Is Technology Good for the Classroom? A student is sitting in a classroom in 1960. He looks around. The teacher is teaching a lesson on the chalkboard. He looks to his left. One kid is taking notes in his notebook. He looks to his right. Another is kid passing notes around to his friends. Flash forward 60 years. He is sitting in a classroom in 2019. He looks around. At the front of the classroom, the teacher is showing a powerpoint. To his left, a kid is typing notes onto a Google doc. To his right. a kid is playing Tetris. At this point in humanity, technology is intertwined into daily human lives more than ever. From the laptop to the phone, to even the calculator, technology is almost a necessity to most humans. Technology is becoming so widespread that it has even expanded into the classroom. In the past few years, the classroom has dramatically changed. It has gone from textbooks to laptops and tablets. It has gone from writing to typing. It has gone from paper-based classes to online-based classes. Technology has clearly made an imprint in how students are being taught. Although integrating one-to-one technology into the classroom has its pros and cons, it is overall more beneficial to the learning experience of students. With each student having a laptop or tablet, it engages the students more.
Teachers can “create and present content that is interesting and relevant to students”(Wardlow, 2016). This keeps the attention of the students. Kids would much rather do something on a laptop or tablet rather than paper. There’s an aura that the kids see around technology that isn’t present in paper. Teachers can create presentations that are visually more appealing to students. Instead of teaching a lesson on chalk or whiteboard, there can be a colorful more visually appealing powerpoint. This is how students can become more engaged. The teacher can share powerpoint online on a platform like Google Classroom. This is not possible on paper. If a student misses an important point during a lecture, the student can look back on the powerpoint at home or on a class provided device and obtain that key point. If it is a lecture that the teacher gives on the board and the student misses a key point, it can frustrate the student even more which can disengage the student from the lesson. A problem like this with technology does not seem conceivable. According to govtech.com, when a student has their own personal device, “there’s little reason for teachers to do extensive lectures”. When a teacher teaches “extensive lectures”, the student just completely disengages from what is happening. The student zones out because it is not appealing. With the help of technology, that problem is solved. Students have access to many more resources when they have a personal device in the classroom. There is only so much that can be done on paper. With the internet, students are able to do so much more. With the click of a button, they are able to find information that they need. Students can go browse the internet for articles or sources they need. Also, most textbooks have an online edition. Big companies like Houghton Mifflin and Harcourt and Pearson “have been scrambling to transition their print-centric legacy products to more digital offerings”(Herold, 2016”). Those big companies are shifting their attention towards their online consumers because that is where most students are starting to interact with their textbooks. With the ability to forage the internet, it also keeps students engaged. They can perform research faster and easier. Search engines like Google are available online to help aid their research or whatever the student is doing.
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The days of flipping through pages trying to find a piece of information are gone since the internet is able to simplify the workload of students. This world is becoming more and more technology-based. Almost every industrialized environment has technology. Work offices now have computers to sort out all the data while places like Walmart have started implementing self check-out stations. Including technology in the classroom prepares students for the work environment. First of all, each student having their own account and having access to their own device “instills responsibility” in students (Internetwork Engineering, 2016). Students who have their own school account and have access to a laptop or tablet are taught to be responsible for what is theirs. They have to protect their account and take good care of the device. This is an important skill in the real world because if they are not responsible with their belongings, things like their own device can be stolen. Integrating one-to-one technology into the classroom also “establishes critical thinking skills”. In fact, critical is so important that it is “one of the top skills on employer wish-lists”. Having the ability to think critically is vital to a job because bosses aren’t going to tell their employees what to do in detail. Employees have to think creatively to complete certain tasks. Students in classrooms who have access to technology do similar things. They are given an assignment and have to complete that assignment using critical thinking. The assignments students do aren’t usually yes or no questions. They are usually questions that require critical thinking. Being able to use technology also helps students become more illiterate in the world of technology. They can learn to use a computer or an iPad which are devices that are used in the workforce. Textbooks are a hassle to carry around since they are really heavy. However, a laptop or tablet eliminates that problem.
According to the DenverPost, the average weight of a laptop is “5 pounds” while the average weight for one textbook is “around 3.5 pounds”. It is much easier to carry around one a “5-pound” object rather than carrying multiple “3.5-pound” objects. Yet again, a problem that students face when they do not have access to technology in school is gone when they use technology. All the books are compacted into one single device when students use a laptop or tablet. Not only does this make life easier outside of the classroom, it also makes life easier inside the classroom. Students do not have to switch between textbooks or have a fear of losing them. Instead, they are all on one single device. These textbooks are accessible anywhere. All one needs is a device that can connect to the internet. If a student has their own device in a classroom, it enhances their learning experience. Not only can you use the internet to learn more, but the laptop or tablet also can help provide personalize learning. Not every kid learns in the same way or rate. With help from software like “DreamBox”, it “adapts to each student’s skill level” and it allows “students to learn at a pace best suited to their needs”(Bernard, 2017) businessinsider. This is another way to improve education in the classroom. The needs of students can be supplemented with software. These software companies can create learning experiences that can better the student. Not every kid was made to listen to lectures for an hour. Implementing one-to-one technology into the classroom helps students learn their own way. If each student has their own device in a classroom, each device can help students learn more efficiently. Kid are kids and they will do silly things. When given a device that can access many things, kids will take advantage of them. They will find out about games that will catch their attention and divert them from what they are actually doing in the classroom. In addition, having technology in the classroom can “foster cheating”(Himmelsbach, 2019)tophat. Since technology makes learning easier, it can also make cheating easier.
Students have access to many more things including sources that can help a student cheat. However, most schools have implemented protection software that blocks certain sites from showing up. Although it may not block all sites, it does block off the majority of the sites that have a bad influence. Students learn more when they write their notes instead of typing them. Since schools have been ushering technology into the classroom, the primary writing tool has been a keyboard. It is faster, can fix mistakes, and can sometimes be fun to use. Unfortunately, that means that it has replaced the pencil and paper. In an article by educationworld.com, researchers at Princeton University have found that students who took notes using a laptop or tablet “performed worse than students who did not use technology at all”. In spite of the fact that students may retain information better when taking notes by hand, the classroom does not have to 100 percent run on the computer. If there is an advantage that paper has over a laptop, then teachers should take advantage of it. In this case, students should not take all their notes on a laptop or tablet. Some of their notes can be done on paper to help them remember more. It doesn’t have to be all technology. There can be a perfect balance between a pencil and a keyboard. Everything has a financial aspect to it. Providing technology for students is no exception. According to procon.org, “the annual cost for a student per class with tablets is $71.55 while it is $14.26 for textbooks”. There is a clear distinction between these two price points. Obtaining tablets for every student is much more expensive than obtaining textbooks. This can especially be a problem in districts where money is not abundant. On top of that, schools have to pay for repairs. That can be costly too. Repairing a textbook is not as expensive as most times the solution is a piece of tape. Even though having a tablet for every student costs more than a textbook, technology does so many things for students that the price point is deserving. Harmful to the body.
In conclusion, while technology offers numerous benefits for the classroom, it is essential to strike a balance between technological and traditional methods of learning. Leveraging the advantages of technology while acknowledging its limitations can help create a more effective and engaging learning environment for students.
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