The Importance of Integrating Technological Advances in the field of Education amidst the Covid-19 pandemic In Sri Lanka

As we slowly strive through the era of modernized technology it is no doubt that with every breath we take, every step we get hold of, we humans urge ourselves to integrate the current technology in to the diverse aspects of our lives. Out of these aspects the field of education plays a prime role. Education can be simply stated as the life-long process of acquiring knowledge, skills and attitudes?(Abot, 2021) while technology can be simply defined as the systematic application of scientific knowledge in practical tasks?(Britannica, 2021). Integrating these two concepts has lead us to the idea of Education Technology and this concept has so far done marvels to the world. In simple sense, education technology is the process of using technology when achieving educational goals ?(Britannica, 2021). These educational goals are achieved through building exceptional learning-teaching experiences and technology plays a prime role in it. For example just imagine what would have happen if our Chinese ancestors never thought of integrating their technology to build up the abacus for the purpose of counting and Math?(Colleges, 2020). Imagine how many people would have struggled if this concept was never discovered. The abacus being the very foundation for the modern computer that you and I use today, reveals that the integration of technology in to education is not something that randomly happened in the 21st century. It has always been and will always continue to be a continuous process as it enables us to build fine learning and teaching tactics, methodologies, experiences and even materials to sustain our future generation with higher learning outcomes.

Integrating technology with education does not just mean a teacher using a laptop when teaching. This concept is far deeper than this generally accepted fact as it deals with analysing, designing, developing, implementing and even evaluating the instructional environment together with the learning environment with the ruling intent of improving learning as well as teaching?(Kurt, 2015). Here, both learners and teachers are equipped with a comfortable learning environment as the concept of education technology goes far and beyond the traditional methods of teaching?(Smith, 2017). This is because technology acts as the bridge which allow students to understand study materials well, enhancing the relationship between the teacher and student. The results of this relationship will lead to the development of higher learning outcomes. Furthermore, integrating technology with the applications of education makes the learning process engaging, interactive, meaningful and even supports collaborative learning. It improves students’ performance by identifying their needs through the application of technology. Here, students will be provided with the opportunity to access information and technology will even connect them to the real world. Thus, building a better teaching and learning experience resulting in higher learning outcomes for the students.

Throughout this article, the main focus will be given to the educational technology. The article will also reflect on how learning theories facilitate integration of education technology, the importance of educational technology during the Covid-19 pandemic, the barriers to implement education technology in Sri Lanka and potential solutions.

In the contrary of education technology, it is always vital to understand how people process knowledge and of the diverse ways people use to explain this knowledge to another party. Knowing so will enable us to identify the different ways to incorporate technology in to education with the prime intention of obtaining high learning outcomes. Apart from just understanding and explaining knowledge, it is also important to describe, analyse and predict learning. Hence, in this sense the knowledge of ‘learning theories’ come in to play. The comprehensive knowledge that a person acquire through understanding learning theories will strike a positive impact on decision making, development and delivery of learning?(Goel, 2017). Learning theories generally suggests how students receive and retain knowledge during learning. This process is drastically affected by the students’ cognitive, emotional and environmental influences as well as prior experiences in the learning context?(Abot, 2021). Therefore, in order to integrate technology in to education, a person’s knowledge in learning theories is a key factor. There are mainly two learning theories which precisely describes how a child acquire information and process it in order to understand the meaning of language. They are; ‘The Cognitive Theory of Multimedia Learning by Richard Mayer’ and ‘Ganges Nine Events of Instruction.’ Throughout this answer I will be centering on Richard Mayer’s Cognitive theory on multimedia.

Richard E. Mayer, who served as renowned professor of psychology came about this theory in order to explain how multimedia learning works and how we can use it in the best way possible in order to achieve learning goals. The basic idea of this theory is that we, humans learn comprehensively from words and pictures together rather than just from words alone. The sole reason for this is the unique method in which our brain is developed to process information. The human brain is composed of channels to acquire information. The first channel is for the visually represented materials. When a learner is presented with visual information such a videos, pictures, charts etc., they are pass and process in this particular channel. The second channel is for auditory represented materials. Here, auditory information such as words, narrations etc. are being processed?(Mayer, 2014).

When a learner commence learning, all the new materials that the learner acquire, are first stored in his/her sensory memory. However once the learner begin to work with this information it is processed in the learners working memory. Due to the separate channels the learner has the ability to work with varied information. These sets of information pressed by the separate channels are

Organized in to models. Later, the learner will integrate with the visual model and the auditory model together with his/her prior knowledge and experiences. Finally, once all materials are combined in a functional way the new knowledge is moved over in to long-term memory?(Hill, 2019).

Resource:?Mac Graw Hill Education

Richard Mayer’s cognitive theory is directly linked with multimedia learning. Multimedia learning is simply the learning which incorporates words and pictures ?(Hill, 2019). In the basis of education, technological aspects can be easily integrated with this theory. Here, we can use the modern technologies such as video clips (YouTube videos), PowerPoint presentations, projectors, portable televisions, smart boards, computer based learning etc. in order to stimulate students’ visual channels. With this current level of technology students have a vivid number of options together with an exceptional quality which makes learning more memorable. Apart from the visual channel, the auditory channel can also be stimulated and with new trends in technology. Students are able to stimulate their auditory channels by actively listening to instructional aids such as audio clips.

As we entered the era of the 21st century, it was no secret that all technological experts were experimenting on new ways to bring up the standards of education by integrating technology to facilitate a sustainable learning-teaching experience. But little did we know that we will be fighting with an untouchable, untenable enemy, Covid-19. When people were quarantined, asked to wear masks, to maintain social distance and limit all social interactions, there was no absolute way that the teaching process out of all other professions would be something manageable. As teachers we never saw ourselves out of our classrooms, out of the whiteboard, out of our hand held textbooks and most importantly out of our students. But today thanks to the advancement of technology in the field of education has made all of these barriers manageable. Because of a globally spreading pandemic many people lost their professions but technology integrated education stood high, enriching our students with the best learning outcomes possible.

As the pandemic struck the world hard, over 1.5 billion children were forced to leave their colourful, playful classrooms and were made to stare at a computer screen?(O'Rourke, 2020). But the advancement of technology did not hold back the childs' happiness as online platforms such as Zoom, Microsoft teams enabled live teaching where students still got to see, talk and even do games with their friends and teachers in the safest way possible. Moreover, the advancement of educational technology equipped the teachers with the knowledge and ability to create very interactive power points which was not second to the traditional textbooks. Such interactive instructional aids managed to grasp the attention of young learners and kept them engaged when people assumed the pandemic was a dark trench for the students’ learning process?(Li, 2020). But the integration of technology in to education has yet again proved this fact to be wrong by sustaining the future generation with higher learning outcomes. Apart from promoting remote learning, the advancement of technology in the field of education has hardly made a difference when it comes to the learning teaching materials of a traditional classroom. In the present, applications like Microsoft teams, Zoom provides the facility of the whiteboard making the teaching as well as the learning experience easy resulting in higher learning outcomes. Apart from this another massive output of technology integrated education is the interactive or in other words the smart white board. This epic piece of technology was immensely helpful and became quite popular among the teachers during the outbreak of the deadly pandemic?(Barron, 2021).

Furthermore, integration of technology with education has also replaced more traditional instructional aids such as hand held textbooks by pdf files which are more portable and easy to access, traditional exam papers with online exams in learner management systems which are more user friendly. If the field of education was not integrated with such advanced technology holding exams, sharing knowledge could just be limited to thought with the wildly spreading pandemic. Thanks to this exceptionally advanced technology students are not needed to waste their valuable time longing to a day until the end of this unpredictable pandemic?(Grajek, 2020).?These advancements in technology has made the current learning and teaching experience bearable for students resulting in unexpectedly positive learning outcomes amidst a globally spreading pandemic. Apart from the above, this amalgamate relationship between modern technology and education has provided senior students access to open resources which is immensely helpful as most of them tend to self-study. In a time when we are restricted to even go to the supermarket, it is impossible for a determined student to access the library. But, education technology has paved this path resulting in higher learning outcomes among students despite of their age limit. Furthermore, it should be stated that there was a time when all of us believed interaction and active participation in a classroom can be achieved only through one on one learning in a physical classroom. But during the time of remote learning it was clear that this fact was not necessarily true. Due to the exceptional integration of education and technology, teachers were able to keep students involved by sharing interactive videos, online quizzes, online surveys, podcasts, online competitions etc. These interactive activities not only improved student participation but also promoted collaboration among students even when teaching was conducted under an online platform?(Saxena, 2020).

It should be well noted fact that in a time of crisis, technology was the very thing that kept education going on. It supported numerous individuals round the globe in numerous ways facilitating a competent and contemporary learning teaching experience to strive students to achieve their picturesque educational goals.

However we, Sri Lankans are not yet first hand witnesses of the marvels in technology integrated education. Sri Lanka, being a third world country with a developing economy and being sustained with free education and health facilities it is not the governments immediate priority to develop strategies to integrate technology with education. Potentially due this lack of support, majority of the hard working Sri Lankans students are not capable to experience technology integrated education culture which most students around the world witness.

These barriers that we, Sri Lankans face have been studied by many parties in order to identify potential remedies to overcome them. They can be listed as follow:

1. Insufficient funds for the development of technology integrated education - Sri Lanka is a country in which majority of the people in rural areas live in deep tranches of poverty, even below the international poverty line. Hence, these people by no means possess the ability to own their own technological devices which are key elements when implementing technology integrated education. This is why the government should take the initiative to provide such people with basic devises such as tablets or laptops. Then the government can encourage the technological business holders of the private sector to offer a helping hand for these people. They can even offer such devises to them at reasonable prices or to be paid on instalments based on the monthly salary they receive.
2. Political influences and corruption - A counties government is its backbone. The government should be attentive enough to look in to which aspects of the country should actually be developed. It is the governments' decision if it should be the technology integrated education system or the ministers luxury vehicle allowances. The government should take necessary steps to allocate a reasonable percentage of the annual budget for the development of technology integrated education as it will be one of the influencing aspects in future. But even if the government is allocating such funds for the development of technology integrated education there is utterly no point if the authorities for hose respected institutions are corrupted. Hence, the government should look in to the transparency of such findings and make sure they sustain the people who actually urge technology integrated education?(Karunanayake, 2020)
3. The lack of knowledge and skills - A person can be equipped with all the technological devises but will find all of them useless if he/she has no idea on how to operate them. This is why it is said that the success in the use of educational innovations has a direct link on the knowledge and skills possessed by the people. As a solution such people should be willing enough to dedicate time to acquire comprehend knowledge on computer literacy by attending a Microsoft office course. Even the government can take the upper hand here and conduct workshops mainly for teachers as they will be the ones handling technology with students.
4. The lack of English language proficiency - As the mode of communication in almost all technological devises is in English majority of the people tend to avoid the use of it. This is by all means not a reason that we should be shy about because English is not our mother language. But what we should not do is use this as a reason to avoid technological devises. Instead we need to adapt ourselves for such situations. We can use google translator and online dictionaries to translate such problems. Apart from this the concept of Unicode can also be introduced as a solution. It means the need of supplementary materials in native language will help people to grasp the concepts easily?(Fernando, 2006).
5. Connection drops – Having the required devises, exception knowledge in computer literacy are not the only facts needed to sustain a technology integrated education system. Above mentioned requirements would with no question be useless if there is no stable connection. A stable connection is the foundation in establishing a technology integrated education system. As a solution telecommunication companies can improve their coverage through the country by switching to fibre optics which would increase the speed of the internet resulting in a stable connection?(Wikramanayake, 2007).

All in all it is distinctively evident that in the 21st century we strive forward in the field of education through integrating the advancements of technology in order deliver a competent learning teaching experience that would result in high learning outcomes. Incorporating education technology in education makes the lesson meaningful and promotes active student engagement. Apart from this it even encourages collaboration within the learning platform. Furthermore, it was clear that according to Richard Mayers' cognitive learning theory, students learnt best when seeing and hearing at the same time. In educational technology this can be achieved through showing YouTube videos, TV programs, PowerPoint presentations, podcasts, audios etc. Hence, it was clear that education technology played a prime role in promoting learning. Moreover, education technology was drastically important when facing the globally spreading pandemic Covid-19. Education technology provided e- learning or in other words remote learning in order to facilitate learning teaching process amidst the pandemic. However, as any third world country we, Sri Lankans also have to face barriers such as lack of devises, resources, poor computer and language literacy, poor connection etc. Hence, it our responsibility to overcome such barriers and sustain our nation with educational technology which future generation deserve.?

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