses in student learning as it ignores
the possibility of using technology as a means for enhanced communication within the
classroom. This paper evaluates the current state of research regarding technology
enhanced learning with a focus on filling in the apparent gap in in-class technology
enhanced communication [14]. Two years later Uluyol and Şahin used semi structured
interviews to review elementary school teachers’ ICT use and their motivators for doing
so. The participants consisted of 101 elementary school teachers from 24 elementary
schools located in the Turkish capital. They discuss and analyze our findings to
understand the current state of teachers’ ICT use and their motivations for using ICT.
An overall conclusion from the results is that more concrete encouragement, support,
and opportunities must be developed to increase teachers’ motivation to improve the
level and quality of ICT use in classrooms [15].
Effective technology for teaching explained in our previous experience, in [16]
we presented that studying and learning ICT subject in basic schools is more affection
for the education system, and helps students to improve their knowledge in other
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ENRICHING CLASSROOMS WITH TECHNOLOGY IN THE BASIC SCHOOLS
subjects. Future more the students that studied ICT subject more intelligent compared
to the students that did not. But showed be aware using technology for a long time
without parents control especially for playing electronic game return negative affection
as shown in [17].
3. Methodology
For finding the role of technology during enriching classroom, we define a scenario
then we make a test, and we give them the questionnaires form. In our scenario we
prepared two group of students for teaching the same subject, the subject is Biology,
first group students will be studied in classic classroom without technology, second
group students will be studied in the classroom with technology. Then we take a test for
both groups then we will compare the marks, then we create a questionnaires form (see
table 1), then we conclude the result of tests and student answers as shown in Figure 1:
Figure 1: Research Process
4. Result and Discussion
After implementing our methodology in the Boskani basic school in Slemani City, Iraq,
we propose two classes one of them classic class without technology another one
classroom technology that enriched by technology hardware and software such as data
show, laptop, smart board and so on. Each class consists of 16 students in the same
level. We teach Biology subject for both types then we take a test, we get the different
result from each class as shown in Table 1.
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ENRICHING CLASSROOMS WITH TECHNOLOGY IN THE BASIC SCHOOLS
Table 1: Test result from both classes technology and classis
Class
Classroom Technology
Classic Classroom
Number of students
16
16
Number of pass in test
14
10
Number of fail in test
2
6
Average of GPA
83.3%
60.4%
Average of GPA for pass students
90.5%
83.3%
Average of GPA for fail students
33.3%
22.2%
Percentage of pass students
87.5%
62.5%
Percentage of fail students
12.5%
37.5%
Table 1 presents that the student's classroom technology better learned in student's
classic classroom, in classroom technology rate of pass students 87.5% but the rate of
pass students in classic classroom 62.5%. Average GPA in classroom technology is
83.3% but GPA in classic classroom 60.4%. The result shows that the classroom
technology more useful compared with the classic classroom. For more explain we
present the result both classes by Bar Chart as shown in Figure 2 and Figure 3.
Figure 2: Test result by number
Figure 3: Test result by percentage
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ENRICHING CLASSROOMS WITH TECHNOLOGY IN THE BASIC SCHOOLS
After the test we prepared questionnaires form for students that studied in both class,
they answered the question by using Yes or No , the result of answer questions
presented in Table 2.
Table 2: Result of Questionnaires form
No.
Questions
Yes
No
Q.1
Do you better understand in classroom technology?
29
3
Q.2
Do you enjoy in classroom technology?
32
0
Q.3
Is it useful for practice, when you study in classroom technology?
30
2
Q.4
Do you remember information for a long time, after studying in classroom technology?
29
3
Q.5
Do you like study in classroom technology always?
24
8
Table 2 explained that the students could learn strongly and information better imaged
by students mind, also the students enjoyed in classroom technology compared with
classic classroom, however, few number of students liked classic classroom but most of
them interested in classroom technology, the result presented in Figure 4.
Figure 4: Bar Chart for Result of Questionnaires
5. Conclusion and Future Work
In this paper, we present role of technology in the classroom for the learning process.
We designed two classes, one of them with technology another one without technology,
after teaching the same subject for both groups, we took a test. The result shows that the
average of GPA in the classic classroom is 60.4% but in the classroom technology
become to 83.3%, the result of shows the learning increased 22.9% by using technology.
Moreover, all students enjoyed in classroom technology and most of them learned more
about classroom technology. We recommend for researcher enrich classroom with a
different design with technology; they find the role of technology for test, exam, and
assignments.
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ENRICHING CLASSROOMS WITH TECHNOLOGY IN THE BASIC SCHOOLS
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ENRICHING CLASSROOMS WITH TECHNOLOGY IN THE BASIC SCHOOLS
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