Technology Is Not a Certain Path to Better Learning

Most of our daily lives are dependent on technologically-based items. Millennial’s and Gen Z’s professional, school and social lives are primarily online. This is why many argue that we as a society should prepare our students for this life by introducing computers early on in the education system, thereby expanding their knowledge.

Craig Watkin’s article describes how digitizing classrooms has positively affected the societal notion that technological integration improves education. Many citizens correlate a learning environment rich with technological access with an improved curriculum (Watkins, January 29th, 2019). However, Watkins takes a critical approach to this widespread notion, stating that optics are misleading. He highlights in the article that millions of dollars from school districts’ budgets are poured into computer integration, yet there is no funding to have curriculum properly match these advances. Instead of these tools to be used to help students become proficient in skills such a coding, they are used as shortcuts to find information on Google (Watkins, January 29th, 2019). This seems to have hurt in-class concentration, critical thinking skills and teamwork. He also emphasized the fact that many students are not actually being prepared for the world’s future economy because they lack creativity skills and independent thoughts (Watkins, January 29th, 2019). This will lead to massive shortages of innovation and productivity. I tended to agree with many of his arguments, yet there was not a lot of quantitative data in this article to prove his claims. I would like to do more research into this topic to learn more about the modern classroom.

 

Watkins, S. Craig. “Technology Is Not a Certain Path to Better Learning.” San Antonio Express-News, Express-News, 29 Jan. 2019, www.mysanantonio.com/opinion/commentary/article/Technology-is-not-a-certain-path-to-better-13571448.php.

4 thoughts on “Technology Is Not a Certain Path to Better Learning

  1. Technology can have endless benefits if used properly. However, it can also be a big distraction especially in the classroom. I remember in one of my middle school classes we had been given access to iPads when they were first being released. I believe the idea of this was to better integrate technology into the classroom and give students a new way of learning. However, like you stated in your post, I don’t think the school updated the curriculum so that we could truly benefit from the integration of these iPads. Instead, I mostly remember people wasting time on the iPads and playing games or doing other random things. The only educational thing I remember doing on them was using google search to look things up. Looking back, I don’t think the iPads made a significant impact on our education and it may have been smarter for the school to put money elsewhere. Or at least to make the most of the technology they should have updated the curriculum to get the most use out of it. I think that the integration of technology in our modern education system is very important, if done correctly. Students can learn a lot about how this technology works by taking coding and other information science classes.

  2. The constant question being asked is if technology is hurting us or benefiting us. I have to agree when our parents say their generation worked a lot harder in specific areas. Even little things like directions; I use my gps for everything and when my mom was my age she used paper maps to get around. As technology improves of the years, us humans have less and less work to do because technology does most things for us. I think by digitizing a classroom, we must make it clear the students need to strictly focus on paying attention during each lesson in class. I think it might make students focus less if there able to use technology as a textbook. I think it will make them end up online shopping or playing video games.

  3. Source:
    S, Jessie. “Note-Taking: Writing V.s.Typing Notes.” Study Skills by SOAR Learning, 17 Sept. 2018, studyskills.com/students/note-taking/.

  4. I constanlty express the concern that technology will lead to society being more lazy. Indeed, technology has helped solve many of humanities problems but, we need to set boundaries on how much influence technology has on our lives. Technology is making human life easier but how easy should our lives become? I believe that we should start digitizing the classroom but noit to the point where students stop focusing on the content. The classrooms should still take pencil notes so that students can still retain the information presented them. According to StudySkills.com (2018) ” Whenever you can, write your notes by hand. Put your brain to the test. Listen, comprehend, and summarize in your notes. Besides the increased opportunity for higher retention, you won’t have the distractions that come with a computer” Jessie S. (p.6). As long as professors keep the traditional ways of learning present in the class room then digtizing the class room should not be a problem. Laptops should be implemented for class activities but not for note taking. Sensors in the room could help keep attendance of students and make the teaching experiance more efficient. We already have phones that can google subjects in 2 seconds therefore why would we want this same simpicity in a class room. Reading about a fact is not the same thing as learning about it. If we are to digitize the classroom we must remind ourselves of the bounderies that need to be set for maximum learning.

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