Truth About Tech At

School

We stopped writing and started typing.

Written by Ishan Haque
@IshanHaq

What Is Going On?

I’m currently 15 years old attending high school & over the years mine and many other schools are slowly transitioning to the advancement of technology but is it working? Here I am to tell you from a first hand experienced perspective of how students use technology at school.

What Schools Imagine What It’s Like

Tablets being used in school http://www.techjaws.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/10/tablets-in-school.png

Every student is provided with a computer of sorts (e.g. laptops & iPads), it saves paper and it can be more efficient learning because it will hopefully attract the kid/teen to interact and study with the work. There are educational applications that can vastly help students collaborate, work efficiently or just assist the student with work.

What It’s Actually Like

Student on Facebook http://static.guim.co.uk/sys-images/Education/Pix/pictures/2012/1/4/1325692222021/Student-reads-facebook-in-007.jpg

I’m sorry but it’s not working entirely that way, yet. Students will start off with doing the work in class but when work gets boring, students start procrastinating. We will try and find the answers on the internet, watch YouTube, go on Facebook using proxies, shop for clothes, read Tumblr, surface Reddit and some hide their phones in their pencil cases and start Snapping (Snapchat) in class. These are some of the activities that go on with most students, not all.

The Myth
“Students will just play video games in class”

Games in class http://www.northwesternflipside.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/04/games_in_class.jpg

No, that is not the case and here’s why. A very small portion of students play games in class because teachers walk around and to exit a game quick is hard and it loses all your progress, there’s no point. Also, playing games in class is more prominent among kids (9–12) than teenagers.

How Can We Fix This

Here’s a few things that can help solve this issue:

Classroom layout http://ardles.files.wordpress.com/2013/09/layout_traditional.png

• Change the layout of your classroom so the teachers behind the students. This way the teacher can monitor the students screen or he/she doesn't even have to because the student is under the impression your always looking so he will always have his work up and eventually start working.
• There are software in the market to monitor students screens during school. It will alert you if he/she is on a bad website, depending on what your school system is utilizing. Known software applications like this is LanSchool.
• Block every procrastinating (bad) website, use a student to inform you on the websites that his peers use regularly. This may be very hard to block all bad sites but most schools don’t have Reddit, Tumblr or even YouTube blocked, seriously keep up your game I.T department.
• Try new ways of using technology in classrooms, i’ll throw out some ideas. Maybe use Dropbox or Google Drive, students have to submit their work in a folder for you to review. Make use of some education social networking site like Edmodo and post a question and the students to reply and whoever get’s the most likes wins a prize.

Those are just some solutions that I can think off the top of my head.

What’s Better, Tech Vs Old School?

Old vs New School, Illustration by Miguel Davilla http://www.thedigitalshift.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/04/SLJ1205w_FT_Tech_opener.jpg

They both have their ups and downs. Although students can manipulate their tech to do various procrastination activities, if some rules and techniques are enforced, students will most likely do work. If you make them write in books everyday, they lose interest whereas they are so used to typing, they are more intrigued and it’s faster and efficient.

In my opinion, I like having a laptop in English class, I feel more productive. Let’s say I have a speech, I need to do research (Google) about the topic, brainstorm and then type the speech. This process traditionally would have to be to go to the library, try and find books relative to your topic which restricts your knowledge, hire out the book/s, read the entire book to gain maximum understanding of the topic instead reading specific items related to your speech (web research), then write out your speech entirely on paper which you might or might not lose because you don’t have it saved on your computer, USB or cloud. That process using a computer is vastly efficient, cuts time & is more of a intriguing approach to a millennial. In subjects like math, I only use text books and write on paper because there’s no tech so far that more efficient than writing math equation easily, comfortably and quickly than a pen and paper.

The End

You can find me on twitter @IshanHaq or you can email me: officialishan@gmail.com

Please leave any constructive criticism and/or feedback. Feel free to comment your thoughts on this story.

If you are interested in my stories, I suggest you read this:

I’m Scared Of The Present