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.

Science relating to life and achievement

Science lesson have changed a lot in the past 10 years or so, with changing curricula and new advancing ideas in science pupils are always benefiting from the knowledge taken from science lessons. The question that has to be answered is:

Are science lessons preparing pupils for their life ahead? Can the knowledge they learn from their science be brought forward to create generation of scientists with new adventurous ideas.

Ross in his book teaching secondary science mentioned “Children learn about heat and temperature, atoms and molecules, fair testing and Bunsen burners, but do not build them into everyday understanding. At best they have a scientific system that is good enough to pass examinations, but after harvesting the crops, the land is bare, the ideas are lost and everyday life is unaffected”. 

Some pupils just want to get their result and not think about pursuing science as a career or even putting forward the knowledge they have learnt to everyday life. Why would they when the things taught in science are based upon knowledge from books and not life experience (however this is changing; slowly  Pupils are being taught for exams and not for the “greater picture”. This leads on to the matter of raising achievements, pupils want to do well they want to succeed but they just cannot and some will not relate to things that they think is a waste of time. Science that is directly related to a pupil’s everyday life may encourage performance and maybe helping to raise achievement. 

Reference:

(Teaching secondary science constructing meaning and developing understanding; 2010, Keith Ross and co)