Do you think that the integration of technology is really a racket to make money for business? Does movements to use more technology in classrooms have our students' best interests in mind?
Technology does work in the classroom. I have seen it with my students, and especially the ones who struggle on a particular skill. Our students are digital natives, and therefore gravitate and respond more quickly to learning with technology. For the most part, I think that the movement to use more technology in the classroom does have the student's best interest because it is creating a different form of learning for students, and serves as a great aid for the teacher.
However, I agree with some of the points that Michael Hiltzik said in his article Who really benefits from putting high-tech gadgets in classrooms? I think that because companies are seeing the need and impact that technology is having on schools, some are trying to take advantage and make a profit. There are too many techy products that come out claiming to revolutionize teaching or make learning easier for the students, but companies do not take the time to understand the real needs of education and it's problems. On many instances, schools/districts have spent unnecessary large amounts of money on a technology product that sits collecting dust on a shelf, or the product is not really living up to what the seller claimed it could do. Some companies completely overprice the product to their advantage without taking in consideration of what the school/district can afford or what they have to do without. When this happens, I am not so sure that these companies have our students best interest. I believe that using any kind of technology in the classroom is going to be a business. One just needs to be more selective in what to buy and make sure that it is reasonable, productive, and effective.
The biggest point that got my attention in Michael Hiltzik's article was:
"Many would-be educational innovators treat technology as an end-all and be-all, making no effort to figure out how to integrate it into the classroom. "Computers, in and of themselves, do very little to aid learning," Gavriel Salomon of the University of Haifa and David Perkins of Harvard observed in 1996. Placing them in the classroom "does not automatically inspire teachers to rethink their teaching or students to adopt new modes of learning."
I completely agree with this quote because technology in itself will not give the desired results and automatically make all students learn. Nothing can replace a teacher. But it is the teacher's responsibility to figure out how to integrate technology as part of the lesson, not have the technology teach the lesson or be the lesson. Gavriel Salomon is right when he stated " Computers, in and of themselves, do very little to aid learning," because computers like anything else, can be used for good, or can be used for bad. The computer is nothing without the guidance of the teacher and the integrative lessons that go along with using the computer.
Technology has the power to lift a student or allow him to remain flat lined, and the deciding factor of that outcome will be on the teacher. Whether or not these businesses have our student's best interest should not affect what we do in the classroom. They are a business, they will always try to make money out of a deal. Companies may not have our students best interest in mind, but we as teachers need to. There is a technology movement going on, and technology does work in the classrooms when used appropriately, but we need to be selective in our products and realize that technology is here to aid the teacher not be the teacher.
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