Technology is synonymous with virtually everybody in today’s world. Technology forms a large part of all that people engage in ranging from locomotion, food production and communication. In this, Education and classroom learning have not been left behind. The core of technology has highly infiltrated into education and learning making it the single most effect way approach through which information is passed from educators to learning. With time, learning in schools and particular classrooms has become dependent on technology to the extent that in the 21st century without technology in schools and classroom learning is doomed.
One of the simplest ways that technology is used in schools and classrooms is in teaching aids. Over time, learning has transformed from the manual teaching aids and approaches to digital forms. For instance, the drawn charts on the manila papers have long been replaced with digital drawing in computer programs (Kim & Kim, 2016). Besides, with the help of technology more appropriate teaching aids as videos have been created that make learning more practical thus easy to understand. Technology has also greatly reduced time spent in attachment areas that form as stimulations for students in what they learn (Dotong & Dolot, 2016). For instance, today students can achieve adequate stimulation in practical through various stimulation games that they can play from the comfort of their classroom or school.
Advances in technology have made moved learning resources around the school making the majority of them find their way into the classroom. Libraries have been digitalized in an attempt to reduce space occupied by books in the libraries, which has made many books available in the classroom (Seo & Kim, 2016). Today, it is possible for students to carry the whole school library in their pockets greatly improving learning in the classroom. Books have been transformed to eBooks and PDFs fitting into smartphones among other digital equipment (Kim & Kim, 2016). Besides, the introductions of wireless communication forms have made it possible for students to access books online. This tendency had greatly reduced the number of students accessing the school library, which was common in the past (Tondeur & Scherer, 2016). Whereas this is a positive thing, the resulting dependency has greatly contributed to students even unable to read their class made notes. According to Tondeur & Scherer (2016), overreliance on digital forms of libraries has increased unethical academic practices like plagiarism due to dependency on classroom technologies.
Finally, teachers and other stakeholders in school and classroom management have not been left behind on the dependency of technology. The majority of instruments of learning formerly developed manually have been highly digitalized. Curriculums, exams, timetable, and marking is now highly dependent on technology. According to Crook & Bligh (2016), many teachers depend on technological platforms to design curriculum, timetable, and exams. In some schools, registers of staff and teachers are taken by various biometric monitors, cameras and use of digital pass cards (Seo & Kim, 2016). The wave of dependency on technology is high in some schools where setting and marking of exams is done using specific software (Crook & Bligh, 2016). For instance, students would submit exams to a platform called Turnitin, which will mark the work based on the originality, and then use a different program to check for grammar use before the teachers mark for the content. Another example is multiple-choice questions being marked digitally and instantly.
In conclusion, all these changes have made students and teachers depend highly on technology. In the absence of technology, teaching and learning could be very difficult to the modern teachers and kids. For instance, it will proof burdensome for students to carry hardcover books when they have been used to softcopy books in forms of EBooks or PDFs. Similarly, asking teaching to sketch teaching aids in the ‘manual’ way could difficult or almost impossible due to dependency to the adoption of the new technology. Besides, teachers have become dependent on technology on the setting and grading of exams. With each day new and better technologies being developed in the field of education, it will be difficult to separate schools and classroom from technology.
- Crook, C., & Bligh, B. (2016). Technology and the dis-placing of learning in educational futures. Learning, Culture and Social Interaction. Retrieved from http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2210656116300277
- Dotong, C. I., & Dolot, J. A. (2016). Barriers for Educational Technology Integration in Contemporary Classroom Environment. Retrieved from http://research.lpubatangas.edu.ph/wp-content/uploads/2016/05/APJEAS-2016.3.2.03.pdf
- Kim, M. K., & Kim, S. M. (2016). Automatic detection of expert models: The exploration of expert modeling methods applicable to technology-based assessment and instruction. Computers & Education, 101, 55–69. Retrieved from http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0360131516301178
- Seo, D. G., & Kim, M. K. (2016). Mobile phone dependency and its impacts on adolescents’ social and academic behaviors. Computers in Human Behavior, 63, 282–292. Retrieved from http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0747563216303533
- Tondeur, J., & Scherer, R. (2016). Time for a new approach to prepare future teachers for educational technology use: Its meaning and measurement. Computers & Education, 94, 134–150. Retrieved from http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0360131515300816