Educational Technology Terms

Digital Classroom

A classroom that mostly or entirely relies on electronic devices and software instead of paper and pens. It is usually characterized by a central computing device, like a laptop or tablet, and a number of online software and apps.

App (as in web applications, ect.)

A client-server computer program in which the client runs in a web browser. Common web applications include web mail, online retail sales, online auctions, wikis and instant messaging services.

Big Data

A collection of data sets so large that specialized technologies, techniques, and technicians are required to process, manage, and store them. An industry has arisen around the processing and analysis of large volumes of student data.

Individual Education Plan (IEP) (program)?

A comprehensive and personalized plan that helps a child with disabilities achieve a specific set of education goals. Parents, teachers, and school specialists work together to construct and carry out this plan.

Clickers

A device or mobile app that allows students to answer a multiple-choice question. The teacher presents a question to the class, then students use their clickers to input their answer. Some use this as an alternative to paper quizzes.

Acceptable Use Policy (AUP)

A document stipulating constraints and practices that a user must agree to for access to a corporate network or the internet. Many businesses and educational facilities require that employees or students sign an acceptable use policy before being granted a network ID.

Google Drive

A file storage and synchronization service developed by Google. This allows users to store files in the cloud, synchronize files across devices, and share files.

Flipped Classroom

A form of blended learning, this is the practice of students watching lecture material (usually in video form) at home, then practicing their learnings in an interactive environment in the classroom. Households without computers or an Internet connection cannot participate in this practice, however.

Professional Development

A generic term for the growth of one's career-oriented competencies. Teachers regularly attend workshops and conferences, expand their PLN, and undergo performance evaluations to further their craft.

Cloud

A generic term used to represent the concept of distributed computing - where a set of networked computers allow for shared services. Also used synonymously with the Internet.

Electronic Classroom

A large or small classroom filled with multimedia devices. The usual context is that of a lecture hall where the instructor has fingertip control of multimedia aids such as computer images, video tape images, videodisc images, audio, CD-ROM players, Internet connections, cameras that transfer images to large screens, etc.

TPACK (Technology, Pedagogy, and Content Knowledge)

A model for how pedagogy, technology, and content can interact and work together. Often drawn as a Venn diagram of three intersecting circles, Matthew Koehler and Punya Mishra created this framework on top of Lee Shulman's PCK (Pedagogical Content Knowledge) model by adding technology into the mix.

International Society for Technology in Education (ISTE)

A non-profit organization that serves educators interested in the use of technology in education. It is most known for its annual conference held in the US.

Learning Management System (LMS)

A piece of software that manages, analyzes, and runs educational courses and training programs. Also included are student registration, curriculum management, skill & competency management, and reporting features. Most modern LMS packages are web-based.

1:1 (One-to-one)

A program where a schools provides one device per one student

Classroom Management

A psychological method used by teachers to minimize classroom disruptions and maximize a learning environment. Though a number of tactics can be used, they generally fall into the use of positive or negative reinforcement.

Behavior Management

A psychological method where the actions of an individual are altered through various techniques, such as positive and negative reinforcement. The goal is to encourage a repetitive desired behavior.

Bloom's Taxonomy

A teaching framework that classifies learning objectives from lower order to higher order thinking skills: Remembering, Understanding, Applying, Analyzing, Evaluating, and Creating. Some criticize elements within this framework or its real-world applications.

Project Based Learning (PBL)

A teaching method based on the idea of "learning by doing." Students work on a hands-on real-world activity that demonstrates the concepts they are learning. PBL learning tends to have high student engagement.

Blending Learning

A teaching practice that combines, or blends, classroom and online learning. The instruction of a lesson occurs with both teacher interaction and computing devices. Also known as Hybrid Learning.

Augmented Reality

A technology that superimposes a computer-generated image on a user's view of the real world, thus providing a composite view.

Asynchronous Learning

A traditional classroom is an example of "synchronous learning," where all students learn the same things at the same time and in the same place. Asynchronous learning is the opposite of that. Using the power of the Internet, students can now learn different things whenever they want and wherever they want.

21st century learning

Adaptability, complex communication skills, non-routine problem solving, self-management, and systems-thinking are essential skills in the 21st-century workforce. Developing skills in the context of core concepts is simply good practice.

Adaptive Learning

An educational process where the teaching methods and materials adapt to each students' pace and level. Technology is often the vehicle for delivering this process, since software can change exercises, questions, and content easily based on previous answers and actions by a student.

Digital Native

An individual born during or after the common use of digital technologies, such as the Internet, mobile devices, apps, etc. It is assumed that such individuals have a strong grasp of digital technology because it was a regular part of their lives.

Personalized Learning Network (PLN)

An informal network of people that is professional in nature and meant to aid an educator in furthering his/her pedagogical craft. Since teaching in a classroom doesn't lend itself to a lot of peer interaction, teachers create PLNs to meet other teachers for advice and support.

Student Assessment

An item that can be used to measure a student's competency in a particular topic. Assessments can take many forms, such as tests, essays, projects, presentations, etc.

Massive Open Online Course (MOOC)

An online course that includes video lectures, reading materials, problem sets, and a student community. Supporters sees it as a disruptive innovation and detractors question its actual educational efficacy.

Learner

Any individual who is receiving an education. Can be taught by an educator or self-taught.

Educational Technology

Any kind of technology that is used for educational purposes by an educator or educational institution. Most commonly used in reference to software utilized in primary, secondary, and higher education, though it can cover much more than that. Also known as "edtech."

Open Educational Resource (OER)

Any online educational material that is freely accessible and openly licensed for public consumption. Such materials can be online courses, lectures, homework assignments, exercises, quizzes, interactive simulations, games, etc.

Open Source (also know as Open Source Software)

Any piece of software that is freely available and openly licensed. Other programmers can contribute to the original software or create their own versions of it. Most modern websites incorporate some kind of open source software, including edshelf!

Assistive Technology

Any piece of technology, hardware or software, that helps a person with disabilities perform everyday tasks that might otherwise be difficult or impossible. This can include everything from wheelchairs to screen readers to text telephones.

Achievement Gap

In the united states this refers to the observed, persistent disparity in measures of educational performance among subgroups of U.S. students, especially groups defined b socioeconomic status (SES) race/ethnicity and gender.

Formative Assessment

Including diagnostic testing, is a range of formal and informal assessment procedures conducted by teachers during the learning process in order to modify teaching and learning activities to improve student attainment.

Problem-Based Learning (PBL)

Is a student-centered pedagogy in which students learn about a subject through the experience of solving an open-ended problem found in trigger material. It is focused on the student's reflection and reasoning to construct their own learning.

QR code

It's sort of like a barcode, and it can hold almost any text, links, or information you want. Scan ours with an app on your phone and see what happens! You can generate your own here.

Student Centered Learning

Refers to a wide variety of educational programs, learning experiences, instructional approaches, and academic-support strategies that are intended to address the distinct learning needs, interests, aspirations, or cultural backgrounds of individual students and groups of students.

Robotic education/learning

Students with special requirements are reaching new levels of learning through the use of robotics in the classroom. With these technologies children with autism are learning communication and social skills and students with developmental issues and attention disorders are learning focus.

3D printing

The action or process of making a physical object from a three-dimensional digital model, typically by laying down many thin layers of material in succession.

Gamification

The practice of applying game mechanics into an activity. Examples of game mechanics are goals, badges, competition, immediate feedback, and leveling up.

Science Technology Research Engineering Art Mathematics (STREAM)

The practice of placing students with others with comparable skills or needs, as in classes or in groups within a class.

Pedagogy

The science and art of education and learning theory. Just as there are fields of study in other subjects, this is the study of teaching.

Artificial Intelligence

The theory and development of computer systems able to preform tasks that normally require human intelligence, such as visual perception, speech, recognition, decision-making, and translation between languages.

Science Technology Engineering Mathematics (STEM)

These fields are often grouped together because of a national movement to promote these subjects in the US. This includes initiatives to integrate their curriculum together and hopes that such an emphasis will lead to a stronger high-tech workforce.

Information & Communication Technology (ICT)

Used by some as synonymous with IT, and by others as more expansive than IT, since it includes communication technologies as well. In the US, IT is more commonly used within schools, while ICT is more common in the UK.

Bring Your Own Technology (BYOT)

a developing phenomenon in enterprise IT in which a company's executives and employees choose, and often buy, their own computer devices

Challenged-based learning

a framework designed to improve learning and organizational behavior around authentic learning experiences that encourage learners to leverage the technology they use in their daily lives.

Individualized Learning

a method of teaching in which content, instructional technology, and pace of learning are based upon the abilities and interest of each learner.

Informal Learning

a pervasive ongoing phenomenon of learning via participation or learning via knowledge creation, in contrast with the traditional view of teacher-centered learning via knowledge acquisition. The term is often conflated, however, with non-formal learning, and self-directed learning.

Makerspaces

a place in which people with shared interests, especially in computing or technology, can gather to work on projects while sharing ideas, equipment, and knowledge.

Google Apps for Education (GAFE)

a popular Internet-based suite of applications designed specifically for schools. It features email, document creation and collaboration, and many other tools that districts find useful.

Student Response System (SRS)

a set of hardware and software that facilitates teaching activities such as the following

Digital Storytelling

a short form of digital media production that allows everyday people to share aspects of their story. The media used may include the digital equivalent of film techniques (full-motion video with sound), stills, audio only, or any of the other forms of non-physical media (material that exists only as electronic files as opposed to actual paintings or photographs on paper, sounds stored on tape or disc, movies stored on film) which individuals can use to tell a story or present an idea.

Virtual Classroom

a teaching and learning environment where participants can interact, communicate, view and discuss presentations, and engage with learning resources while working in groups, all in an online setting.

Differentiated Learning

a teaching method that adjusts the presentation of the instructional material to better suite each individual student. While the learning goals are the same for all, some students learn differently than others, and so differentiated learning seeks to meet each student halfway, as it were, rather that force all the students to learn via the same method.

Infographic

a visual image such as a chart or diagram used to represent information or data.

Collaborative Learning

an educational approach to teaching and learning that involves groups of students working together to solve a problem, complete a task, or create a product.

E-Books

an electronic version of a printed book that can be read on a computer or handheld device designed specifically for this purpose.

Learning Outcomes

are statements that describe significant and essential learning that learners have achieved, and can reliably demonstrate at the end of a course or program. In other words, learning outcomes identify what the learner will know and be able to do by the end of a course or program.

Course Management System (CMS)/ Content Management System (CMS)

essentially software or web applications that allow you to publish and edit content from one central interface. They also usually allow for collaborative editing, standalone pages, and other features. WordPress, the open-source blogging software, is a popular CMS.

Summative Assessment

evaluate student learning at the end of an instructional unit by comparing it against some standard or benchmark. It is often high stakes, which means that they have a high point value.

Coding

he process of assigning a code to something for the purposes of classification or identification.

Science Technology Engineering Art Mathematics (STEAM)

initiative and includes the arts as a priority as well. Though it is not yet as widely promoted as STEM, it is gaining in popularity.

Google Classroom

is a blended learning platform developed by Google for schools that aims to simplify creating, distributing and grading assignments in a paperless way.

SAMR model

is a model designed to help educators infuse technology into teaching and learning. Popularized by Dr. Ruben Puentedura, the model supports and enables teachers to design, develop, and infuse digital learning experiences that utilize technology.

Design Thinking

is a process, applicable to all walks of life, of creating new and innovative ideas and solving problems; it is not limited to a specific industry or area of expertise. It can be as effective in technology or education as it may be in services or manufacturing.

Bring Your Own Device (BYOD)

is an initiative where students bring their own mobile devices into the classroom for class purposes, as opposed to using school-issued devices. This is often seen as an alternative to 1:1 programs due to lower maintenance costs, though students without devices cannot participate.

Learning Platform

is an integrated set of interactive online services that provides the teachers, learners, parents and others involved in education with information, tools and resources to support and enhance educational delivery and management.

Predictive Analytics

is the practice of extracting information from existing data sets in order to determine patterns and predict future outcomes and trends.

Instructional Design

is the systematic development of instructional specifications using learning and instructional theory to ensure the quality of instruction. It is the entire process of analysis of learning needs and goals and the development of a delivery system to meet those needs.

Instructional Technology

is the theory and practice of design, development, utilization, management, and evaluation of processes and resources for learning

E-Learning

learning conducted via electronic media, typically on the Internet.

Mobile learning (m-learning)

means any learning activity that takes place on a mobile device.The word "mobile" is also relative; it could mean a laptop, a tablet, or something even smaller and more mobile, like a cellphone.

Digital Citizenship

means making good use of the Internet and having knowledge of how to operate web-connected devices safely while online. It also means that you can effectively use technology to interact responsibly with others to engage in society, politics, or other public discussion.

Synchronous Learning

refers to a learning event in which a group of students are engaging in learning at the same time.

Competency-Based Education (CBE)

refers to systems of instruction, assessment, grading, and academic reporting that are based on students demonstrating that they have learned the knowledge and skills they are expected to learn as they progress through their education.

Podcast

similar to a radio show: they're audio-only "shows" distributed not via radio waves, but via the Internet. There are podcasts on an unlimited number of topics, and many are educational and appropriate for students.

Biometrics

statistical analysis to biological data.

Digital Literacy

the ability to effectively and critically navigate, evaluate, and create information using a range of digital technologies.

Entrepreneurship

the activity of setting up a business or businesses, taking on financial risks in the hope of profit.

Virtual Reality

the computer-generated simulation of a three-dimensional image or environment that can be interacted with in a seemingly real or physical way by a person using special electronic equipment, such as a helmet with a screen inside or gloves fitted with sensors.

Digital Footprint

the information about a particular person that exists on the Internet as a result of their online activity.

Internet of Things (IOT)

the interconnection via the Internet of computing devices embedded in everyday objects, enabling them to send and receive data.

Data Mining

the practice of examining large databases in order to generate new information.

Lifelong Learning

the provision or use of both formal and informal learning opportunities throughout people's lives in order to foster the continuous development and improvement of the knowledge and skills needed for employment and personal fulfilment.

Digital Divide

used to refer to a large gap in technology use between two groups. The two groups can be divided along economic, racial, age, or even gender lines.