The image that the word "technology" conjures up changes with every new generation. A century ago, it might have brought forth images of spinning gears, factory smoke stacks, or electricity flowing through wires. A few decades ago, it probably produced images of televisions, tape players, and transition radios.

Today however, thoughts about computers, computer software, and the World Wide Web undoubtedly spring forth whenever technology is mentioned.

Educational technology, too, has evolved with the availability and growth of technology. A hundred years ago, mechanical gear-driven machines were used to print school books quickly. A few decades ago, VHS videos and tape recordings were used to assist teachers and help students learn various subjects.

Today, educational technology is making full use of the Internet and powerful computers running powerful software to teach students faster and better than ever before.

Educational Technology: More Than Fancy Computer Programs

Although advancing computer technology has helped advance educational technology, it would not be where it is today without the centuries of tireless work from the world's educators and teachers along with psychological studies that have been done in order to learn more about the human brain and how it learns new things.

Thanks in part to advanced computer models and imaging technology that are able to provide heat maps of brain activity, education specialists have been able to come to a better understanding about how we learn and retain, bringing about a new understanding.

With this vital new knowledge, computer programmers have been able to write powerful new software programs that are specifically designed to assist teachers and teach students in a manner that is conducive to the human brain's method of learning.

Educational software today is capable of assessing student's automatically, gauging their progress, sending reports to teachers, making recommendations, and so much more. And thanks to the work of centuries of observations from teachers and child psychologists, students today are able to take advantage of modern educational technology to advance farther and faster than any previous generation.

Teachers who take advantage of modern educational technology tend to have students that excel and have a higher rate of advancing to higher levels of learning, high school graduation, and college attendance. Furthermore, students that once would have been dismissed as unteachable by experts in the past are now advancing and learning in ways that most people could have never dreamed possible just 30 or 40 years ago.

Thanks to educational technology, every student can do more with their education, and more students can receive more advanced education then their parents received.