Teaching and Learning in Technology Empowered Classrooms-Issues, Contexts and Practices

Development of technologies has necessitated a shift and change in policies. Tracing the historical evolution of technology in various areas and levels of education reveals a late entry of effective policies. While recording the successful practices and case studies, it is seen that the felt need of technology-competent and resourceful teachers contributed to innovations and trends of educational technology companies. This work highlights policy guidelines and features of policy frameworks and guidelines. Teacher perspectives on curricular experiments and the skills required by teachers suited for an ICT-based classroom are documented. Various curricular experiments enacted in different regions are reported. The success and failures and reasons thereof are cited and detailed. The skills required by the teachers in these technology-enabled learning environments are described in association to technology used, learning skills of learner, and the nature of the technology-based learning environment. The mechanisms by which the opportunities were recognized by teachers as such is also narrated upon. How teachers investigate the possibilities of various technologies for pedagogical use is also reviewed. Teacher perspectives with regard to ICT possibilities and the opportunities are subsequently elucidated. The success is determined among other factorspracticability, suitability, feasibility, and optimal realization for technology for pedagogical potential. The tried out and successfully implemented technology-based instructional strategies are described in detail with the intention of how teachers can implement them by themselves in the classroom. Suitable topics suited for their use is also highlighted. It has long been confirmed that ICT can be used based on sound psychological and pedagogical bases. The social, cultural theories of reconstruction can be applied with the ICT-based education. ICT is a tool for introducing and building social contexts and collaborating with others for application, problem solution, and concept attainment. Technology-mediated instructional strategies can draw upon various theories of learning toward the best advantage of the student and to realize the objectives of instruction, viz. acquiring knowledge, developing understanding, attaining concepts, and acquiring skills.