Article - Effects of Technology On Classrooms and Students

For my Education Technology class, we had to find a current article addressing technology in the classroom and discuss it with our class.

The article I chose to read and reflect upon is Effects of Technology On Classrooms and Students found on www2.ed.gov

This article addresses technology's influence in areas such as:

• Change in Student and Teacher Roles 

• Increased Motivation and Self-Esteem 

• Technical Skills 

• Accomplishment of More Complex Tasks

• More Collaboration with Peers

• Increased Use of  Outside Resources

• Improved Design Skills / Attention to Audience

Regarding the change in student and teacher roles, technology puts the students into an active role.  The students are enabled to actively make choices about how to display, generate, and obtain information.  Since technology causes students to be actively involved, they therefore actively think about information, how to make decisions, and how to execute the skills being learned. Technology allows students to define their goals, make design decisions, and evaluate their progress.

• Put into active role
• Learn how to display, generate, and obtain information
• More easily think about information, decisions to make, and skills to execute
• Define their personal goals, make personal design decisions, and evaluate their progress

Regarding technology's influence on student motivation and self-esteem, this article supplies positive testimonies from educators who see less-motivated students showing less initiative with conventional academic tasks rise to the occasion when technology is present.  The student receives greater satisfaction from the immediate feedback technology provides and lends to the student a wider venue in which they can excel. 

• Increased motivation and self-esteem
• Greater satisfaction 
• Immediate feedback
• Wider venue for tasks

Technology creates opportunities for students to collaborate with one another in the areas of projects, assisting another with their technology, and more!  Outside resources that technology provides involves telephone and satellite broadcasts.

• Opportunites for collaboration
• Encourages use of outside resources

In regards to improved design skill / attention to audience, multiple media gives students choices on how to convey information by way of more professional looking products and tools.

• More professional looking products and tools

A negative aspect that this article addresses is - the possibility that students will focus more on font, audio, and presentation look rather than the substantive content itself.  
The article gives insight that there are many who are limiting font sizes and font choices. 

In conclusion,
technology is ever-changing.  As my professor says, we are always a "day late and a dollar short" because what we could buy / produce now will be outdated in less than a year.  While it is important to bring technology into the classroom, I do not feel it is the end-all to the education system.  What they learn today will not be as relevant in their middle-ages, much less even a few years from now.
International travel and missions are also my heart's number one passion; I feel it is important to create students who can easily transfer into any setting, be it in the technology-driven North America or a hut in the Congo.  Students need to be well-rounded in all things.