Confirmative Evaluation Plan
Mekky

Research literature throughout the past decade has shown that technology can enhance literacy development, impact language acquisition, provide greater access to information, support learning, motivate students, and enhance their self-esteem (ACT, 2004; CEO Forum, 2001; Boster et al., 2004; Mann et al., 1999; Tracey & Young, 2006; WestEd, 2002). Indeed, researchers have affirmed that computer technology provides abundant opportunities for students to build or modify their personal knowledge through the rich experiences that technology affords.

Technology also motivates and engages the learner. When students have a choice in their assignment, see the relevancy, or can self-assess with teacher feedback intertwined, student motivation increases (Daniels, 2002; Ganske et al., 2003; Harvey, 2002). Technology lends itself to all of the above. The research literature also suggests that technology can have a positive impact on the self-esteem of students, especially for at-risk students with low self-esteem and self-confidence (O’Donnell, 2005; Kenny & Gunter, 2004; Taylor, Hasselbring, & Williams, 2001). A training, at a secondary school, has been conducted to show secondary school teachers, with a total of 15 male teachers, their ages range from 40 to 55 years with a minimum computer knowledge, the impact of computer technology on the self-esteem of dropout youth. The training focused on a control and intervention group, both consisting of 60 secondary level students. The intervention group was exposed to the MS Office Suite of tools to use in their learning, while the control group had no access to technology. Pre- and post-questionnaires were administered to determine attitudes toward learning, self-esteem, and self-efficacy. The findings showed a significant increase on all measures.
Moreover, this training consisted of several instructional methods. The first one was direct instruction strategy, which is highly teacher-directed. This strategy is effective for providing information or developing step- by- step skills. It also works well for introducing other teaching methods or actively involving students in knowledge construction. The second instructional strategy was experiential learning, which is inductive, learner centered and activity oriented. Personalized reflection about an experience and the formulation of plans to apply learning to other contexts are critical factors in effective experiential learning. So, everyone can share situation and real life experiences with the others. The last but not least instructional strategy was interactive instruction, which relies heavily on discussion and sharing among participants. It also allows for wide range of groupings and interactive methods. It’s important for teachers to outline the topic, the amount of discussion time, the composition and size of the groups, and reporting or sharing techniques. It requires refinement of observation, listening, interpersonal and intervention skills.

To summarize, when students are using technology as a tool or a support for communicating with others, they are in an active role rather than the passive role of recipient of information transmitted by a teacher, textbook, or broadcast. The student is actively making choices about how to generate, obtain, manipulate, or display information. Technology use allows many more students to be actively thinking about information, making choices, and executing skills than is typical in teacher-led lessons. Moreover, when technology is used as a tool to support students in performing authentic tasks, the students are in the position of defining their goals, making design decisions, and evaluating their progress. This training was very important because it opened a scope of new ideas to the secondary school teachers. After this training the secondary school teachers decided to maximize their technology information and they also decided to implement technology in their classroom to get a better results from their students.

References

http://www.english4today.com/shop/business_english.cfm http://www2.itt-tech.edu/masgoogle/onlineprograms/aa-wd.cfm http://nearyou.gwu.edu/eia/curriculum.html
O’hara,S & Pritchard,R. (2011). Retrieved from http://www.education.com/reference/article/what-impact-technology-learning/?page=4
Saskatoon public schools. (2004,2009). Retrieved from http://olc.spsd.sk.ca/de/pd/instr/intera.html