Technology In The Classroom

When I was younger, I remember going home with homework that was on paper. We had packets of pages and I was used to handwriting everything. Now as I’m older, almost all of my homework and classwork is entirely on the computer. 

infogram

Technology has become such a big part of education for multiple reasons. According to Purdue University, having technology in the classroom has made information more accessible, created opportunities for students to obtain degrees and take classes online, and has made it easier for people to collaborate with each other. 

Priceonomics Data Studio

Although all of these are positives of having technology in a class, there are also a lot of negatives. Going with the points that Purdue University said were positive, there are negative aspects of each one as well. Having technology in the classroom does make information more accessible, but it also can cause a distraction because of how easily accessible information is. Technology also creates opportunities for students to get their degree online, but they don’t get the same experience as if they were actually attending college. Collaboration may have become easier because of technology as well, but students lose that person-to-person connection and will be used to only collaboration online. 

AdvancED

Elizabeth Nuttall, a writer for How To Adult states, “One of the major concerns about technology in the classroom is that it prevents students from developing and using basic literacy, math and communication skills, all of which are essential in both day-to-day living and working life”. In this quote, Nuttall is explaining how students have become so used to using technology for everything that they forget how to use basic skills. An example of this would be grammar/spelling. When handwriting things, students don’t always have the ability to check their grammar and spelling to see if they’re correct, but now that most things are typed online, they have that ability of checking their grammar and spelling. Although this may seem like a good thing because they means they are more likely to be correct, it also makes students rely more on technology. Students shouldn’t rely completely on technology to do basic tasks that they have already learned. 

Barshay

Technology can also cause problems in the classroom that teachers can not necessarily control. For example, if the power goes out at the school or if the school’s Wi-Fi isn’t working, that means the students are unable to do their work. This can make the class difficult for the teacher if they were relying on using the computers for their class that day. Having this happen can change the whole schedule for a teacher when then affects the students as well. If more things were handwritten on paper, this issue wouldn’t be such a big problem. 

Purcell

Another reason why using technology for schoolwork is not a good idea, is because some students can’t afford computers. Some schools may give out computers for their students to use during their four years of highschool, but many schools don’t, they just have computers for the students to use while they’re in school. This may work during class and when students have free time at school, but for homework, this is not such a good thing. The students who are unable to purchase a computer may not have one to use at home and they may not have the opportunity to find somewhere else that has computers they can use. It is not the student’s fault for not being able to purchase a computer which may be why some teachers don’t punish them for not doing the homework, but if there was some sort of group project that needed to be completed at home online, this would put the student in a very difficult position. 

Nagel

Even though there are positive points for why technology should be used in the classroom, my personal opinion is that technology should not be used in the classroom as much. Using them a little bit is okay, but when students rely fully on computers, I don’t think that is very helpful as a student. 

AdvancED. "Do Students Actually Use Technology for Learning in Classrooms?"

     2019. AdvancED Study Finds Students Not Using Classroom Technology for

     Learning, www.advanc-ed.org/press-release/

     advanced-study-finds-students-not-using-classroom-technology-learning.

     Accessed 13 Dec. 2019. 

BarshayOn, Jill. Online Share Of Total Enrollment . 2019. Weakest Students More

     Likely To Take Online College Classes But Do Worse In Them, 4 Feb. 2019,

     hechingerreport.org/

     weakest-students-more-likely-to-take-online-college-classes-but-do-worse-in-them/

     . Accessed 13 Dec. 2019. 

How Has Technology Changed Education? Purdue University, 2019, online.purdue.edu/

     blog/how-has-technology-changed-education. Accessed 13 Dec. 2019. 

Infogram. "Tablets vs. Textbooks." 2019. Tablets vs. Textbooks, 2019,

     infogram.com/tablets-vs-textbooks-1gk92edkx7onp16. Accessed 13 Dec. 2019. 

Is Technology Affecting Teens' Education Negatively? How To Adult, 31 Oct. 2018,

     howtoadult.com/is-technology-affecting-teens-education-negatively-9890106.html.

     Accessed 13 Dec. 2019. 

Nagel, David. Mobile Leanring. 2019. One-Third of U.S. Students Use

     School-Issued Mobile Devices, 8 Apr. 2014, thejournal.com/articles/2014/04/

     08/a-third-of-secondary-students-use-school-issued-mobile-devices.aspx.

     Accessed 13 Dec. 2019. 

Priceonomics Data Studio. "The Rise of Online Degrees." 2019. The Rise of the

     Online Degree at America's Top Universities, 16 Aug. 2016, priceonomics.com/

     the-rise-of-the-online-degree-at-americas-top/. Accessed 13 Dec. 2019. 

Purcell, Kristen. 54% of AP and NWP Teachers Say All or Almost All Their

     Students have Sufficient Access To Digital Tools in School, Just 18% Say

     The Same is True At Home . 2019. How Teachers Are Using Technology at Home

     and in Their Classrooms, 28 Feb. 2013, www.pewresearch.org/internet/2013/02/

     28/how-teachers-are-using-technology-at-home-and-in-their-classrooms/.

     Accessed 13 Dec. 2019. 

Education Here vs. Education There

As a student who attends one of the top schools in the state, I’ve always wondered how our school would compare to other schools across the U.S., and other schools around the world.

U.S.News

After looking at the data Julia Ryan, a writer for The Atlantic showed on their website, I noticed that New England was one of the best areas in terms of good education. On the PISA test, the Programme for International Student Assessment, the top scoring states in the U.S. were Florida, Connecticut, and Massachusetts. Although Florida is not a New England state, Connecticut and Massachusetts are were shows how good the education is in the New England area. 

Edify

Although these high scores can be exciting for people from New England, when we look at how the U.S. test scores compare to test scores of other countries, it’s not as good. 

Out of the 34 countries that took the PISA, the U.S. was ranked 17th. That may seem not too bad at first, but when we look closer at it the test scores are rather disappointing. 

There were three portions of the test that the students took; reading, science, and math. In reading the U.S. scores 17th out of 34, in science the U.S. scores 21st out of 34, and in math the U.S. scored 26th out of 34. All of these scores were below average, especially the math score. 

Brookings

There were many countries that did better than the U.S. but the top countries were Shanghai-China, Singapore, Hong Kong, Chinese Taipei, and Korea, Norway, Portugal, Italy, Spain, Russian Federation, Slovak Republic, Lithuania, Sweden, and Hungary. Do we know what these countries are doing better than us that have students achieving higher test scores?

theguardian

Lorna Collier, a writer for the APA, interviewed a Harris Plucker, a psychologist and asked why he thought some students do better than others. Plucker states to Collier, “It has to be about living standards and quality of life. You start changing those and then it’s fair to expect the scores to keep slowly increasing.” What he is trying to say here is that if a student’s quality of life both inside and outside of school is not good, then their test scores aren’t going to be good either. 

MS

I think that if we want our students to start improving, we need to start improving their, like Plucker said, quality of life. Some ways their lives could be improved can be with just simple things can could end up affecting the person in a major way. For example, helping students who don’t have as much money as other students. If schools provided lunch for students who needed help, this may affect how the student will act in class.

As a student who attends one of the top schools in the state, I want to see our individual states and our country as a whole grow so we have the ability to do well on these tests. 

American Schools vs. the World: Expensive, Unequal, Bad at Math. The Atlantic, 3

     Dec. 2013, www.theatlantic.com/education/archive/2013/12/

     american-schools-vs-the-world-expensive-unequal-bad-at-math/281983/.

     Accessed 4 Dec. 2019.

Kennedy, Louise. U.S. 2015 PISA Results is an International Context. Decent PISA

     Numbers, But Can Mass. Students Really Do The Math?, Edify, 9 Dec. 2016,

     www.wbur.org/edify/2016/12/09/pisa-2015-mass-analysis. Accessed 4 Dec.

     2019.

Serino, Louis. U.S. scores on PISA. What international test scores reveal about

     American education, Brookings, 7 Apr. 2017, What international test scores

     reveal about American education. Accessed 4 Dec. 2019.

Seven principles to improve quality of life. What influences quality of life

     with MS and how can we improve it?, MS, 29 May 2018, www.msif.org/

     living-with-ms/what-influences-quality-of-life/. Accessed 4 Dec. 2019.

Top PISA Country Scores. Pisa 2012 results: which country does best at reading,

     maths and science?, theguardian, 2016, www.theguardian.com/news/datablog/

     2013/dec/03/pisa-results-country-best-reading-maths-science. Accessed 4

     Dec. 2019.

"Top 10 Highschools in New Hampshire." Best High Schools in New Hampshire,

     U.S.News, www.usnews.com/education/best-high-schools/new-hampshire.

     Accessed 4 Dec. 2019.

Why are student test scores down? APA, Mar. 2016, www.apa.org/monitor/2016/03/

     upfront-scores. Accessed 4 Dec. 2019.

We Need a New Plan!

  If you ask a group of students if they enjoy going to school, the majority of them would say no. Some may not dislike the idea of learning, but they don’t like the thought of their school as a whole. Some of the reasons why they don’t enjoy going to school could vary from them not like waking up early in the morning, to them despising a teacher because they wouldn’t let them use their phone in class. 

Stringer

Although all of these reasons can be understandable from the students’ perspective, there is another reason why students don’t like going to school that stands out to teachers and schools a little more.


Many students don’t like the fact that their school has a structure where they are placed into a large pool of other students and are forced to learn at the same pace as everyone else, even if they can not keep up (Wabisabi Learning). 

ChildTrends

Ken Robinson did a video for TedTalks, and he talked about divergent thinking. He stated that divergent thinking is having the ability to see more than one answer to a problem. If schools started using this method of thinking, more students would do better in school and they would be noticed for the ways they get to the answer of a problem.

Divergent Thinking

Multiple schools have also been trying to find a new plan for the issues student’s seem to be having, and there haven’t been too many successful answers.

Recently, Elizabeth Warren has been trying to get her new K-12 education plan to be used by more schools. What Warren wants to obtain with her education plan is to make sure public schools have adequate funding, no segregation in schools, student safety, and nutrition in schools (Nilsen). 

The National Center for Education

Personally, I think her plan has a few good ideas to improve the education system.

One thing I like about her plan is how she wants to give public schools more funding. I know many public schools have difficulties in their school because the school doesn’t have enough money. Being able to have more money in schools would have the schools benefit from having better quality things such as utilities. I think that by having more opportunities to buy update and improve the school would make the students not hate the school as much and would perhaps make the students want to go to school more.

Yeager

According to Alescia Ford-Lanza, a writer for Harkla, another thing that may make students want to go and participate in school more is their sensory breaks. Sensory breaks are breaks that teachers will take in the middle of their class to let their students minds’ get off of school for a few minutes by playing different games, by watching a video, or even by just letting their students have a few minutes to talk to their friends. 

Thurston

There are many different activities that teachers have done for sensory breaks, but a few for example are playing a giant game of Pictonary on the whiteboard, playing a class-wide game of rock, paper, scissors, and a class game of Kahoot. 

Holly

As a student who’s done sensory breaks in a few of my classes, I find them to be very helpful. It can be difficult to stay on one topic in a subject for a long period of time without getting bored or distracted. By doing these breaks, I am able to let a lot of the energy I have from sitting out, and then I am able to refocus for when class starts again. 

Holly

I think that if schools started using new and different methods in teaching and learning, more students would want to go to school, and more students would want to succeed. 

ChildTrends. High School Dropout Rate. 2017. High School Dropout Rates,

     www.childtrends.org/indicators/high-school-dropout-rates. Accessed 22 Nov.

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Elizabeth Warren marches with striking Chicago teachers, a day after releasing

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     Nov. 2019. 

Holly. The Brain Break Board. 26 Brain Break Ideas for the Classroom , 18 Oct.

     2016, www.teachstarter.com/us/blog/26-brain-break-ideas-classroom-us/.

     Accessed 22 Nov. 2019. 

---. Brain Break Test. 26 Brain Break Ideas for the Classroom , 18 Oct. 2016,

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The National Center for Education. More than Half of Schools Need Repairs to Be

     in "Good" Condition. A Great Public School Education For Every Student,

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---. Divergent Thinking. Changing education paradigms, Oct. 2010, www.ted.com/

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Stringer, Kate. Stress and Boredom and Fairly Common among High School Students.

     Bored in Class: A National Survey Finds Nearly 1 in 3 Teens Are Bored

     'Most or All of the Time' in School, and a Majority Report High Levels of

     Stress, 16 Jan. 2019, www.the74million.org/

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     2019, www.wabisabilearning.com/blog/

     why-some-students-dislike-school-love-education. Accessed 20 Nov. 2019. 

Yeager, Fred. 2013 and 2016 California Plumbing Code. K-12 Toilet Requirement

     Summary, 24 Sept. 2019, www.cde.ca.gov/ls/fa/sf/toiletrequire.asp.

     Accessed 22 Nov. 2019.