New technology has always been considered a novelty upon their conseption; computers, the car, the printing press. It has always taken people time to realise the new ideas' or gadgets' true potential.
This fact extends to the schools as well. Children of today are considered slaves of technology, "digital natives" even. At home they are either in front of the "tv", behind the "PC" or on "that thing" as parents have come to call it. And yet at school they are forced to sit on a hard, uncomfortable wooden bench, and look at a black chalckboard for hours on end. No wonder so many of today's children are diagnosed with ADHD! They live hyperstimulated by technology in every aspect of their life; every aspect, that is, other than at school...
The massive sensory deprevation that they undergo every day in every class in comparison to the rest of their lives is what causes many to show symptoms of ADHD, symptoms which are in fact only severe bordom! Don't get me wrong, a good majority are in fact ADHD cases, but this majority is certainly far less than 100.
Yes, many people may be of the opinion that computers are entertainment platforms, and they would be right. Computers are platforms, empty, blank platforms that can be moulded into anything you want them to be.
Most teachers and schools fight every day to keep cellphones off in class, but who would honestly choose to look at a black chalkboard over chatting to you friends on a cell phone? Do not fight your enemy's strengths, use them to your advantage. Teachers should be using technology to teach, turn the menace that is the infamous cell phone into the bessing that is the class phone.
And let's be honest, if it took the Wright Brothers' Plane four years to have it's potential in world travel realised, isn't forty years long enough for the computer and other digital technologies' potential in education to be realised?
No comments:
Post a Comment