Sunday, August 8, 2010

The use of technology in education


Education is the greatest inheritance that our parents can give to us. Yes, I believe in this saying. For education, is a treasure that no one can take away from a person. You might say that diplomas can be lost, burn, or steal. But education is not merely things that you can easily grab or take hold, and neither is easily give or take away from you. Education is the stepping stone to man’s success. But as years passed by, great changes are happening around us. Is the education or the way of delivering it to the students in our grandparent’s time still relevant and useful these days?
We now live in the modern days where everywhere you look, what you will see are things that are run or operated by machines that we call technology. People nowadays were helped greatly by it, from their own houses, offices, even in churches and busy streets. And now, schools are opening the doors for technology. The use of technology in the classroom as an aid in teaching the students is a great help to the instructors.
But before it was appreciated by many, there came a time that people doubt it if it will be a great help to students or will it have harmful effects to them because the technology will lessen the interaction between the students and teachers, and it even scares the teachers that they might lose their jobs and technologies will take over their position in educating students. But this allegations were also true with the coming of radio and television, and in the end, they were proven wrong. Technology has become tools for the development of higher order thinking skills, if appropriately use, interactively and with proper guidance.
In a classroom setting, teachers were now advice to use technology and even students are now encouraged to do reports with the use of it. Interactions among them were sufficed to absorb knowledge because compare to traditional methods which is that the teachers were just relaying the message to the students, the students can now interact.
In international flight schools, flight simulators are use to train the students. This is a virtual reality kind of technology wherein students can experience how to fly an airplane as if it is real.
In the U.S., home study is practice by many people. This type of education is really helpful because most of them who take home study education were employees. They want to finish studies and at the same time, work to finance their education and this type is more convenient to them. They just need to use the internet, study whatever time that suits them, and pass the requirement for a certain date also through the net.
Basic technologies that we can observe in the classrooms are television, DVD players, and even CD players. We might not notice it, but they are part of technology that is widely used and of great help in education.
As for my answer to my question, yes, what they teach or how they teach in the old days is still useful today. What we just need to do is somehow, upgrade it and go with the flow. We need to use technology as part of relaying knowledge in school, so that students as early as possible can cope with the fast moving technology. But let us not forget the traditional way of life, because if everything else fails, that is still a stronghold that we can turn to…

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