Information Technology Integrated into Classroom Teaching and Its Effects

IT (information technology) has grown in popularity from increased use in different areas in the world. However, school teaching has usually been found to be a little late in following this step. The purpose of this study was to explore the effects of IT when integrated into classroom teaching at primary and secondary schools in Taiwan. The data were collected by the RDEC (Research, Development and Evaluation Commission) under the Executive Yuan. The survey was called "The student digital learning and digital opportunity survey in Taiwan 2009". In this study, we selected primary and secondary school teachers as the target groups. The total samples are 1,724, comprising 906 primary and 818 secondary school teachers. The results reveal that personal factors related to using IT in teaching include the teacher's age, seniority and education. School factors related to using IT are school level and location. The most popular subjects using IT in primary schools are Chinese courses, social studies and integrated activities. The picture in secondary schools revealed a slight difference. Subjects using IT-integrated activities in secondary schools are nature, Chinese and social studies. For both primary and secondary school teachers, the primary place for implementing IT is in their general classrooms and the typical methods used involve playing movies or using course related CD-ROMs (compact disc read-only memory). The difficulties for teachers using IT include related facility shortage, the lack of time to prepare teaching materials and the incompatibility of subjects with IT-integrated teaching. In this study, we found that when teachers use IT in classrooms, they also report experiencing higher teaching effectiveness, including communicating course contents more effectively, assisting students engaged in learning and improving students achievement. (Contains 7 tables.)