Visual Symbols

Visual Symbols
  Are representation of direct reality, which comes in forms of signs and symbols. The following kinds of visual symbols are: Cartoons, Drawings, Strip drawings, diagrams, maps, charts.

Kinds of Visual symbols

1. Cartoons
    Cartoons tell stories metaphorically through pictures. which needs no captions.  Symbolism conveys messages, less words more symbolism the better. The cartoon pertains a certain issue or concern which could either for or against it.
ex.

2. Drawings
    These are crude and simple lines, which are effective in showing what needs to be shown with sufficient clarity, to make learning vivid to the students. Drawing is a basic skill that a teacher needs to possess.
ex.

"Visual symbols are worth a thousand words"

Reported by: Sheena Tiu

The Cone of Experience


Dale’s Cone of Experience is a model that incorporates several theories related to instructional design and learning processes. During the 1960s, Edgar Dale theorized that learners retain more information by what they “do” as opposed to what is “heard”, “read” or “observed”. His research led to the development of the Cone of Experience. Today, this “learning by doing” has become known as “experiential learning” or “action learning”. The cone is diagramed and explained in the next sections.

Dale's "Cone of Experience," which he intended to provide an intuitive model of the concreteness of various kinds of audio-visual media, has been widely misrepresented. Often referred to as the "Cone of Learning," it purports to inform viewers of how much people remember based on how they encounter information. However, Dale included no numbers and did not base his cone on scientific research, and he also warned readers not to take the cone too seriously. The numbers originated from 1967, when a Mobile oil company employee named D. G. Treichler published a non-scholarly article in an audio magazine titled Film and Audio-Visual Communications

According to one of the principles in the selection and use of teaching strategies, the more senses that are involved in learning, the more and the better the learning will be but it does not mean that concrete experience is the only effective experience that educators should use in transferring knowledge to the learner. Like what was mentioned above, the experiences in each stages can be mixed and are interrelated thus, a balance must be achieved between concrete and abstract experiences in order to cater the and address all the need of the learner in all the domains of development and in order to help each learner in their holistic development.

Moreover, the generalization about the Cone of Experience that was presented above is not enough. Actually, we should try to go deeper in each of the component of the cone since Educational Technology basically revolves around the Cone of Experience. By going one-by-one, starting from concrete to abstract, we will understand more the different components of the cone that will help us in grasping the real meaning of educational technology.

The Roles of Educational Technology in Learning

The Roles of Educational Technology in Learning

Why do we make use of technology? it's been many years since technology arrived in our classrooms and we can't deny the fact that it brought a great deal of help to us students. 

From the traditional point of view. technology serves as a source and presenter of knowledge. It is assumed that knowledge is embedded in technology and that technology presents the knowledge to the students.

From the constructivist point of view, educational technology serves as a learning tools that learners learn with. It engages learners in active, constructive, intentional, authentic and cooperative learning. Learners make use of technology as facilitator of thinking and knowledge construction.

The Roles of Technology in Learning:

• Technology as tools to support knowledge construction: for representing learners' ideas, understandings and beliefs, for producing organized multimedia knowledge bases by learners
• Technology as information vehicles for exploring knowledge to support learning-by constructing: for accessing needed information , for comparing perspectives, beliefs and world views.
• technology as a context to support learning-by-doing: for representing and simulating meaningful real-world problems, situations and contexts, for representing beliefs, perspectives, arguments and stories of others.
• Technology as a social medium to support learning by conversing: for collaborating with others, for discussing, arguing and building consensus among members of community.
• Technology as intellectual partner to support learning by reflecting: For helping learners to articulate and represent what they know, for reflecting on what they have learned and how they came to know it, for supporting mindful thinking.

Whether used from the traditional or constructivist point of view, when used effectively, research indicates that technology increases students' learning, understanding and achievement but also supports augments motivation to learn, encourages collaborative learning and supports the development of critical thinking and problem-solving skills.

Meaning of Educational Technology
    
         The word TECHNOLOGY comes from the Greek word techne which means "craft of art". Based on the etymology of the word "Technology", the term educational technology, therefore, refers to the art or craft of responding to our educational needs.
 

   Educational Technology (also known as “EdTech”) refers to an area of technology devoted to the development and application of tools (including software, hardware, and processes) intended to promote education. It is a complex, integrated process involving people, procedures, ideas, devices and organization for analyzing problems and devising, implementing, evaluating and managing solutions to those problems, involved in all aspects of human learning.

         If developed and applied correctly, educational technology has the potential to become truly industry-changing for educators–streamlining time-consuming processes (like lesson planning, reporting, and record-keeping) and simplifying communication–with even farther-reaching implications for educational institutions themselves.

THERE ARE OTHER TERMS ASSOCIATED WITH EDUCATIONAL TECHNOLOGY: Technology in education, instructional technology and technology in education.

   Technology in education is the application of technology to any of those processes involved in operating institutions which house the educational enterprise. it includes the application of technology to food, health, finance, scheduling, grade, reporting and other processes which support education within institutions.


  Instructional technology refers to those aspects of educational technology that are concerned with instruction as contrasted to designs and operations of educational institutions. It is also a systematic way of designing, carrying out, and evaluating the total process of learning and teaching in terms of specific objectives.


  Technology integration means using learning technologies to introduce, reinforce, supplement and extend skills.


Put another way, “EdTech is a study and ethical practice for facilitating learning and improving performance by creating, using and managing appropriate technological processes and resources.”