Schools' Technological Progression

I sometimes forgot how young I actually am, and there are moments in my life where my age shows through. The other day it dawned on me that I am part of an exclusive group--a group is one that doesn’t remember the days before cellphones. I do not know when exactly cellphones were invented or became more attainable, but I do know that as long as I’ve been alive, they have been around. I also realized my lack of age talking to my mother. She starting talking about what I’m going to call a party landline. Essentially, your neighbors could hear your conversations if they picked up the phone while you were chatting with somebody else. I can’t imagine that: a life with no cellphones, not to mention life with a landline that’s not even exclusively your own. Not to mention, emails have also been around my entire life, but that’s pretty new as well. Back in the old days, where there were cars with carburetors, you had to send mail through the post office. I honestly do not even know how to send a letter, and I do not feel bad about it. I will practically never need to send a letter, and that is the future of most kids across the United States.

Technology has been moving at warp speed for a while now, and it is not intending on slowing down anytime soon. Communication is at an all-time high, and that is pretty awesome for the most part. What is interesting, though, is the lack of progress schools are taking to advance forward in a world that is racing past it. Before I get too far into this, I do not think an excess of technology is appropriate in a classroom, but there is a time and a place. I am avidly against a lot of technology in classrooms with exceptions to a few outliers. Classrooms are stuck in the 80’s with a whiteboard and a lesson that takes way too long, especially when students are having instant gratification on smartphones faster than ever before. Lecturing for a whole class period does not work, it bores the students. We all remember that one class we hated due to a teacher who did this, and for whatever reason nine out of ten times it always seemed to be some STEM class. Not always, this is more my opinion than an absolute set in stone fact, but it seemed that way.

It is important to make good use of technology in the classroom, as it can greatly enhance learning. In order to introduce a topic, there is a big array of things that the teacher can do, and technology often times helps. There are websites like Desmos that allow for teachers to make presentations that engage students and make them actually think. It allows for a students to actually be interested in math instead of just being lectured. With that being said, when it does come time for students to really learn the topic and not just be introduced to it, lectures do help a fair bit.

All in all, technology can be used as a tool to keep kids interested and engaged in the classroom. To me, engagement is the difference between a good teacher and a great teacher.