LB#5: State-of-the-Art ET Application Practices.

Owing to the development, teachers must therefore acquire or improve on their computer skills, as well as their "computers-in-the-classroom" skills. The following trends should also be recognized by educators:

• Through school or training center computer courses, present-day students have become computer literate. They send e-mail, prepare computer encoded class reports, even make power-point presentations sometimes to the surprise of their media tradition-bound teachers.
• Following the call for developing critical thinking among students, teachers have deemphasized rote learning and have spent more time in methods to allow students to comprehend/internalize lessons.
• Shifting focus from lower-level traditional learning outcomes, student assessment/examinations have included measurement of higher level learning outcomes such as creative and critical thinking skills.
• Recent teaching-learning models (such as constructivism and social constructivism) have paved the way for instructional approaches in which students rely less on teachers as information-givers, and instead more on their efforts to acquire information, build their own knowledge, and solve problems.

In sum, these trends and new levels of learning require the appropriate use of state-of-the art instruction with the use of IT, tapping the computer's information and communication tools ( such as, word processors, databases, spreadsheets, presentation software, e-mail, Internet conferencing, etc.)