HOW TECHNOLOGY HAS CHANGED EDUCATION

The education of a nation’s youth to a full height of academic rigor and standing is a complex process that nearly always spans more than a decade, requires tens of thousands of dollars, dozens of teachers, and of course, technology. Not always the most recent technology, mind you, but even the oldest Pentium One computer was once new.

 

Technology inside of education is a somewhat problematic premise, an idea that generates controversy from the earliest of primary school grades right through to the top of the academic pyramid, graduate school. As you well know, technology can be a powerful tool for learning, and it can be the same for cheating. It can be used to inform, and to distort. It can boldly open new doors, while flinging open some that were perhaps best left closed; not every topic is appropriate for all age groups.

While some elements in the world of education still want to stress cursive penmanship and hand-editing, it is hard not to admit that technology, specifically and mostly the internet and personal computing, have transformed the modern world. These are things that modern students were raised with, so completely that to not give them their due would be to cheapen the impact of what might otherwise be a strong education.

Ask yourself this: would you rather a pupil taught how to quickly write in cursive, a full-page of their thoughts, or rather to learn how to adroitly employ any computing station put before their little hands? If you want the pupil to be competitive, you had best pick the second option. Now, the question then becomes just this: what are the identifiable effects of our modern technology on education? Let’s try and get our arms around the topic.

Collaboration 

Collaboration is becoming a real-time event. While this topic applies mostly today at the collegiate level, it will surely seep backwards down the grade scale to reach younger students. This has the impact that you might guess, increased productivity, but it has a host of secondary benefits that most students do not recognize until they complete their first project in such an environment.

What happens? You can’t hide and accomplish nothing if everyone is watching you work. You are also somewhat ‘on display’ while working, meaning that your initial draft of that paragraph you are putting at the top of your team’s business plan had better make sense the first time you pen it, and only improve from then on out. Deadwood beware, it’s easier to hide in document versions bouncing around email accounts than on Skype with three other people working a mere two pages over.

Free products like Google Docs are becoming not just accepted, but de facto solutions at a rapid pace, revamping the idea of teams, and team projects.

 My opinion 

All is abaut how the technology in the schooll an d how we have to use it. Is abaut the history of the technology  and the  impact to this have in the education.