Abstract

It is becoming important that students learn advanced technologies in order to properly prepare them for future career initiatives and to be familiar with the advancement of technology in everyday life.  Many educational professionals in the elementary through high school institutions face the challenges of improving education and overall teacher quality.  Many colleges and universities face similar challenges. This paper will explore many technological tools that help improve the curriculum. Many higher education institutions that are “for profit” organizations are required to compete for students. With many significant technology advances for these types of institutions, there are opportunities that lead to the improvement of operations (cost-cutting) and generated better communications for student retention issues (increasing revenue).  Many schools educating students from elementary through high school are faced with ensuring students are ready for higher education and future careers that demand technology experiences. This paper will explore the implementation of these tools and discuss why it is imperative to understand that technology is changing at a rapid pace which affects the methods that individuals conduct business.

Introduction

As one explores the next generation of technology to improve education, one will need to understand that technology could be utilized to aid in the challenge of improving education quality. The conversion of educational technology from hardware, software, and connections into effective tools for learning is crucial to the success of the students’ future. Information Technology should be made available to all students and teachers within the classroom setting.  The instructors should have the ability to utilize technology effectively in order to aid the students in obtaining high academic standards. The educational community will need to improve the next generation of technology applications in order to improve the learning environment. This includes the use of digital content and networked applications. This topic would include both higher education institutions and K through 12.  We will explore e-commerce, wireless techniques, i-pods, and such technologies that are beneficial to the educational process.

The high-skilled, high-tech jobs of the 21st century demands specialized entry-level training and skill upgrading that rely on expertise in technological areas not originally required. It is important that students learn with these advanced technologies in order to properly prepare them for future career initiatives. Additionally, with the advancement of technology in everyday life, the technology can be an aid in keeping students interested in learning.   Bringing innovation into the educational arena is a new idea and is considered innovative. Given the rapid pace of technological changes, it is imperative that education keeps pace. This includes elementary, secondary, and higher educational institutions.

Technology Development in the Education Industry

Many educational professionals in the elementary through high school institutions face the challenges of improving education and overall teacher quality.  According to Wighting (2006, July/August), technology has played an important role in everybody’s life and is incorporated into the daily use of society. The author presents that technological innovation needs to be a part of the educational process since the classroom is a microcosm of society and should become a common place phenomenon within the class environment. Strudler (2003, Fall) states that educational technology researchers are attempting to identify technology-base methods in order to uniquely create consistent benefits, solving problems within the educational system and lead to great improvements. While technology is being introduced into the classroom, it is still a new phenomenon with the classroom and according to Wighting, little is known about the effects of increased use of technology is having on the school environment.

Wighting continues to indicate that information is available in larger quantities than in the past and the ability to access data and transmit it to other is remarkable.  Online library resources are one facet of technology in the classroom. The ability to mine through intellectual capital has been a great benefit to the students of the school community. According to Spencer (2006, July), the online research capabilities for school library systems have been a help in students having an edge for information. The students utilize online research tools such as LexisNexis, Factiva, and ProQuest. Online library systems help students generate research in an efficient and effect manner.

According to Salpeter (2003, October), there are six learning objectives in order to prepare students for the current twenty-first century. The six objectives include the necessary to expand the students beyond the basic competency to understand the major academic content at levels greater than the past; students will need to improve the learning skills by thinking critically, applying knowledge to new situations, comprehension of new concepts, communicating, and make synthesized decisions; technology is the driving force within the communities and businesses during the twenty-first century; emphasizing the magnitude of technology in the educational environment starting from the elementary grades; students need to be linked to the real-world that moves beyond of the classroom by providing experiences that are most relevant to the student’s lives; the content of what students need to learn in an effort to live and work in the twenty-first century goes beyond what the local school authorities have previously defined; and new assessment measurements for the twenty-first century skills are needed to be defined.

Learning for the twenty-first century will depend upon meeting these objectives. Salpeter indicates that the essential for preparing the students in what he calls a knowledge-based economy will depend upon improved technology in the classroom for students in the learning process; and teachers for the improvement of assessments and measurements of students’ progress.

The design, development, and support for the electronic learning environment of eCollege’s platform reflect quality, efficiency, and effectiveness, according the PR Newswire (2001, November 14).  Blackboard and WebCT are other online providers also providing quality online platform.  Based on the article, it is obvious that these online education application system providers have the visualization and fortitude to succeed, which benefit those collegiate institutions utilizing their product and services (p. 1). These online schools allow the instructors to have the ability to add various tools such as discussion boards, real-time chat rooms, mail systems, and other various online instruction tools. This can also be brought into the traditional learning environment as many schools have a shell to enhance the education process, even in the traditional setting.

Distance education that many universities and colleges provide to their students is generally offered in three distinct formats, which include synchronous, asynchronous, or a combination of both formats. Synchronous learning allows online students to attend the course work in real time by utilizing various internet tools such as videoconferencing or chat room that have any combination of textual, audio, and video technologies. This type of collaboration technology is a distinct communication activity where students and instructors are logged into the course at the very same time. The real-time chat session appears to be the most common tool in the synchronous environment, according to the eCollege website, but videoconferencing can be extremely helpful in teaching engineering, programming, or any other skill-based learning activities. Asynchronous learning provides learning opportunities to online students the ability to attend the course on their own time where they have various combinations of recorded textual, audio, and video technologies. The eCollege corporate website continues to state that asynchronous collaboration techniques include the utilization of various communication tools including online or threaded discussion activity.  Phillips and Yager (1999) indicate that a majority of collegiate institutions blend both asynchronous and synchronous technologies to convey their learning platforms.  This research artifact reveals that a few institutions, such as Colorado State University, will only utilize the asynchronous technology.

Technology could be utilized to aid in the challenge of improving education quality. The conversion of educational technology from hardware, software, and connections into effective tools for learning is crucial to the success of the students’ future. Information Technology should be made available to all students and teachers within the classroom setting.  The instructors should have the ability to utilize technology effectively in order to aid the students in obtaining high academic standards. The educational community will need to improve the next generation of technology applications in order to improve the learning environment.

Analysis of the Technology Developments

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Technology could be utilized to aid in the challenge of improving education quality. The conversion of educational technology from hardware, software, and connections into effective tools for learning is crucial to the success of the students’ future. Information Technology should be made available to all students and teachers within the classroom setting. 

In the high school setting, it is imperative to help students become more skilled, independent, and self-directed individuals who are naturally comfortable using technology in all formats as critical information resources. Students will utilize various tools to develop students develop the ability to solve problems using various technology, scientific, and mathematical concepts, as they develop ability to relate these concepts and principles in their future endeavors. In this type of concept, students have the opportunity for various hands-on experiences which are necessary to build, design, create, test, and evaluate their final solutions to problems.  The online tools designed to have students engaged in design challenges have the ability conduct problem solving techniques within pre-defined constraints and specifications as they develop solutions to the challenging problems.

Many tools are available to provide reference materials, online tutorials, and homework help by utilizing various game activities for all types of courses. These tools include online courses that provide students needing more instruction on various arithmetic topics, especially those students requiring a refresher. These special course labs provide a learning environment that shows each concept in detail, along with continuous opportunities that evaluates the students understanding. The ability to offer online tools that help students brush up on their basic and advanced mathematical skills help students requiring more routine and reinforcement of various concepts. This is also available for other subjects including grammar, spelling, and other various topics. Some of the online tools available in the various grade levels from kindergarten to twelve grades include automatic flashcard wizards, puzzle makers, quiz builders, rubric generators, and lesson plan builders. Many other tools include atlases, biographies, dictionaries, encyclopedias, almanacs, and other online library resources. Math skills are essential in almost every aspect of life, but these skills are especially important to business, technology, engineering, and other such career objectives of students. These online tools discussed help students develop the ability to analyze and support findings as they model their conclusions during any problem solving questions that could be presented in science, technology, engineering, business, or other such careers. Additionally, these tools help the teacher provide a better way of measuring the progress of students in an unbiased and objective manner. These tools can suggest improvement lesson plans for each student. This will provide elementary, middle school, and high school students the opportunity to have the challenges that will allow them the ability to successfully engage in their future activities, whether it be a career or higher educational endeavors.

Technology has been improved for providing assistance in teaching remedial mathematics in colleges and universities. One example of this is the “Mymathlab” concept. According to Speckler (2005, Fall), higher education organizations are finding that a quality math program can be provided to students in a cost-effective and efficient manner by utilizing the mymathlab concept. The faculty will have more time to spend with the students and will reduce the amount of time on the routine administrative tasks. The report by Speckler indicated that students are more motivated to complete the homework, retain more of the math knowledge, and they are mastering the math classes on the first attempt. Speckler indicates that the colligate industry was in a crisis as nearly half of the first-time students will leave the first college that they attend by the end of their first year and never return. Even though there is an increase access to information technology, many colleges were utilizing the non-technical methods to teach students requiring remedial math. The July 2005 edition of The Learning Marketspace, which is the newsletter of the National Center for Academic Transformation, reports that 60 percent of students at public institutions fail to complete degrees within five years, and that 50 percent of those students leave school during their freshman year.  According to the eCollege corporate website, MyMathLab is a series of courses that is conducted online and designed provide an electronic tutorial service for students that work hand in hand with the Pearson books. The tool is designed to allow students to work on their own pace and is utilized by many community colleges and “for profit” colleges. In order to realize how information technology can be utilized to improve the overall quality of education, become more cost efficient, and improving the learning access, it became imperative to reshape the learning model for the one area that many students found to be difficult, and that is the area of mathematics. Pearson Education’s MyMathLab has recreated how math is taught and learned within the college environment. The faculty has found much more time for students and the remedial math students are more motivated to complete their homework, retain the math knowledge, and encourage students to pass the courses on the first time attempting the math courses, according to Speckler. He further reveals that over eleven hundred other institutions are utilizing the MyMathLab online courseware. This innovative tool is only a beginning of utilizing technology tools in remedial education, as the next steps will be to design courseware for English, Science, and other general education subjects.

While higher education institutions have created online courses to meet students’ demand to log into a course and participate whenever the student’s schedule permits, there is some added benefit to students having the ability to utilize synchronous collaboration tools. The online chat room tools provide an instructor to share course content containing video, audio, or other digital format with the student. According to Guzdial, Kolodner, and Navavanan (1996, April), the goal for most online students is to learn through the embarkation upon challenging problems, along with support for successfully solving the problem. This provides a method to transfer meaningful knowledge and skills from the instructor to the online student through online, real-time collaboration, according to the authors. This allows the student to solve difficult problems and verbalize to one another in their deliberations and is an important technique for learning in many problem-solving related educational fields, such as engineering.

The chat room tools in online education are ideal for the unexpected and casual type of communication between the different learners and instructor, as presented to an article in PR Newswire (2006, July 11). This article continues by stating that this type of online chat tool is significantly enhanced with Pronto allowing the online courseware to replace instant messaging, email, phone communications, and social networking applications. This software application ties many of the formats of communication tools that many of the online students currently utilize to collaborate with each other and will integrate with existing systems such as WebCt or Blackboard.

Bravo, Redondo, and Ortega (2006, February) describes that there is a lack of teaching tools from a learner-centered perspective with an emphasis on synchronous collaboration and the technique of online chat room tools could be used in the curriculum to stimulate more discussion, evaluation, and simulation activities benefiting the overall learning experience of the online student.  It is important that online education universities to develop a support system that include student forums, electronic billboards, instructor emails, electronic grade books with instructor comments, and student chat rooms. PR Newswire (2001, February 12) and PR Newswire (2002, June 17) indicate that  synchronous course tools like chat rooms are helpful in supplying students a chance to locate study buddies, provide simulated problem-solving actions, and online, real-time meetings with professors and other students. According to Blumenstyk (1999), a survey that University of California in Los Angeles conducted in 1998 revealed that over fifty percent of new freshmen prefer utilizing chat rooms as a mode of communication.  Blumenstyk continued to state that students perceive chat room discussions will continue to contribute more to the educational value than even the traditional classroom discussions, as a significant benefit includes students getting a sense of live participation by utilizing the live chat room discussion. The new technologies in the online chat room technologies include the offering of one audio and two-way text chat that has led to much success according to Blumenstyk’s article and the corporate e-College corporate website. While online education is no longer considered the alternative form of education and is now become a more-widely accepted model, there is an opportunity to the mainstream of higher education academics. The utilization of synchronous learning tools such as chat rooms present a true advantage moving online education into the mainstream of the university system, truly competing with the traditional universities.

Donofrio (2006, March 9) discusses the importance of creating a new innovation paradigm to ensure a prosperous business outcome and the online education business is certainly an example of this. As online tools are improving by major educational application providers such as e-College, Blackboard, and WebCT, the quality of the education is greatly improving by the virtual learning campuses. As a matter of fact, some universities, utilize the online shell in their normally traditional style classes creating a blended approach. The school has design eight-week class formats that include 32 hours meeting in a classroom setting and 24 hours in an online setting.  This allows students to benefit from the online tools for examination, online discussions, video clips, and other such technological tools that benefit the student while reducing the actual class room meeting times. This gives students an opportunity to benefit the best of both worlds, as the instructors have the ability to utilize technology effectively in order to aid the students in obtaining high academic standards.

Implications of Technology in Education

The high-skilled, high-tech jobs of the 21st century will demand specialized entry-level training and skill upgrading that rely on expertise in technological areas not originally required. It is important that students learn with these advanced technologies in order to properly prepare them for future career initiatives. Additionally, with the advancement of technology in everyday life, the technology can be an aid in keeping students interested in learning.   Bringing innovation into the educational arena is a new idea and is considered innovative. Given the rapid pace of technological changes, it is imperative that education keeps pace. This includes elementary, secondary, and higher educational institutions.

There is an apparent need to improve high standards and challenging learning activities for students who are disinterested in learning and new technologies have the opportunity to provide better learning experiences for all students, even those at risk of possible educational failure. Education reform with technology will aid educational intuitions in the kindergarten to twelve grade levels as they will be able to capitalize on this technological advancement that will aid in the students to develop higher order skills and to function effectively beyond the traditional classroom environment. The curriculum for students utilizing these technologic tools will develop the integration of higher order of thinking skills, ability to generate skills in comprehension, and having the exposure to more complex and meaningful learning activities. According to Means, Chelemer, & Knapp (1991), students will have the opportunity to learn and practice the basic skills in the context of working genuine tasks and skills, as they take part in collaborative classrooms and stimulate real-world environments. Morocco, Remz, and Zorfass (1993) provide that technology encourages students to engage in challenging, realistic learning:

Teachers can draw on technology applications to simulate real-world environments and create actual environments for experimentation, so that students can carry out authentic tasks as real workers would, explore new terrains, meet people of different cultures, and use a variety of tools to gather information and solve problems. (p. 43)

Technology tools developed for schools will be useful for ensuring success of students entering the twenty-first century as they have the opportunity for technological development, as they lean the basic skills. Additionally, the ability to handle complex and real-world problems will be an added benefit, along with the encouragement for students to stay focused and motivated to complete the education process.  This is an important implication of technology as it helps prepare these students for the current twenty-first century.

A benefit of the online delivery method for the collegiate environment is that the platform will encourage greater participation from every learner, even the introvert ones. With the lack of visual cues, the professors in an online format will treat all learners in the same manner, since the instructor will not be as critical to students perceived as being shy as the instructor would not actually visually see the student, according to PR Newswire (2002, June 17) and the eCollege corporate website. Thus, everyone is treated equally and all students are generally encouraged to participate in the learning experience. With all the tools such as the chat room, online discussion, exam builder, and other such tools, the quality of learning is improved while reducing the overall costs. The learning platform also provides the ability to bring education to more individuals in a busy world. Considering the time requirements of working individuals and family responsibilities, online education help learners find time to participate in the learning process and have the ability to develop their educational goals where the traditional methods prevented such access. The most important benefit of online education is that the online discussion facility, sometimes called threaded discussions, can provide a satisfactory form of student involvement, interaction, and encouragement that is sometimes lacking for some students in the traditional approaches. Also, this learning environment out performs the previous distance learning environment that was a print-based format. The increasing amount of relevant resources of online journals, articles, books, and other resource material that is available in an online format provides a wide-range of resource sources available to online students, as well as the traditional students. These online researches are major breakthrough over the old methods of research with microfilm and other media. More students enjoy the ability to conduct research with online libraries much more than the traditional library systems, as they are encouraged and more motivated to actually conduct the research activities.

All tools within the higher education institutions produce a benefit of students learning much more than just course content as these course tools improve communication and improve the writing skills of students. Another great benefit includes students learning to develop their computer, technology, and time-management skills. Again, this is an important implication of technology as it helps prepare these students for the current twenty-first century.

Potential benefits to the for-profit university include the ability to utilize innovation to convert the organizational processes in order to create viable services, such as online education for distance learners and a blended platform approach for other learners. This is usually done by utilizing the latest technology, experimentation, creative insights, or even competitive information.  Incremental innovation would be adopted to enhance existing practices, make small improvements in products or practices, and implementing evolutionary applications within existing paradigms. Francis (2005, October 25) discusses how disruptive innovation, sometimes called creative destruction, could be adopted to make fundamental changes and make substantial breakthroughs by evoking significant departures from existing practices.  This radical innovation process can be utilized to transform or revolutionize an entire industry. According to Francis (2005, October 25), companies that miss out on innovation opportunities face the possibility of disappearance or failure. According to Christensen, Aaron, & Clark (2003, January/February), disruption innovation can provide a new perspective on increasingly affordable and accessible educational opportunities. These authors state that understanding the disruptive innovation theory by the management teams in the higher education industry is critical in the current market place.  They also indicate that disruption is changing the environment of the higher education marketplace across the undergraduate and graduate programs (p. 44).

Implementing the online education platform by utilizing eCollege at many universities has allowed the university to participate in the distance learning market. Also, by incorporating the online shells into the blended delivery method of educational courses have helped these universities gain a competitive advantage over other universities. The school offers traditional fifteen week courses in an eight week period by having students meet sixty percent of the time in the traditional classroom setting and participating in online course activity for the remaining forty percent of the time. The online shell allows delivery of course material in both synchronous and asynchronous formats. Many universities utilizes chat room, email system, online threaded discussions, web cam availability, streaming video, quiz/exam builders, document sharing, and drop box for submission of electronic assignment.  This technology has allowed the university to compete in the distance learning market (online university) and other universities. Kaiser College offer month long classes but students have to attend three days a week. 

The implementation of MyMathLab at several universities has allowed remedial students work on their own pace, at a more cost efficient and effective manner. This has improved the learning access for students at such universities as it is imperative to reshape the learning model for the one area that many students found to be difficult, and that is the area of mathematics. The faculty at these universities have found much more time for students and the remedial math students are more motivated to complete their homework, retain the math knowledge, and encourage students to pass the courses on the first time attempting the math courses. Without the MyMathLab, the faculty will have more time to spend with the students and will reduce the amount of time on the routine administrative tasks.

Therefore, the benefit to for-profit universities include the ability to improve retention with these tools such as MyMathLab; admissions by offering a mix of online, traditional, and blended platforms; and better retention of assignments through the electronic drop boxes and exam software. The accreditations for higher education require retention of assignments and the electronic versions are easier to manage.

According to Hall & Hord (2001), some constraints include funding as many schools have to consider trade offs regarding the fund allocations for other educational areas such as salaries, books, and other educational expenses. These authors point out that there are some physical constraints regarding the layout of the schools, wiring, and age of the buildings. Christensen (1995, Spring) indicates that the technological experiences, educational level, and the willingness to learn new technology among the instructors are some human constraints.   It is imperative for schools to involve their human resources to embrace this technology revolution as they seek financial support from the educational budget, business sponsorships, and donations. The schools should consider balancing expenditures between acquiring new technology and training all human resources, including instructors and support personnel.

In the college systems, the cost of entry into improved technology is expensive and justification has to be made to approve such expenditure. Another limitation includes the fact that technology is changing at a fast pace and it is hard to keep technology current. For profit institutions have to justify the cost of every upgrade as they incorporate the technology into the curriculum and teaching methods. This type of restructuring to include technology tools can raise concerns for the faculty, as the instructional staff is sometimes alarmed that they may be replaced by new technologies.  The reason for the concern is that they feel colleges and universities cannot support both a full inclusion of instructors and a technology within the curriculum. The current research of various articles and journals used in this report has revealed that technology is more successful when utilized alongside a knowledgeable faculty member. Therefore, adequate training should be included for instructors to become more technologically competent.

For-profit universities using such technologies should continue their path to improving the technology within the curriculum, including online education tools and remedial educational tools. The online platform can include the utilization of more streaming video to aid the visual learners and chat room opportunities for students who need this type of learning experience. The success of MyMathLab has helped remedial students improve their math skills, however, there is currently not such a tool for English and Grammar at many of these universities.

Practical IT Management of Educational Technology

The benefits of this project research has revealed how technology within education has reflected the fact that students are learning  skills that will reflect real-world environment proving that education is about more than just memorizing a bunch of facts. Technology and the associated educational software have the ability to be tailored to provide all types of students the education and confidence that they need to succeed. The technology provided in the learning environment can be designed to provide the skills and knowledge that employers want, as they train the students to become future leaders in a world depending on IT solutions to resolve problems in businesses and governmental agencies. This is done by providing a learning environment through the use of current information technology methodologies and processes, which generates the convenience of learning anywhere and anytime through the technologies allowing for quality distance learning.

Some obstacles to overcome include the cost of technology, the lack of expertise in the teaching profession, and administrative controls preventing the speed of which these technologies are made available to all students. However, in this fast-paced technical world, it is important that a fit between the learning environment and the individual learning style of the student be incorporated with these technological advances to ensure that all students be allowed to gain enough educational resources to progress among his peers worldwide.

The differences between the development and predecessor technology are simple. Prior to incorporating technology into the curriculum, schools delivered the educational material traditionally, strictly with books, lecture, and old writing tools of pencil and paper. Electronic books in today’s technology tools are now available and can be complimented by streaming video and the use of either synchronous or asynchronous tools to enhance the discussion of the learning material. As students are forced into the technology world, it only makes sense to incorporate the technology into the curriculum across all educational levels. 

Conclusion

It is imperative to understand that technology is changing at a rapid pace which affects the methods that individuals conduct business. As a result, the educational system must provide educational opportunities that incorporate technology into the normal curriculum. Instructors must remain abreast of the technology so that institutions can help students become competitive in the job market. Failure to incorporate these tools in “for profit” colleges and universities could result in a decrease in student enrollment as students will seek institutions that will better accommodate them to become competitive in the job market. 

The conversion of educational technology from hardware, software, and connections into effective tools for learning is crucial to the success of the students’ future. Information Technology should be made available to all students and teachers within the classroom setting.  The instructors should have the ability to utilize technology effectively in order to aid the students in obtaining high academic standards. The educational community will need to improve the next generation of technology applications in order to improve the learning environment. This will include the use of digital content and networked applications.

The high-skilled, high-tech jobs of the 21st century demand specialized entry-level training and skill upgrading that rely on expertise in technological areas not originally required. It is important that students learn with these advanced technologies in order to properly prepare them for future career initiatives. Additionally, with the advancement of technology in everyday life, the technology can be an aid in keeping students interested in learning.   Bringing innovation into the educational arena is a new idea and is considered innovative. Given the rapid pace of technological changes, it is imperative that education keeps pace. This includes elementary, secondary, and higher educational institutions.

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