Is technology essential to teach today's students?
To differentiate for today's students we must use technology to its fullest. Language skills have drastically changed and continue to evolve.
- What do you see in your classrooms that supports or contradicts this?
- How do you use technology to reach and teach?
- Are you using any traditional methods that still work?
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/life_and_style/education/article7052968.ece
Tags: eduation, needs, student, technology
Replies to This Discussion
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Permalink Reply by Tamara on
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In my opinion, technology compliments teaching. It should not be used to replace old fashioned teaching or become the only teaching method available. Technology is here to facilitate old methods and evolutionize teaching. Teachers should always implement traditional methods because that is the way teachers learn to teach. Without the traditional methods, I would fear that the face of teaching would change, mostly for the worse.
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Permalink Reply by james thornburgh on
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I agree, I have found that with an IWB I actually teach more like teachers I has growing up and in college, and am not chained to the computer, following a preset script like I had been. Only now I can have images, examples, or text items at the ready.
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i don't think its essential but it does help in some ways. you may also be showing about technology itself and the many things you are able to do now a days. Not only is it easier to teach using technology but its the future.
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Permalink Reply by Geoff St. Pierre on
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no. it is not necessary, just helpful and fun!
i still use lecture as a traditional method; make not mistake it is the most efficient way to transfer information from one human to a group of humans, however it does require that the learning group pay attention. enter technology, the hook, to show how curves can be affected by different parameters in maths and physics, we can graph things in 1, 2, and 3 dimensions with just a few keyboard and/or mouse clicks.
• http://wolframalpha.com
• http://graphcalc.com
• http://graphmatica.com
so, i mix it up with lecture, group work, computer work, and quizzes and tests. sometimes bloggers, sharing notes on cms's like manhattan, and just general human conversation in person and online;
~ Geoff
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Permalink Reply by Jean-Michel David on
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The question heading this forum entry, 'Is technology essential to teach today's students?', makes a couple of all too common and fundamental mistakes:
Firstly, it does not differentiate between the pedagogical needs of (for example) 5 yo compared to 17 yo. It may indeed be the case that for the latter usage of technology is essential (and then the question still remains as to how and when and for what subject(s) and under what circumstances); whereas for the former not only is it not essential, but perhaps even undesirable (a similar comment could be made about, for example, learning to drive a car).
Secondly, and following on, really, from my last comment in the previous paragraph, the whole question needs to be turned on its head: not by beginning with a question having to do with technology, but rather and instead what each student in their respective age group needs to best allow them to develop in a healthy manner. When it is that question which is answered, 'technology' may or may not enter the picture as part of the reply for any specific age group.
In my personal experience, albeit working in a relatively small independent school (P-12, approx 500 students), there appears no need to use technology until adolescence is reached.
Part also of the biggest false statements made are that today's students have little concentration. Engage them in exciting narrative from the world's epics, and their imaginations will flare – unless these are reduced to cartoon-type representations rather than spoken narrative for which the individual builds within him or herself the corresponding picture-forms.
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I too presumed that it was not 'pencils and paper' that was meant by 'technology'. So there was no need for the sarcasm.
As to your thought regarding the accuracy of my 'statement', you appear to have entirely missed the point.
It is not whether or not computers can or cannot be used in maths or other subjects, nor even that technology (read ICT) is or is not its own subject, but rather, first and foremost, that the appropriate question is: what is healthy for a child of a particular age-group to be doing, and how to encourage that such be done in a manner that promotes healthy development.
Where you are correct is that I would not introduce calculus to the 7 y.o. (even though many could be monkey-trained to undertake some of its processes). Neither is there any need to introduce ICT (again, given your sarcasm, I should point out that I am not here referring to pencil-and-paper) to the 7 y.o..
That your daughter has exchanged email with PhDs in France and Sweden may sound fantastic – and it may also have been quite a positive and commendable experience – or, conversely, not (though I trust and hope, of course, that it was positive and age-appropriate and commendable in her case). To give that as an example, however, takes no account of the overall engagement of the child-appropriate development for her age-group.
I am certainly not against the appropriate usage of ICT, though the concerning movement in educational circles is that ICT is considered as a virtual (excuse the pun) panacea that is all too often presented in unthought-through dogma, with the questions always beginning from the point of the tool, rather than the child.
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Indeed Information and Communications Technology (ICT), like mathematics, is not a single-age group subject, but neither is the manner in which it is at times introduced the most appropriate for a particular age in question.
Hence (in part) the analogy with calculus (which, though part of maths, does not belong to the 7 y.o.) or, to re-mention the earlier analogy, not introducing the driving of cars to 7 y.o.
ICT has, before its 'T', that all important 'I' an 'C'.
The 'T' (technology) part may be more healthily left until later years.
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Ibid. & fair enough.
Disagreeing can only lead to more careful thinking through why there are differing views and help in appreciating the merits of each of these.
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Permalink Reply by Madison Snyder on
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I think technology is very important to any classroom. Personally, as a student learning how to be an effective teacher, I am more interested when a professor uses technology to enhance their teaching. I don't think that it is a requirement, but I think it helps the learning process be more interesting.
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Permalink Reply by Angela White on
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In a way, yes. But I think allowing kids to bring handhelds into the classroom is really asking for an addictive distraction that will become a part of everyday learning.
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Now a days technology takes and important part in teaching. In my opinion technology is a great source in which students can learn more and express themselves.
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Technology is wonderful, no doubt. When it works properly. Technology should be there to serve as an aid to reiterate or expand on a lesson. I also agree with Angela that allowing hand held devices could be inviting distraction considering that with the average class size it is difficult to watch all of the students all of the time.
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