Evaluation of Romano's Chapter 4

After reading through Chapter 4 of Romano’s book Empowering Teachers with Technology, the following six perceptions concerning teaching and education:

• Human progress from the Stone Age to the Information Age resulted primarily from amplifying individuals capacity to function first by empowering them with crude implements, the tools, then machines and now technology. This is basic to understanding how teachers can do what they do – better
• All human activity is driven by information; the more demanding the activity – the greater the need for information. Thus, information can be termed the fuel that powers the teaching-learning process.
• The master teachers of the Information Age are those who develop the capacity to navigate the worldwide oceans of information and selectively retrieve that which can provide an enriched experience for their learners
• How teachers manage information has a major impact on the outcome of the teaching-learning process. Technology facilitates and amplifies the teacher’s capacity to provide learners of higher fidelity in an individualized, interactive mode.
• Teachers plan, communicate, guide, and evaluate. Information technology can be adapted to allow the teacher to do these better, and thus impact positively the efficiency of the teaching-learning process.
• There is compelling evidence that learning is heightened when teachers create visually rich experiences, thus engaging the learner’s entire brain – rather than only half.
  
  In my opinion these six perceptions are very important because technology is going to change education in the future. Higher education is only beginning to fully utilize Internet technology through distance education. Colleges and universities are also starting to use teleconferences as a method of educating students also. I also believe that our society is becoming more and more dependent on information. However, in the future, the indicator of an educated person will be whether they can discern credible and erroneous information. In higher education, it is going to essential that faculty and librarians form partnerships in which we train students how to find, evaluate, and utilize information properly. I also think faculty are going to have to be innovative in how they utilize technology in order to facilitate education. Partnerships will have to be developed with educational technology departments in order for faculty to keep current with the technology that is currently being offered at the institution of higher education. In my opinion, faculty will always have to continue to develop objectives and evaluate whether the students are learning the materials. As they develop their objectives they will also have to develop curriculum which will address all of the various types of learners. Typically instructors teach in methods which are similar to their learning styles. As a result, departments should be created on university campuses which allow faculty to learn how to instruct to the various learning styles of individuals.
  
  After taking this course and continue my doctoral classes, I will have to look at technology as a tool which can be utilized to facilitate education in the future. I have also begun to realize that I’m going to have to adapt to using more technology in the future also. Traditionally, I have preferred print resources to find information. However, I have begun to notice since taking this class that I am going to rely more on electronic resources to find the information that is needed. This really has been apparent as I have been creating my educational technology time line. More and more of the books are becoming available online. I am not a huge fan of online books, because I cannot find information as quickly. However, I’m going to have to learn to adapt in order to survive in the workplace. I believe these tendencies is what has kept education from utilizing technology in the classrooms. As educators, we don’t feel as comfortable utilizing it. In my opinion, educators are still learning how to manage instruction in an online course environment. As we use this technology, we are going to have to work together to learn how to best educate student with the medium. As a librarian, I’m going to have to learn how to operate within the online course environment in order to meet the needs of these online students through recorded instructions and other mechanism. Partnerships will have to be developed with faculty in order for librarians to be given an opportunity to conduct instructions for the students using these online course environments.