How Technology Has Changed Education?
Technology has impacted almost every aspect of life today, and education is no exception. Or is it? In some ways, education seems much the same as it has been for many years. A 14th century illustration by Laurentius de Voltolina depicts a university lecture in medieval Italy.
- The scene is easily recognizable because of its parallels to the modern day.
- The teacher lectures from a podium at the front of the room while the students sit in rows and listen.
- Some of the students have books open in front of them and appear to be following along.
- A few look bored.
- Some are talking to their neighbors.
One appears to be sleeping. Classrooms today do not look much different, though you might find modern students looking at their laptops, tablets, or smart phones instead of books (though probably open to Facebook). A cynic would say that technology has done nothing to change education.
- However, in many ways, technology has profoundly changed education.
- For one, technology has greatly expanded access to education.
- In medieval times, books were rare and only an elite few had access to educational opportunities.
- Individuals had to travel to centers of learning to get an education.
- Today, massive amounts of information (books, audio, images, videos) are available at one’s fingertips through the Internet, and opportunities for formal learning are available online worldwide through the Khan Academy, MOOCs, podcasts, traditional online degree programs, and more.
Access to learning opportunities today is unprecedented in scope thanks to technology. Opportunities for communication and collaboration have also been expanded by technology. Traditionally, classrooms have been relatively isolated, and collaboration has been limited to other students in the same classroom or building.
Today, technology enables forms of communication and collaboration undreamt of in the past. Students in a classroom in the rural U.S., for example, can learn about the Arctic by following the expedition of a team of scientists in the region, read scientists’ blog posting, view photos, e-mail questions to the scientists, and even talk live with the scientists via a videoconference.
Students can share what they are learning with students in other classrooms in other states who are tracking the same expedition. Students can collaborate on group projects using technology-based tools such as wikis and Google docs. The walls of the classrooms are no longer a barrier as technology enables new ways of learning, communicating, and working collaboratively.
Technology has also begun to change the roles of teachers and learners. In the traditional classroom, such as what we see depicted in de Voltolina’s illustration, the teacher is the primary source of information, and the learners passively receive it. This model of the teacher as the “sage on the stage” has been in education for a long time, and it is still very much in evidence today.
However, because of the access to information and educational opportunity that technology has enabled, in many classrooms today we see the teacher’s role shifting to the “guide on the side” as students take more responsibility for their own learning using technology to gather relevant information.
- Schools and universities across the country are beginning to redesign learning spaces to enable this new model of education, foster more interaction and small group work, and use technology as an enabler.
- Technology is a powerful tool that can support and transform education in many ways, from making it easier for teachers to create instructional materials to enabling new ways for people to learn and work together.
With the worldwide reach of the Internet and the ubiquity of smart devices that can connect to it, a new age of anytime anywhere education is dawning. It will be up to instructional designers and educational technologies to make the most of the opportunities provided by technology to change education so that effective and efficient education is available to everyone everywhere.
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How has the technology changed the world of teaching and learning?
This post has been updated from a 2016 post Here’s an analogy to help understand the potential of technology in learning. It’s a bit clumsy but bear with me. Think of a teacher as an employee at a department store. Using store guidelines and frameworks for merchandising, an employee will go back to the stock room and grab products and widgets to then place on the sales floor in some recognizable way that doesn’t take up too much space and is easy to shop.
- What that employee chooses to put out on the floor depends on a variety of factors, among them what’s selling, what’s in stock, and what priorities managers have placed on specific items.
- While an established process that’s ‘worked for years,’ this model is limited as it is entirely governed by store policy, and the speed of a small handful of employees to stock.
While fine in slower retail environments, in a busy store this system gets taxed very quickly. Missing sizes, incorrect pricing, low inventory on high-demand items, etc. In this (labored) analogy, the teacher is the employee, surveying the sales floor, going back to the ‘stock room’ to ‘grab’ content (in the form of standards), then packaging these standards in a way that ‘shoppers’ (i.e., students) can–and want to–use.
- The students shop (through compulsion) what the teachers put out.
- But if you can add relevant technology to the equation, access changes at the ground level because the teacher is no longer the bottleneck (or, functioning in a well-designed system, the overworked employee).
- To be fair, it’s true that this human ‘bottleneck’ plays a vital role in the process–being capable of a kind of art of understanding both students and content to design learning experiences accordingly.
Unfortunately, this process has still proven artificially limited, placing an enormous burden on the well-intentioned teacher to make magic happen every single day for every single student. (In fact, in response we’ve learned to silently accept much, much less than magic; teachers want proficiency, parents want good grades, and the goals of the students are entirely subverted either way if they are recognized and cultivated at all.) The BBC also cited a study that says that technology actually hurts student achievement but each is more than a decade old now.
A more recent summary offers mixed evidence of positive effects. In a NY Times article from 2012, a neuroscientist made an interesting point, “His own research shows what happens to attention and focus in mice when they undergo the equivalent of heavy digital stimulation. Students saturated by entertainment media, he said, were experiencing a “supernatural” stimulation that teachers might have to keep up with or simulate.
The heavy technology use, Dr. Christakis said, “makes reality by comparison uninteresting.” See Also 10 Ways Teaching Has Changed In The Last 10 Years The Impact Of Education Technology On Student Achievement: What The Most Current Research Has To Say is an overview of the impact of technology on education from 2012 from the Milken Exchange on Education Technology.
While there was clear evidence of positive impact on ‘student achievement’ across the studies, there was a significant caution offered by the study’s summary which will sound familiar to readers: “There is, however, evidence in some of these studies that learning technology is less effective or ineffective when the learning objectives are unclear and the focus of technology use is diffuse.” Put another way, the problem isn’t how effective is or is not, but in how closely it parallels the real world students live in.
But in lieu of seemingly positive data, the study is flawed from the beginning because it asks the wrong question. We continue to measure the ‘effectiveness’ of education in confounding ways. In What Works In Education And How Do We Know?, I speculated that, as it is, it seems that “to be effective in education then means to promote proficiency of academic standards for the greatest number of students.” And that’s crazy.
Changing World, Changing Roles What technology and all of its assorted gadgets do is provide a direct connection between the shoppers and the product–the students and the content. This means students are no longer shopping neatly organized end-cap displays full pre-packaged items, but rather the raw, unfiltered product.
Stuff. Content. Of course, this isn’t perfect–and presents new challenges for schools and districts, as well as thought leaders in education trying to understand how to best leverage all of the simultaneous possibilities: mobile learning, game-based learning, eLearning, blended learning, and project-based learning tools–and all wedged into classrooms (or remote classrooms), curriculum, and other pieces of the puzzle not necessarily built to accommodate them.
- Bandwidth, privacy, safety, assessment, cost, access, using new tools in old learning models, and even the reality that all of these tools can end up making teachers work harder rather than saving them time or helping them become more efficient.
- Textbooks were–for a while and as far as they were–successful because they allowed for ‘1:1′ access of students to content, but that content was built around traditional genres of math, science, history, and literature, and with a dreadfully boring delivery system to boot (a 400-page book loaded with essay questions).
Bad packaging. Instead of a thousand books (on a thousand different topics) classrooms only needed one. But what’s more interesting, the way the Venturi effect literally lifts a 40-ton plane into the sky, or ‘science’? The way viruses mutate in almost sentient ways to respond to their environment, or ‘biology’? Emily Dickinson’s lifelong struggle to understand the will of God, or ‘Language Arts’? The way minor disadvantages in access to resources can ensure a civilization’s ultimate collapse, or ‘History’? So then maybe we need to go back to a thousand.
See Also 10 Examples Of ‘Old’ Education Technology Or millions, because books, essays, poems, social media, and the internet itself aren’t packaged in ‘content areas’ and if they are–for example, an app designed to deliver pure standards-based math instruction–it probably isn’t significantly better than a good old-fashioned textbook coupled with a charismatic teacher.
This suggests we ask some questions: What is the role then of ‘content areas’? Do they still make sense in the 21st century? How does access to technology impact the way content–whether in traditional areas or not–is delivered? Do modern digital content distribution models (like YouTube’s ) suggest new ways of thinking about information and knowledge, and the difference between the two? How does access to Google impact modern knowledge demands? M ore broadly, how can we best package content in the 21st century in light of the tremendous access to content students have? And what is the role of the teacher as everything, moment by moment, continues to churn and change? The less accurate and intelligent our collective response, the further formal ‘schooling’ will retreat into a shadowy irrelevance.
- How has technology changed the way we teach and learn? The Advantages And Disadvantages Of Technology in Education Technology has revolutionized the teaching and learning process in many ways.
- It has allowed for more effective and efficient communication between teachers and students, between teachers and parents, and between and among students.
Additionally, it has enabled educators to provide more engaging and interactive lessons that better meet the needs of students. Moreover, technology has made it easier for students to access educational materials and resources both online and offline.
As a result, with properly-implemented education technology, students are able to learn at their own pace and in a more customized manner (though this hints at the added complexity technology brings to lesson planning, curriculum mapping, and so on). Increased Connectivity As technology has evolved, so too has the way we use it to connect with others.
In education, this increased connectivity has facilitated new and innovative ways for teachers and students to collaborate and learn from one another. Through online forums, chats, wikis, and other collaborative tools, students are now able to share their ideas and expertise with classmates from around the globe in real time.
- Disadvantage: Increased Cost Technology has changed the way that people live and has had a significant impact on the teaching and learning process.
- The increased cost of technology has led to some schools not being able to afford the latest devices and software, which has impacted their ability to provide quality education.
It adds cost to teacher training, too. Though many schools have been able to find ways to fund the purchase of technology and it is now widely used in the classroom, the increased cost is a significant challenge. And with increased cost comes Disadvantage: Increased Risk However, in a technology-filled world, we would likely risk more by avoiding technology than we do using it in classrooms today.
Disadvantage: More complex (learning models, curriculum, assessment, instruction, schedules, policies–all of the pieces need to both work together and ‘interface’ well with technology. If not, it’s all an expensive, stressful mess that could actually hamper student achievement. Benefit: Improved visibility of student work/data Benefit: Access to a Global Learning Community Technology has changed the way people learn and communicate with each other.
With the use of technology, people can now access a global learning community where they can share ideas and connect with people from all over the world. This has allowed for new and innovative ways of teaching and learning to take place. Teachers are now able to connect with their students in a more personal way but more broadly, help connect students with one another inside and between schools, collaborating with one another on projects that span across different cultures, for example.
- Benefit: More Engaging and Interactive Lessons In the last decade, technology has drastically changed the way people learn.
- The traditional learning model, where students are given information by a teacher and then tested on that information, is no longer as effective as it used to be.
- Today’s students need more engaging and interactive lessons that allow for exploration and collaboration.
Technology has made it possible for teachers to create these types of lessons, and as a result, students have a chance to learn in ways that better suit their individual needs. Benefit: Easier to Personalize Learning In the early days of formal education, if you wanted to learn something that wasn’t in the course material, you were out of luck.
- You either had to wait until the next class, hope your teacher would happen to cover that topic, or try to find a book or article on your own.
- These days, with the advent of technology in the classroom, things are a lot different.
- Open Education Resources, eLearning materials, social learning spaces, informal learning tools, games and apps for learning, YouTube, asynchronous discussions (like Quora or reddit) and more have all made personalized learning more accessible than ever.
Benefit: Greater Opportunities for Differentiated Learning In the early days of education, there was a one-size-fits-all model for teaching and learning. However, with the advent of technology, different methods of teaching and learning can be customized to meet the needs of each student.
This has led to greater opportunities for differentiated learning, which is when students are given different instructional approaches and/or materials based on their individual abilities and needs. Benefit: More Opportunities for Collaborative Learning In recent years, technology has revolutionized the way people live and work.
Technology has also had a profound impact on education, making it possible for students to learn in new and innovative ways. One of the most notable changes brought about by technology is the increased use of collaborative learning. Collaborative learning is a teaching and learning strategy that encourages students to work together to achieve a common goal.
Benefit: Increased Availability of Educational Resources The increased availability of educational resources has changed the way teachers teach and students learn. The traditional model of education, where the teacher is the only source of information and all students are passive receptacles of knowledge, is no longer relevant in the digital age.
With the internet and various online tools, students can now access information from all over the world, and they can collaborate with other students to create projects that would have been impossible a few years ago. Conclusion Since the inception of technology, it has been changing the way people live their lives.
In the early days, technology was used for communication purposes only. With time, it started being used for other activities such as teaching and learning. Today, technology has become an integral part of the teaching and learning process in most schools across the globe. There are a number of reasons why technology has had a positive impact on teaching and learning.
Firstly, it has made learning more fun and interactive. The 21st century has brought about many changes, including how we learn. With the advent of technology, the traditional learning model has changed. Now, students are able to learn in new and innovative ways, thanks to technology.
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How will technology change the way we study?
How Technology is shaking up the education world – Technology is changing education in many ways. For one, it’s making it easier for students to learn. By using technology in classrooms and educational institutions, teachers can more easily connect with students and provide them with interactive learning experiences. Additionally, digital tools are also being used to support learning such as online courses and simulations.
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What are the positive effects of technology on students academic performance?
How Has Technology Improved Education? – As you review with us how technology has improved education, list down ideas your university hasn’t adopted yet, and start dreaming big about how your team can scale its impact in the next decade. One of the first thoughts that come to mind when talking about how technology affects education is often about the almost unlimited access to knowledge.
Instead of sticking to books they can physically carry, or the ones that happen to be available in nearby libraries, students have complete abundance at their fingertips with ebooks and audiobooks, giving them great options to buy and to rent, and a lot less back pain. Of course, virtual books are just the beginning, as knowledge is available online in a variety of formats.
MOOCs (Massive Open Online Courses) enable free access to courses. Podcasts, videos and blog posts from both education organizations and other sources are a click away and cover every topic imaginable. All these options, combined with a wide range of discipline-specific tools, make it easier for education organizations to open the door to experiential learning, where students no longer need to wait for graduation in order to go beyond theory.
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How has technology helped us in learning?
The benefits of technology in education – Career preparation As advancements in technology drive digital transformation across the globe, teachers can use technology to deliver an education which helps students to acquire the necessary skills to succeed in their desired career paths.
The consistent exposure of technology to students not only assists them with their future career choices but will also equip them with invaluable life skills for the 21 st century. Engagement From digital learning tools to social media, smartboards to AR, technology is playing a vital role to make classes livelier and increase student engagement.
Not only does technology increase engagement, add variety to lessons for students and increase delivery options for teachers, but these tools can also provide a fun, more inclusive learning environment and encourage collaboration within the class. Motivation Teachers are faced with a constant challenge to deliver the required curriculum to their students in a stimulating way that keeps pupils on task and motivated.
A good way to do this is for students to have fun whilst learning. Educational technology provides a fun and stimulating opportunity for students while they are learning, which will also assist them with staying motivated in the classroom and at home. Learning needs With students having access to a wide array of educational technology at their fingertips, they can choose a platform, device or tool that is best suited to their individual learning needs.
This gives students a choice and enables them to select a type of tech that is going to best suit them, their preferred learning style and the way in which they like teaching to be delivered. The variety of educational technology available to teachers is vast.
Broadening skills and knowledge Acquiring new knowledge and learning new things are vital life skills. The use of educational technology enables learners to use tools and online programs to develop their knowledge and acquire new skills, all of which will be useful for future study, career paths and life.
Accessibility At the click of a button, tap of a mouse or voice command to a device, students can gain access to the required information with speed, ease and accuracy. Easy access to information is key in education, allowing students exposure to data and the ability to immerse themselves in user-friendly information to help them succeed.
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How technology has changed student life?
How Technology Has Changed the Way Students Learn Today Technology is an inevitable part of modern life. It offers people different conveniences and services that help to carry out routine and professional duties faster and more productively. Of course, it has changed the way students learn today. Technology and education are two streams that go hand in hand.
Benefits | Peculiarities |
---|---|
Education without restrictions | Nowadays, the implementation of modern technology extends education beyond the classroom walls. Students can access merely any sort of information via the Internet. They can manage a lot of assignments in a record period of time with the help of such inventions like iPads, personal computers, 3D printers, eBooks, boards with the touch screen function, and so on. It’s possible to choose various apps to suit any academic need. |
Interchanging of roles | The role of teacher-student is totally changed. Now, teachers aren’t that all-time-involved in the process. Students become more active and self-dependent. A teacher acts as an experienced tutor who simply directs his/her students and tells what to do. They ways every project should be tackled and presented belong to students. |
Encouragement for collaboration | Technology promotes collaboration among students. They work together more actively because they can fulfill many tasks much quicker and more effectively. |
Personalization of education | Teachers can use technology to make education more personalized. Every student has his/her own learning style and this should be always taken into account. It’s possible to select the most suitable program, device, and application that fit the style of every student. |
Active engagement in the learning process | Thanks to the interchanging of roles and amazing abilities offered by technological inventions, students become interested in their education. They receive additional possibilities that also bring pleasure and fun. Thus, education is reviewed from a new unexpected angle and this fascinates most youngsters. |
The Internet expansion | Thanks to the use of the Internet, students receive access to heaps of digital data and can quickly find the necessary materials. Besides, they can attend different forums and create their own communities. This contributes to worldwide collaboration and students may unite to solve problems in common. Thanks to the use of the Internet, students receive access to heaps of digital data and can quickly find the necessary materials. |
It should be likewise mentioned that modern technology positively affects other spheres of our life. It hugely contributes to the advancement of transportation, productivity in the workplace in different enterprises, agriculture, communication, and society in general. The positive outcomes are numerous.
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How technology makes a difference to learning?
1. It helps students learn more (and better) – Students learn in different ways. In a traditional lesson, a teacher presents material, and students all engage with it in the same way. The entire class is expected to move through the content at the same pace.
- As you can imagine, there’s very little room for freedom when teaching thirty students the same things in the same ways during the same time frames.
- But that doesn’t have to be the case.
- Online tools give students more flexible learning experiences.
- Some students might use a YouTube video tutorial to better understand a concept.
Others might complete an online activity or game that provides instant feedback so they know if they’re on the right track. Students who understand the material right away can find more difficult problems or activities to supplement their knowledge, while those who need more practice can use a different activity that provides more repetition.
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How does technology save time in education?
The availability of technology tools in the classroom has helped teachers enhance their students’ learning environment in so many amazing ways. By using technology in the classroom, teachers can reduce the amount of wasted instructional time! Here are some ideas.
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Is technology effective in education?
2. Personalizes learning and teaching approaches – Do you know that each person has their own ? Some learn better through hearing, and some through great visuals. Some lean more on logical learning, and some more on verbal. Yes, it varies and it’s quite a challenge for teachers to perform all these in the class.
- Thanks to technology, teachers can customize learning for students.
- It enables them to improve their instruction methods and personalize learning, thus increasing their productivity and efficiency as instructors.
- Through these helpful tools, teachers can provide exciting activities.
- These include watching videos to further delve into the topic and creating robots to apply their learning.
It’s also great content that helps spark and boost curiosity in kids.
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Does technology make students better learners?
The Impact of Technology on Student Learning – The use of technology has helped students and teachers create practical and easily-accessible teaching and learning environment. A very important technological impact on education is increased interactivity and class engagement.
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What is the biggest impact of technology in education?
Technology makes Learning easier: – When it comes to learning through tech, it seems fun. Before the advancements of technology through education, it was not an easy task to try or learn new things but thanks to technology which made it all easy. Technology helps students to explore and learn new things which will help them to excel in the field of their choice.
- Learning through the internet can also be called distance learning. Technology made the learning process much easier mainly due to the following reasons:
- Technology made distance learning easier because of readily available knowledge on the internet.
- Technology made distance learning easier because retrieval of information made extremely simple and easy through the internet.
How is teaching changing for learners in a new digital world?
Shifting the Focus from Teaching to Learning – Back in the days of traditional instruction, teachers standing in front of a classroom full of students were a familiar sight. Teachers would present the lesson for the day by writing key concepts on the blackboard while the students listened to the lecture.
After the discussion, the students answered written exercises for teachers to test how well the class understood the topic. Although the manner of instruction was structured, the system did not maximize the students’ learning abilities because it mainly depended on teachers for information. Those days are slowly heading toward exit doors, as there is now a shift in how teaching and learning take place.
Instead of blackboards and chalks or paper sheets and pens, you’ll see computers, mobile devices, audio-visual machines, and other similar tools finding their way into modern classrooms. From a teacher-centered system, the focus is now on student-centric learning approaches.
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