Should we embrace technology in schools?

 

We are in a modern era where technology seems to be advancing quickly; some see a bright, new future in education because of technology, Digitaltechlife.com (2013) stated “the younger you are right now the more likely you feel comfortable with technology and look forward to future changes it brings”.

What would this mean for the teachers of today? 

Do teachers look at technology differently to how pupils look at it. 

The Headmasters and Headmistresses Conference in 2010 expressed this concern and

hastily came to the conclusion: “While today's teachers use the internet for information, today's children use the internet for gathering”. However if teachers and pupils learn to use new and emerging technology together and correctly it can be a useful tool where the teacher is needed to motivate and encourage the pupils learning; whereas pupils learning can be enhanced via the technology available today.  

In today’s society, technology is not completely taking over traditional methods of teaching but can be used to enhance learning.

Spencer, J. (2012) had mentioned in his book "Can you teach without technology" ‘At this stage, technology isn't truly transformative. It's simply a faster way to do much of what we would already be doing.’ Which is very true; before pupils had to look through books (spending  a considerate amount of time searching for a answer to their questions) however now with a simple google search the answer to their questions can be found in seconds.

Some may not look upon this as necessarily a good thing, however it is the day and age we are living in.

If schools are to prepare pupils for their lives to come, there is no use hiding technonlogy away from our pupils; it is important to get pupils to use technology, but more importantly teahing pupils how to use it appropriately.