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I know that I will receive a lot of criticism about it, but I believe that schools who are using a lot of technology without using traditional approaches to education really are hurting students in the process. As an educator, I always believe in using both methods traditional and neo-styles approaches since students today are more knowledgeable about technology.
Probably. Spending more money on the latest iDoodles and whatever other internet stuff for kids is still not going to teach them all of the important basics that many of them fail to master now. But it will keep some bureaucrat in their job longer.
Are you serious???? Technology is IMPROVING education. The kids have so much more access to information, different learning ideas, etc. If used properly, it is fantastic. Now, if teachers use computer games as a babysitter for kids in class, not so much.
I don't think technology is dumbing down education at all. I think what is dumbing down education is the insistence that all students are equally capable.
Will you always have google at your fingertips to answer a question ?
Will you always have a calculator in your hand to do simple math ?
Will you always have a DVD to watch to replace reading a book ?
How many kids today leave K-12 with a love of reading ?? How many can actually read and articulate what they've read ?
Are you serious???? Technology is IMPROVING education. The kids have so much more access to information, different learning ideas, etc. If used properly, it is fantastic. Now, if teachers use computer games as a babysitter for kids in class, not so much.
There is the key. Do you know that there are kids graduating HS that have never used graph paper and have no idea what it is for ?
They can show you the graph on a scientific calculator but cannot do the same "by hand". They do not know how to solve and graph an equation but they do know how to plug in numbers and hit a button.
Technology is improving grades which is not the same thing as improving education.
Will you always have google at your fingertips to answer a question ?
Will you always have a calculator in your hand to do simple math ?
Will you always have a DVD to watch to replace reading a book ?
How many kids today leave K-12 with a love of reading ?? How many can actually read and articulate what they've read ?
Isn't the goal of education teaching kids HOW to find the answers to things? What difference does it make if they look it up in a book or Google? Just because it was "always done that way" doesn't mean it is better.
Quote:
Originally Posted by HappyTexan
There is the key. Do you know that there are kids graduating HS that have never used graph paper and have no idea what it is for ?
They can show you the graph on a scientific calculator but cannot do the same "by hand". They do not know how to solve and graph an equation but they do know how to plug in numbers and hit a button.
Technology is improving grades which is not the same thing as improving education.
I can tell you that is not the case here. We have a few reams of graph paper and our kids use it right along with their graphing calculators. They still need to put the graphs on paper so the teacher can see their work. Even their lab books for science are all graph paper.
Isn't the goal of education teaching kids HOW to find the answers to things? What difference does it make if they look it up in a book or Google? Just because it was "always done that way" doesn't mean it is better.
I can tell you that is not the case here. We have a few reams of graph paper and our kids use it right along with their graphing calculators. They still need to put the graphs on paper so the teacher can see their work. Even their lab books for science are all graph paper.
I just spent $11.99 on graph paper for the lab we're doing later this week. It was suggested that I might want to have them graph it in Excel but I'm thinking not. Maybe I'll allow that for extra credit. If they do both, they'll realize if they did their manual graphing wrong.
Isn't the goal of education teaching kids HOW to find the answers to things? What difference does it make if they look it up in a book or Google?
That is one goal, but not the only one. Education should also build a a framework that is far beyond what you can google. Take history, for example. You can google a certain battle, emperor, or country. But if you have not studied world history - if you have no context for what you are reading - you cannot really understand it. It becomes just a little story with no depth. You don't know what came before (causes, for example), what came afterward (and might have been results), or what else was happening in the world at the same time (influences, possibly). Education should at least give the skeleton. Otherwise, with just little stories here and there, you have only a pile of bones.
Technology (or rather a dependence on technology rather than learning) can do even more damage in other subjects, especially science and math. You can't just "google calculus" and suddenly understand it if you don't understand the math that came before. It's like building a tower with blocks - you want to put on the top block at eye level, but there are no blocks underneath - or they are scattered all over the floor.
And I like Google.
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