Technology in the Classroom

Thad K, CC

Growing up I never had technology in a classroom besides in my computer class, which was only one or twice a week. Some days we were lucky enough to have laptops to rent from the school for a certain assignment. Today I work at an after school program where the kids come with tables they are provided from the school district. I think that this is absolutely ridiculous. Yes, technology can be a great tool for learning, but I also think they can cause too many issues in the classroom. The perks of having this technology is that it could save time looking for information. When a student is asked to look something up in a book, it could take too long before it is found. On a tablet, all a kid needs to do is look up a key word and they will be directed to that information. This could also be a negative to technology in the classroom because a lot of teachers assign worksheets with their readings and a student could easily look up the key word of the question and end up not reading the assigned pages. A positive to this technology that a school encourages is that even though these tablets cost a lot of money, but so do books, and when a book is damaged or lost, replacing them can also be expensive. A problem comes from these books when new information needs to be added, and a school is then forced to buy new editions after a few years. This problem does not come with technology because it is constantly updated and the information on them can be kept up to date without having to buy a new tablet.

Another issue that comes from tablets in the classroom is the risk of the kids breaking them and not using them responsibly. Usually children from the age of third grade to eighth grade are provided with this technology. Third graders are still under the age of ten and are not as responsible as an eighth grader to be reliable to keep this expensive tool safe. Giving these young children a device like this to take home is risky, in the fact that they are likely to break, and then will cost a load of money to either replace or repair. Who is then to pay for the repairs? Does the student, the parents, or the school? Yet another issue arises when having technology in the classroom is that it can be distracting for the children. It is easy for kids these days to download games on their tablets, and who is stopping them from using these devices for games instead of educational purposes? Yes, the school can block kids from being able to download these games, but there is an infinite amount of games on the internet that the kids could easily get access to.