How Technology is Changing Education in Schools

A pen is a ballpoint pen, and a bill is a calculator. A blackboard is an interactive panel. Technology is coming to schools and is becoming available to students. The learning process is being modernized, and the entire education system is gradually changing.

Each new technical invention makes life easier while taking away the developmental factor of applied technology.

For example, students pay the price for the ability to type quickly by developing fine motor skills, and electronic translators restrict creativity in learning languages. The emergence of technology also affects memory. Why keep everything in your head when you can find information on the World Wide Web at any time. With technology, you can work successfully only with the accumulated traditional knowledge in your head, the expert notes.But at the same time, computers have made it possible to process large amounts of data, making complex calculations possible even for school children. So if you think that the computer is harmful to your child, do not rush to sell pc parts, it is better to think about it more.

From Pen to VR-glasses

In terms of technology, the educational process in the XX century was changing, but slowly. It all started with the ballpoint pen. It replaced the fountain pen, though it was not allowed in schools for a long time. Then came calculators and translators, and the process could not be stopped: computers, interactive whiteboards, and VR glasses.

Oddly enough, in the middle of the last century, an ordinary ballpoint pen made a big splash. You could get away with writing with it. It was not welcome in schools for a long time and was even forbidden. Doctors claim that when a child writes with a ballpoint pen, he holds his breath, and even his heart rate fails. Besides, how could it compete with a fountain pen that developed beautiful handwriting and activated the brain’s work and fine motor skills? But with the ballpoint pen, I accelerated the writing process. Inkpots, blots, and blotting-pots disappeared. The pen’s advantages are undeniable, and some modern schools returned to fountain-ink pens used by first-graders to write words in elementary classes.

Farther is Better

Then the calculator came to schools. It appeared in its usual form in the 1960s. The first macro calculator was developed in 1977. Nowadays, any gadget has a calculator – schoolchildren use it. It makes life easier, but it leads to the gradual loss of children’s oral and written calculations skills. It becomes more difficult for students to determine the correctness of calculations and find mistakes in examples.

The first pocket translators, which appeared around the mid-1990s, speeded up the translation process but minimized creativity: students started to translate less by themselves, selecting possible variations. Machine translations, of course, leave a lot to be desired. The electronic translators do not see the difference in the use of synonyms, and they make mistakes in word order, number, and gender. The translation is an art that requires reading skills, outlook, and the ability to form sentences correctly.

What is going on now

Interactive electronic whiteboards linked to the computer have added a modern touch to the educational process. They increase the effectiveness of the educational process: it is more interesting for children to work on an interactive whiteboard, and they save teachers’ time. An interactive lesson can be quickly adjusted on a computer and used in different classes.

The history of introducing computer technology into the educational process deserves special attention. Attempts to develop a computer science curriculum in schools with mathematical inclinations began in the 1950s. However, teachers did not have the necessary level of training, and schools did not have the equipment. Informatics became a compulsory subject only in 1985. At that time, companies began to collect personal computers, launched several models in mass production, and technology flowed smoothly into the educational process.

At first, computer science teachers, engineers, and programmers taught computer science. Students learned the basic features and components of computers, variants of their use, and the basics of programming. Now it is no longer possible to imagine learning without computers. Like other innovations, computers brought speed and convenience to the study, made it possible to forget about dictionaries and encyclopedias, and made it possible to continue the learning process remotely during the quarantine in the spring of 2020. Opportunities such as online brainstorming boards have also appeared, with several students writing in them simultaneously from their computers.

Conclusion

Despite the progress, basic skills and abilities need to continue to be developed. Sure, you can write everything down in a gadget, but you can continue to practice writing by hand because it helps you concentrate and remember information, forcing your brain to be more attentive to the process. Writing down your thoughts and experiences on paper relieves stress and trains the brain. Writer Truman Capote confessed that he always takes notes by hand first when he starts working on a new novel.

Even though technology makes learning faster and more interesting, the teacher’s role as the main factor of effective education is not going anywhere. No one but the teacher can teach basic skills and lay down basic knowledge. Technology is technology, but the teacher will always be at the center of education.

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