What dental educators need to understand about emerging technologies to incorporate them effectively into the educational process.
Many dental schools are currently struggling with the adoption of emerging technologies and the incorporation of these technologies into the educational process. Dental students exhibit an increasing degree of digital comfort when using social networking, mobile devices, search engines, or e-textbooks. Although the majority of students might consider themselves to be very skilled at using information technology, many faculty members would claim the opposite when evaluating their own knowledge and skills in the use of technology. As the use of technology, both formally and informally, continues to increase, dental educators are faced with many questions, such as: Does students' digital comfort disguise a lack of information literacy? What is the appropriate path of implementing technology into teaching and learning, and how can institutions support such an implementation? This article surveys a series of myths that exist about the use of technology in education and raises questions about their validity and how dental educators can avoid being misled by them.
University of Pittsburgh School of Dental Medicine, 3501 Terrace Street, 328 Salk Hall, Pittsburgh, PA 15261;. hspallek@pitt.edu.
Corey D
CD
Stein
Elise S
ES
Eisenberg
Jean A
JA
O'Donnell
Heiko
H
Spallek
D022126:Access to Information; D001296:Audiovisual Aids; D003195:Computer Communication Networks; D003197:Computer Literacy; D034201:Computers, Handheld; D003205:Computing Methodologies; D003479:Curriculum; D004497:Education, Dental; D018961:Educational Technology; D005179:Faculty, Dental; D006801:Humans; D058980:Information Literacy; D007254:Information Science / Q000193:education*; D007256:Information Systems; D020407:Internet; D007858:Learning; D019212:Multimedia; D009862:Online Systems; D011597:Psychomotor Performance; D012575:Schools, Dental; D057386:Search Engine; D060756:Social Networking; D013663:Teaching / Q000379:methods; D013782:Textbooks as Topic; D013850:Thinking
Internet; dental education; instructional technology; mobile devices; social media; technology