In checking out all of the education stories we missed over the weekend, we came across these two stories:
- An editorial from the Marietta Daily Journal: “Schools’ love affair with technology is a reckless romance.”
- An article from the Orlando Sentinel: “Education leaders want more than $400M to expand digital learning.”
The first article maintains that while, “technology has affected teaching and learning in many positive ways, it has also negated much that is valuable. Anybody who observes students using technology can see that it is often a distraction from the hard work of learning. Despite its bells and whistles, or perhaps because of them, (technology) has rendered students incapable of quietly communing with knowledge.”
The second article talks about the State Board of Education in Florida is, “convinced that all students should have round-the-clock access to computers,” as the key to preparing youngsters for the modern world. They want the state to pay for more than 300,000 new devices (netbooks, laptops or ipads) so schools can starting issuing them to youngsters who don’t have their own. In addition, they want all textbooks to be replaced by digital materials by 2015.
Two very different thoughts on the role of technology in today’s education. Which do you agree with?
Technology, and the devices that grow out of it, are tools that can be used beneficially. I imagine some in the fountain pen set decried the advent of ball point pen technology in their day. However, I agree with the editorial in one sense. I think the easy access to information through technological advances has helped make us all, particularly “digital natives” – younger people growing up in this age – more shallow thinkers. More and more of everything, faster and faster (a friend’s definition of progress) may force us to be quicker and more nimble at accessing information fed to us in sound bites and news briefs, but it doesn’t make us better chess players or philosophers.