Introduction
Technology is one of the most impactful and rapidly changing aspects
of our world today. Most people use computer technology frequently in both
their personal and professional lives and have done so for many years now. In
fact, there is an entire generation that is growing into adulthood that knows nothing
else but a world where the internet and computers are king. Amazingly, the
integration of technology into education is still sloppy and very little of the
formal curriculum is devoted to teaching young people how to use technology.
This is clearly a disconnect. How can we live in a world where technology
is such a critical part of every aspect of our lives, including professionally,
and yet it is still under addressed in schools? School is the very place which
is supposed to prepare us for the real, working world, and new technologies and
their uses are under-taught. Obviously, technology
needs to be more effectively and seamlessly integrated into school curriculums
in order to properly prepare students to succeed in todays’ world. This
isn’t to say that technology isn’t incorporated at all into education, but
rather to point out that if the integration were more natural, it would be more
effective. The following is an account of my progression throughout the educational
system and my encounters with technology and throughout.
A personal
story of technology in education
As
someone who has been a student for the past 17 years (the vast majority of my
life), education has played a massive rile in determining who I am and what
skills I have. Growing up in the 21st century has meant that as I’ve
gotten older, I have been more and more surrounded by technology. My experience
with education has been no different.
When I was 4 years old in Ms. Melissa’s Pre-K class at Hilltop
Montessori School, technology was essentially a non-factor in my education. I played
with blocks, learned the alphabet by tracing letters with my fingers and took
naps. When I got to elementary school technology was still a small factor in
the overall scope of my education, but it was present. I wrote a few book
reports using Microsoft Word on my home desktop computer, but students were not
allowed to use computers in the classroom until I reached 4th grade.
At this point, technology’s role in my education began to take
off. I regularly had to type up assignments for school and began to learn how to
use the internet to do research on educational topics. In order to graduate 6th
grade, every student at my school had to use PowerPoint to give a presentation on
a researched topic of their choosing in front of the whole class. This was an
absolute “trial by fire” experience for me and my classmates because we had to do
something completely new and strange to us (research and present) while using
technologies (the internet and Powerpoint) that we were unfamiliar with in an
academic context. Although it was a very difficult and frustrating assignment at
the time, the experiential nature of the project helped me learn faster and
more effectively.
Once I got to middle school, computers were used in the classroom
on nearly a daily basis and I started to learn about the capabilities of creating
and editing various types of media on the computer. I also regularly typed
essays and did research using computers both in the classroom and at home. 8th
grade was also when I got my first laptop, which I used for both personal and educational
reasons.
In high school I started using email for school purposes, began
accessing textbooks and readings online, using remote desktop and Google Drive
for my files and was exposed to LibGuides and other advanced research tools. There
were some aspects which were taught in my classes, such as how to create citations
with EasyBib, but the majority of the relationship between technology and learning
was left unaddressed.
Now that I am in college, it is impossible to do even a single
assignment without technology. All information and assignments for my classes
is distributed through Blackboard, I haven’t handed in something handwritten
since I’ve been at college and I don’t have a single hardcopy textbook.
Technology is omnipresent in my educational experience, yet only a
small few of the ways which I use technology in relationship to learning were
shown to me in an academic setting. I am also constantly reminded that computer
science skills are highly sought after in today’s job market and then learning
them will make it far easier to get a better job with a higher salary right out
of college but none of my classes have tried to teach coding in any way.
I tell this story about the evolution of the role of technology in
education because it does a good job illustrating how the role of technology in
education changes as students get older as well as evolves over time. It also
serves as an example of how even though technology plays a massive role in today’s
educational environment, there is almost zero formal instruction regarding the
best use of technology.
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