kim woods
dlqms2222
final_essay.docx
The Impacts of Technology on Students’ Education
Students in the classroom are increasingly on their smartphones and laptops each day. Using technology such as cellphones and computers to access social media anywhere and anytime is becoming the norm. From an educational point of view, the use of technology presents numerous problems to both teachers and students inside and outside the classroom. The communication between teachers and students is slowly but surely deteriorating. The introduction of technology within the classroom environment has resulted in negative consequences on education. The modernization of education has caused three main problems for the educational learning process. These problems of technology are reflected through the negative impacts of technology on students’ education. Students are receiving less knowledge because of the impacts of technology, they are not learning as much as they could be learning without technology, and students are limiting their potential by using technology for their educational goals, which allows students to study using less effort.
Using technology in education decreases the amount of knowledge that is gained by students in the classroom. Before the use of technology such as the Internet, students faced more challenges in listening to teachers, focusing their attention, understanding new information, retaining it, and analyzing information. As students use electronic devices more, they will have more difficulties with being absorbed in their studies. Although students try to learn through their smartphones and computers, those electronic devices have more negative effects on education than advantages.
The process of educational modernization leads to a decrease in the amount of knowledge provided and gained in the classroom and has negative consequences. Problems caused by modernization arise at every step of the educational process. Sonali Brahmbhatt points out that “constant stimulation that comes from the Internet has also taken away the ability of students to generally focus in the classroom.” This means that technology decreases students’ ability to receive comprehensive knowledge during the learning process. They have trouble becoming involved in the educational process and listening to their teachers as they are more focused on technology. During their studies, students’ attention is being given to their phones and computers. Students direct some part of their efforts to technology, but not to education. Loop notes that “they are being distracted from the educational process because they are playing games and spending time on social network sites and are not focusing their attention to teachers.” The amount of time that students are distracted by their smartphones and laptops in a classroom is continuously increasing. Students in today’s society are constantly faced with the temptation to use technology.
Not only do technological learning tools result in a student gaining less knowledge, but also they result in less communication and interaction between the student and teachers. As new technologies are introduced into the classroom setting, teachers are challenged with using new methods of education. Some teachers need some time for training in order to learn how to use these new gadgets and devices. They also need to spend some time to modify existing educational material that will be used on smartboards or with other technological means. The time spent on training is not a good use of resources because this time could be spent on researching new psychological methods of interaction with students to improve their academic knowledge. The majority of teachers were educated to use standard teaching methodologies without the application of technology. Therefore, the use of technology in a classroom can lead to decrease the effectiveness and efficiency of existing teaching methodologies. Therefore, the use of technology in a classroom can lead to a loss of creativity and also decrease the effectiveness and efficiency of existing teaching methodologies. Modern technologies cause a lack of interaction and communication between teachers and students, but an individual is also faced with the challenge of multi-tasking, resulting in short attention spans. During their courses, students often have to research necessary information and can be easily distracted with the task of replying to social network services (SNS), seeing weather forecasts and playing video games. Attention becomes defocused and divided. This leads to difficulties in receiving and retaining information. In a study of 500 5th graders asked to complete math problems, Sciencedaily.com found that “students could not concentrate on solving complicated problems or develop sustained and deep thoughts.” This means that a person cannot focus when technology is present. David Mayer, a professor of psychology, declares that “doing several tasks simultaneously may seem like the height of efficiency and it would be, if a person had more than one brain. In the real world, multitasking actually wastes time and reduces work quality” (Woolston). While students use their computers and laptops for education, they study while doing other things, such as clicking to read the news or doing online shopping. This causes them to waste their time and decreases the effectiveness of their studies. Doing things simultaneously, such as watching the news, reading course materials, and browsing on Facebook, places too much pressure on the brain. People combining all of these activities do not perform at their highest productivity. When multitasking, people cannot focus on one particular subject and have problems with finding concrete solutions to the given tasks. Multitasking leads to an increase in stress and tiredness, especially when all performed tasks are extremely important. In the short-term period, students feel lost. In the long term, this sort of multitasking can harm the educational process and the health of the student. Moreover, David Mayer stated that quick shifting from performing one task to another leads to decreasing effectiveness and efficiency in doing both of them (Woolston).
In addition, technologies do not provide the whole range of abilities of receiving new information. Klaus claims that the “process of education represents a combination of hearing, vision, physical and mental interaction.” By this, Klaus suggests that technology cannot provide all this; it just shows the necessary information. Therefore, the processes of understanding new information and mastering knowledge and skills become more difficult. Technologies do not provide any sensory and motor development because students’ activities are limited (Rowan). They become less coordinated, less regulated, and less focused on one particular subject.
Technological learning tools have negative impacts because they result in students becoming incapable of working by themselves. Technologies provide real-time information and require students to act immediately. Therefore, students do not have enough time for proper evaluation of the obtained information or to develop their own ideas. For an in-depth understanding of the subject being studied, students have to thoroughly read what was written. However, through technological methods, students do not tend to think about knowledge deeply. As technology has progressed over the years, it has made students become lazier than they were in the past. Students these days do not have to read or analyze the books given for them to read because the Internet gives them the information in just one click. Students just look up answers to questions from the Internet and copy them. They repeat the information without analyzing it for themselves, which results in less knowledge gained by the students. Students do not have an opportunity to develop their own critical thinking abilities in order to create new ideas. According to the research of Patricia Greenfield, a doctor of psychological sciences who works in Los Angeles, “the process of using a technology by children improves their visual skills, at the same time, worsening their ability to analyze information and critically evaluate it.”
A modern technology used in the educational process not only reduces the quality of learning, it also has a lot of unproven and false information which are available for anyone to read, and many students may take this information as the truth. Loops’ article gives a great example of this by saying,
as an adult, you may know that Mr. Bob's bio facts are far from true, but that doesn't mean that your child has the same understanding. She may take everything that she reads online as fact, leading to misinformation or even a slightly skewed way of thinking.
The Internet provides access to different ideas and opinions from many different people. However, these ideas and opinions are not always true and may have incorrect information. Misinformation leads to an incorrect understanding of facts and events, incorrect evaluation, and poor outcomes, which is why students should not rely so much on the Internet.
As a result, the truly horrible consequence is that students no longer value their education at all. Students are able to get the information they need easily and quickly. There are so many resources on websites that students can get for free. Moreover, many students only take online classes, so they do not need to go to school. Fewer and fewer students are feeling the need to make an effort to study.
In addition to losing their desire to study formally, students are missing opportunities for growth outside of the classroom. Today, reading is usually performed in order to obtain specific and necessary information, but it is usually not used to widen students’ views and opinions in different subjects and fields. Students in the past usually read for pleasure. According to Brahmbhatt, “Reading books and articles for pleasure, which has significantly decreased among youths and adults in recent years, increases and enhances thinking activities and engages the imaginational processes unlike visual media such as films, videos, games, and television.” Students today do not feel a need to have a unique reading experience or extend their vocabulary and ideas. Students are using technologies such as the Internet to search for any news, description, analyses, or entertainment (games, videos, music), but not for obtaining new knowledge that will increase their vocabulary, ideas, or understanding. As the smart digital era develops, students are losing interest in reading articles and books for academic purposes.
Using technology in the classroom does not provide students with an in-depth study, but it results in students not focusing on important details that could hone their critical thinking abilities. Students may know where to find good information, but they do not know how to generate information from their own ideas. Technology gives people the idea that everything can be found somewhere without any significant effort. Therefore, students lose their innovative ability to create something new. Students should be able to generate their personal points of view, write unique essays or research papers, and develop new theories and approaches. Technological development increases intellectual laziness because of the continuous use of technologies (Internet, computers, tablets, and phones) and of video-based information resources and guidelines as opposed to textual resources (Brahmbhatt). Specifically, the availability of technology does not actually provide better results in math and language arts. According to official research, “the Apple Classroom of Tomorrow (ACOT)” performed by Baker, Gearhart, and Herman in 1994,
on standardized tests including vocabulary, reading, comprehension, mathematics concepts and work-study, ACOT students performed no better than comparison groups or nationally reported norms who did not have access to computers or to the teaching and learning reforms implemented in ACOT schools, (Schacter).
Free access to the Internet and its sources increases the ability to use technology for entertainment, but not for studies. Cingel and Sundar note that
increased use of cell phones to text messages with grammatical shortcuts has resulted in high written grammatical errors among teenagers. It mentions that the technology is more popular among adolescents ages 13-17 in the U.S. which is hampering the understanding of English grammar during the developmental period. The use of text messaging among users has resulted in the weakening of their respective language.
Students chat online a lot, and due to the excessive usage of online chatting their writing skills have declined quite tremendously. Digital communication makes them forget about improving their writing skills. They use slang and incorrect vocabulary that results in them not knowing how to use grammar properly or organize their writing. Students barely use a high level of vocabulary today. Therefore, Internet access for students did not provide any positive outcomes regarding their education.
Using technology in the educational process makes a student not concentrate on studying, and it also eliminates real interaction between students and teachers as well as between peers. Communication and interaction are both performed via the Internet, messages, and social media. In actuality, it is easier for students to learn from the teachers than to read information online. This is because the teacher can explain the subject that students cannot understand, and there may be information that is not available on the Internet. However, teachers have become unable to understand whether the students really grasp the information or have any troubles in understanding some topics. Students also do not have much experience in developing communication skills because they do not use them. They do not know how to interact with others or how to enter into discussions, expressing their ideas and opinions in an understandable manner. Students are less involved in oral discussions and debates, so they do not have a way of defending their opinions and ideas. They just learn how to search for necessary information and how to write short messages. An improvement in education is accomplished by teachers who limit students’ the access to entertainment and social media within classroom setting. This is supported by official studies. An experiment performed by North Carolina Urban Institute researchers showed that performance and learning is higher in the schools with limited access to entertainment like Youtube (Kenny). In addition, many students take online classes today, which raise a problem. Teachers cannot watch students to see if they are cheating. Waters emphasizes that:
what we're calling high-tech cheating has been characterized variously as a trend, an epidemic, and a plague. But it might be something even worse: a paradigm shift. More students than ever are using information technology in ways that break the rules of academic integrity, and a shocking number of them don't seem to think they're doing anything wrong-well, not that wrong.
Methods to cheat with technology are getting increasingly diversified every day. Some students in today’s society do not even realize that it is a bad behavior. Moreover, teachers do not use direct eye contact with students, so they have no idea if students are doing well in their studies or not. Through the process of standard education, students can also learn to have good character. Teachers teach morals and values to students, as well as what is important in society. Although technology has been used as a distraction by students in the classroom, there are some positive influences as well. According to Schacter, “students receive more information and knowledge in the shortest period when teachers give them computer-based instructions.” Video games increase people’s ability to perform different tasks simultaneously; this ability can be very useful in some professions. For example, pilots, car drivers, and military people have to perform monitoring of numerous instruments at the same time. In addition, a combination of games and the educational process makes education easier and more attractive. A researcher in India proved that a combination of mathematical questions with an arcade game had a considerably positive impact on children’s scores (Kenny). They are willing to play games and receive knowledge. Also through the use of technology, students and teachers now have an opportunity to write on touch screens; and this makes the educational process faster and more understandable. Studying becomes engaging and interactive. Less time is necessary for obtaining feedback, giving scores for students’ work, and performing educational tasks. New and understandable material is less frustrating for students, as they can find various up-to-date sources. Easy access to the Internet via phones, tablets, and computers makes obtaining information much faster. Students have an ability to receive more comprehensive knowledge concerning numerous topics: politics, music, sports and physics. At the same time, technology provides constant updating of events that are happening all over in the world. Technology provides a wider range of information in less time.
Also, technological tools provide enhancement of learning strategies and methodologies. Previously, teachers wrote on chalkboards and white boards, but now they use smart boards that are, according to Milfordmessenger.com, “extremely advanced and offer many different ways to teach and to share information with students.” These technological solutions help improve the educational process and make it easier and more productive. Teachers have an opportunity to pull any website, Microsoft PowerPoint Presentation, Smart Response, Smart Netbook Math Tools, Smart Document Camera, or programs on the board and show it to the students. Different images and notes can be combined into one unit of a virtual netbook and provide comprehensive and easily understandable information. Technology has also helped with having better productivity during classroom lectures. Technology helps teachers increase the effectiveness and efficiency of the organization and presentation of lessons, which makes understanding new material quicker, easier, more meaningful, and engaging as it is supported by multimedia presentations. Technology provides different opportunities for students, as they can use different and more suitable types of educational styles. Technological tools are used for the promotion of creativity, productivity, and enhancement of the learning process. The majority of people have a positive attitude toward technology and modernization. They receive better access to world knowledge and at the same time feel more modern and innovative. Schacter insists that “students like their classes and develop more positive attitudes when their classes include computer-based instructions.” Computer-based instructions give students information easily and quickly. All of these are some of the positive aspects of technology in education.
Technology has had considerable impacts on the quality of education a student receives, most of which are negative. Different scientists and experiments have supported these ideas. Implementation of technology into the educational process creates barriers in obtaining new information by decreasing the listening and attention skills of students. The use of technologies during the educational process also decreases the amount of obtained information. Students face more challenges in listening to teachers, concentrating their attention, receiving new information, remembering it, and analyzing various facts and events. They lose their ability to interact with peers and teachers and to develop and express their ideas and opinions. The process of educational modernization has led to a decrease in the amount of provided and received knowledge. With the introduction of technology to education, students are faced with the challenge of finding correct information. The Internet has a lot of information, both good and bad, so student receive incorrect information often. Students can easily search for information, but they have a challenge in expressing their ideas and generating new ones. Their education level does not reflect their real skills and knowledge. Students become unable to analyze and evaluate information. The main negative impact of technology on the educational process is that students do not feel the necessity of obtaining new knowledge, because they can find everything on the Internet. Rather, they can find everything that they need and want in the shortest time without considerable effort.
