Wow!
When I decided to leave a career in IT and embrace teaching, I had no idea how embedded technology had become in education. Even though I commenced my degree at the University of Waterloo, Canada - which was primarily responsible for TCP/IP - email was not around when I studied, nor where mobile phones. Professors and lecturers still used chalk, or handed out photocopies of notes ... can you believe that?
Fortunately, for the past 15 years I have been surrounded by technology and am therefore very comfortable with it. But, it's one thing to be working in IT and another to be a consumer of it. The innovative ways schools and universities are now including technology as part of their learning is impressive … and raises some interesting questions.
It still remains to be seen just how effective technology can be in learning ... or if it is more of a distraction. My views tend to swing back and forth depending on the day. For the most part, technology has greatly enhanced the opportunity for students to access content. In addition, it has also given teachers the ability to collaborate and share teaching ideas/lesson plans in an instant. For a budding teacher, this is a saviour! For a student, who is yet to learn how to 'process' information, is it valuable?
A modern teacher needs to have a basic understanding of technology; more importantly, they need to be able to direct children (and themselves) to factual content. With the plethora of content available, a teacher's focus needs to also include background regarding relevant methods for deciphering bucket loads of data and information which can found on the internet. In addition, students need to learn how to search for what they want … the Internet doesn't have a simple index like the good old textbooks I used.
Eastin, Yang and Nathanson, 2006, researched the effect of childrens' perception and recall of electronic content found on the Internet. It's a great article and covers the limited capacity model (LCM), which postulates that humans can only process a set amount of data at one time. The validity of this model becomes important when considering the resources children use for finding information. As mentioned, my experience in schools thus far has indicated that textbooks are fast becoming the final resources, not the primary one. This has been the case at both of my placement schools, regardless of their adoption of classroom technology.
That is, my first placement at as TC mandated laptops for all students from 5-12, and my second (current) one does not. If a quick student survey was done, both schools appear to use the internet for finding information in an equal capacity.
Reflecting on the changes over the past 15/20 years, there is clearly a paradigm shift in the way schools are now structured, with new roles emerging to accommodate the advances in technology and it's role in education. Davidson and Olsen, 2003 found that the complexities associated with successfully implementing large technical systems in education highlight the need for staff to have a strong understanding of technology. The dilemma is that of developing protocols that enhance learning using technology, whilst simultaneously (sufficiently) inhibiting/shielding children from the cornucopia of distractions they constantly find along the way.
Has technology been helpful in your education? How?
MD.
References:
Davidson, J., & Olson, M. (2003). School leadership in networked schools: deciphering the impact of large technical systems on education. International Journal of Leadership in Education, 6(3), 261-281. Retrieved from EBSCOhost.
Eastin, M. S., Yang, M., & Nathanson, A. I. (2006). Children of the Net: An Empirical Exploration Into the Evaluation of Internet Content. Journal of Broadcasting & Electronic Media, 50(2), 211-230. doi:10.1207/s15506878jobem5002_3
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