Role of EdTech in Cognition

I believe that information and communication technologies really help to expand the way we think. It helps to open our minds more to different ideas. I say this mainly from personal experience. Before this course, I didn't think technology much affected elementary school teachers, I have now found out that I was 100% wrong in thinking that. I now understand that there is so much to be done with technology and learning. We are in an everyday changing environment. I believe that a lot of learning right now is "un-empowered", however, with the way our lives our changing and how technology is being more and more incorporated into schools each day, I believe soon that will be a thing of the past. 

When it comes to technology I believe we have an easier access to our children. With how absorbed we are in technology these days, I see children taking to it and focusing on it more aptly than pen-paper assignments. Just as well, technology is a great tool for adding to children's metacognition because metacognition is your awareness and understanding of your own thought process. Therefore, when finding different outlets online that help better ones learning process you have to be aware of how your mind works in order to find that. A child has to understand how they learn in order to choose the right learning tool for them. There are tons of different learning options online, therefore a student will have to keep in mind their own abilities in order to choose which is right for him. For example, if a child does better with comprehension when someone is reading something to them, then they would need to choose an app/site that allows that. They need to understand as individual learners what will be the best asset for their learning. Another example would be letter recognition, if a student is aware that they struggle with this and know that they need more of an interactive way of learning for it so stick. Then that student needs to be provided with some sort of online activity that allows them to work with letters in a game type setting.

More than anything the increase in technology, connectedness, and tools has increased the way we learn. I say this because we have so many more outlets available to use now that these things have increased. Before there were limited options to what teachers could do in their classroom to accommodate to the different types of learners they had, but now there are endless options of ways to reach your students. Going along with Gardners' Multiple Intelligences, I believe the increase in technology really helps to feed into the different types of intelligences. For example if you are a learner that requires music or visual aid then technology can provide that for you. There are so many different ways of finding these different ways of teaching one subject, with technology that it helps the teachers accommodate to all different types of learners.