Many people believe that if we were to integrate technology into our school system, it would be a detriment to the children. As it could cause them to be distracted and not focussed on a task at hand.
However, even with this ideal, many schools are integrating technology with its curriculum. On an oversees website gave several studies where by integrating technology with the school syllabus, such as interactive white boards, the students had higher grade scores than children who were in classes without technological integration. There is also a website that gives a list of reasons why we should integrate technology in the school system (https://www.mathopenref.com/site/techreasons.html).
Reasons include: “Students can be given projects that require them to learn the necessary material themselves”; “the worldview of the student can be expanded because of the zero cost of communicating with other people around the globe”; and “Students could write in a notebook and what they wrote was seen only by the teacher. Using modern technology they can: make a PowerPoint, record, edit and do digital photography”.
When asked if their school caters for the modern techno-savvy teenager, many pupils at Crawford College La Lucia believed that their school does accommodate them as being tech-savvy. “Some schools do, example Crawford because they have many Mac Computers and allows phones, iPods and Ipads,” said Damon Miles. As a student in Crawford College La Lucia, I believe that the future of education is to integrate it with technology.
There have been many times when I was unsure about something the day before a test, I would go on to YouTube for an explanation and often found very good ones, or I go on to Edmodo.com where teachers upload lesson plans and power points for pupils who are confused. Our school even has a Facebook account and a Twitter to give us updates on what is happening in the school. So maybe now is the time we accept that technology is here to be a benefit not a detriment.
“A lot of schools do have facilities which focus on technology and is accessible to children and more of our school work is being integrated with technology,” said Thube Mazibuko.
“I think yes, because we have computers, laptops, iMacs at schools. So they do cater for the techno-savvy at school,” Ming-Cheng Wu said.
“If you want to make the school more savvy, have a round-table talk with the pupils and have them give their input and find out how they think the school could improve,” teacher, John Colbeck.
“The pupils individually would require something like an Ipad. It would also require training so teachers can get up to speed,” said teacher, Kelly Berry.
