Content area
Full Text
Introduction
Technology has become a fundamental part of our daily lives, being infused into entertainment, business, workforce, and educational environments. Technology is used throughout the world for gathering information, keeping records, creating proposals, constructing knowledge, performing simulations to develop skills, distance learning, and global collaboration for lifelong learning and work (Kimble, 1999). Today's educators are under great pressure to provide 21st century students with a quality education based on 21st century standards. Those standards include providing students with the technological and informational skills needed to compete in an everchanging, technology-driven world.
According to Hamilton, technology should be integrated into curricula to enhance learning in content areas (2007). In order for technology integration to be effective, technology should be a fundamental part of the classroom, allowing students to be able to select technology resources to help them to "obtain information in a timely manner, analyze and synthesize information, and present it professionally" (Hamilton, 2007, p. 3).
Effective technology integration into schools' curricula has the ability to improve student learning outcomes (Hamilton, 2007). Students need technological and informational skills to compete in the 21st century. According to The Partnership for 21st Century Skills (2008) the four standards of 21st century skills are communication, collaboration, critical thinking, and creativity. Technology-enhanced learning experiences may also help student develop 21st century competencies such as information, technology and media literacies, critical thinking, communication and leadership skills, and innovativeness (Aslan, 2015). The International Society for Technology in Education was founded on the principle of preparing students to compete in a technology-driven world by providing them with the skills to be technology literate.
Controversy
The educational community has not completely bought into the idea of technology integration; in fact technology integration has caused a large amount of controversy. At the heart of this debate are Richard Clark and Robert Kozma. Clark (2012) describes media as "mere vehicles that deliver instruction but do not influence student achievement" (p. 2). Kozma counters Clark's view by asking the question "what are the actual and potential relationships between media and learning?" (Kozma, 1994, p. 1). Clark asserts that learning outcomes are influenced by instructional design. Kozma counters that different media, under certain conditions produces positive learning outcomes. Although Clark initially expressed his views in 1983 and...