Problems of Having Technology in the 21st Century Classroom?
Technology is great to have at home for leisure, but can cause many problems in a classroom. Although I love my laptop, phone and iPod’s, we must admit, We are addicted to our technology. Technology in the 21st century classroom has its pros and cons. With smartphones, computers and iPod’s at their fingertips, students and sometimes teachers find it hard to control impulses and can easily stray from the task at hand and get distracted. “We're so used to doing it all the time, sometimes it happens during class.” This account from high school student Akari Ishii proves my point, that it is impulsive to switch tabs and check Facebook. The health and practicality problems that can come from technology in the classroom outweigh the benefits.
We are addicted to our technology, even though we don’t realize it. If you pay close attention, anyone that has a phone usually brings it to the dinner table, and keeps it in their hand or right next to their plate. This is because our addiction is always active, as we show little control. Even though this example is not in a classroom, it is the same concept, as the desk is the dinner table. At every chance we get, we find a way to use our technology, whether it be to listen to music or play video games, but our craving for technology gets out of hand when we start to bring our laptops, iPod’s and Kindle’s into the toilet. As people, we always need to find an innovation to replace non-technological things with a new device, an example would be hard copy books replaced by Kindle’s or iPad’s. It has gone too far, as brick and mortar book stores, like Borders used to be, are getting beat by the technology.
Is it practical to have a monitor, a set of laptops, a set of iPads and a smart board in the classroom? That is what most classrooms have. Once a school has bought laptops, iPads, etc the cost and time to maintain, update the software, repair and purchase programs get too expensive for the school and too time consuming. With international and private schools, this is easier to maintain, but with public or local schools it is harder as the only money is being supplied by the government. With proper use of laptops, they should be replace every 3 years. This cannot be possible with budgets in certain schools. The school will also be required to hire a few technology staff to help with maintenance and problems, which may not fit in the budget either. There is also a significant time lost in problems that they encounter with internet connections, downloading, saving problems and dead batteries. Teachers have also seen a trend of students giving the excuse “I promise I sent the email with the work attached!” to get out of work. If the school is planning for the laptops to be brought in to help the learning of the students, they will require thorough training for both students and teachers of how to operate the machines, which may be of inconvenience to the tech staff and students as it is time consuming.
People have different views about this, scientists have proven that it is actually impossible to multitask. Students usually have other tabs open, but if they don’t they can easily open ones with websites that aren’t relevant to the subject at hand. Having other tabs open in the background is a common problem throughout all computer users. People cannot resist the urge to click on them and get distracted. With all this social networking available people are constantly playing games, social networking , uploading pictures etc. With youtube available people can easily watch videos and switch tabs when the teacher comes around. With this idea that