EDUCATIONAL TECHNOLOGY 2: A BOOK REVIEW

Elwood L. Prias
Five years ago, the Commission on Higher Education prescribed a new
teacher curriculum. The setting of new benchmarks for teacher education
paved the way to the production and publication of new workbooks and
textbooks that meet the National Competency-Based Teacher Standards.
The Philippine Association for Teacher Education (PAFTE) initiated the Project
WRITE (Writing Resources for Integrative Teacher Education) to encourage
teachers from all over the country to get involved in a textbook writing
process.

The book- Educational Technology 2: Selection, Production and Utilization

of Appropriate Technology Tools for Instruction, (ISBN 971-685-685-9) was
one of the project’s outputs. It is noteworthy that in 2007, no less than the
president of PAFTE, Paz I. Lucido, Ph. D., authored the book. This is her
second book on the subject. She also has written modules and articles,
presented papers and lectures mostly on Instructional Technology and
Educational Technology. Although her academic degrees were not related to
educational technology, her certificate earned from University of the
Philippines made her a reliable writer of modules and articles, presenter of
paper and lectures on Instructional Technology and Educational Technology.

Written for future teachers, the book desires to help them become familiar,
knowledgeable and skilled at the proper application of educational
technology to instruction. Its goal is “to weave technology into teaching”
(12) to enhance the teaching-learning process.

The technology that the book refers to is the computer. It recognizes the
fact that “the contribution of the computer to pedagogy makes up for good
instruction.” (30). Let us look into how computer helps learners and teachers
as discussed in the book. First, computer helps students develop high order
thinking skills when students work on resource-based projects, simple
creations, guided hyper-media projects and web-based projects. These
projects involve active creation of information and sustained reflective
thinking on topics relevant to the real world. Second, computer encourages
cooperative learning. Studies show that when students work with computers
in groups, they form a group and interact with each other. Third, computer
supports student-centered learning by making students active learners who
can interact with other learners demonstrating independence and self-
awareness in the learning process. Fourth, computer with various software
serve as a tutor providing individualized learning environment, and fifth,
computer helps teachers and students focus on more high-level cognitive
tasks when it is used as an information tool, communication tool,
constructive tool, and a situating tool.

As a textbook, Educational Technology 2 was written using exposition.

Lessons are presented topically beginning from a review of Educational
Technology 1 followed by an overview of the course and down to the
Practicum. There are 17 lessons which I guess was intentional to
complement the 20-week semester in college. Each lesson is generally short
to read but contains self-help and enrichment activities. Discussion
questions are also given after each lesson. Graphic organizers, charts, and
diagrams can be found in almost all of the lessons.

After reading the book, I can say that the author was successful only in
helping future teachers become knowledgeable and familiar in the
possibilities of integrating technology to instruction, but not with the skills
and proper application. First, while the course is about integrating computer
technology, there are self-help and enrichment activities that call for writing
the output in Manila paper and cartolina. Why not in PowerPoint? Second,
the practicum part was only a tutorial on Microsoft Word, PowerPoint, and
searching the Internet. Why not a plan in integrating computer technology
to a particular lesson? Although the book emphasizes that “the goal of the
course is (not) to promote computer skills,” (12) it is obvious in the
practicum that only the computer skills of the students will be enhanced, not
how to integrate technology in making lesson plans. It would also be a boring
practicum for students who already know how to use Microsoft Word,
PowerPoint and more so with searching the internet.

The book is laden with at least 13 errors in spelling and punctuation. For a
book written by an authority, and said to be conforming to the standards, it
would be somewhat frustrating to see errors of that kind even though
considered to be typographical. Examples of the errors are: Computers as
Information and Communicty Technology (in the Table of Content),
traditional role of being an content expert (p.47), 3-Dimenional tour (p.101),
basics of Micirosoft Word (p.103). On the other hand, a discussion question
on DepEd’s plan to supply one computer per public school in Lesson 3 was
repeated in Lesson 4.

Even though it was written 4 years ago, all of the websites listed in the book
are still active as of today. However, there are at least two observations of
the author in 2007 that are no longer true today. She mentioned that
creativity projects (creating and posting webpages) may be too ambitious as
a tool in teaching-learning process. At present, one can create and post
webpages even without knowledge in HTML through the use of free software.
The author also observed that “computers as a situating tool (MOO) is new
and still undergoing further research and development” (74).

In writing the book, the author relied heavily on foreign references. There
were only 10 bibliographical entries and all were relevant to Educational
Technology. The author did not include any internet source.

Generally, Educational Technology 2 successfully laid the concepts of

integrating technology to instruction including the learning theories related
to it. Available in softbound, low quality book paper of 106 pages, this book
which cost P238 in our local bookstore is a good text for future teachers who
want to make a difference in their classes through the use of computers.