Benefits and weaknesses of Technology within learning environments

Benefits and weaknesses of Technology within learning environments  

‘Society has changed, children and young people exhibit a digital world and their personal, social and educational lives are increasingly intertwined with technology in various rapidly changing forms’ (Donaldson, 2015). Technology is becoming extremely common in the context of education. Digital competence implemented in the curriculum enables and improves children’s ICT skills, knowledge and understanding. It should be developed through a range of experiences that involve them finding and developing information and ideas and creating and presenting them. The statistics are broadening every year with the amount of people using technology. It has been found that only 4% of 15-year-old students live in homes where there was no computer present, while 43% lived in homes with three or more computers were present. Children are becoming more familiar with technology at a very early age and are capable of using the technology and inserting it into their learning. A lot of people claim that learning technology is just as important as literacy and numeracy. It is becoming a huge aspect in the learning of children and young people, along with becoming fundamental in the curriculum. The positives of using technology are recognisable because it provides children with the skills of problem solving, working with others, critical thinking and creativity (Donaldson, 2015). It enables practitioners to enhance their planning, engage and support learners and to extend learners understanding. This is implemented by the use of websites, chats, games, apps and other resources. In a lot of the schools I have visited, practitioners use the online dojo system to reward and punish children with behaviour points. If they gain a certain number of points, they are able to choose their own prizes. There is also an opportunity for pupils’ parents or guardians to view their childs progress throughout the year and to witness their points increasing or decreasing in terms of behaviour. 

                                              

Digital competence is one of 3 cross-curricular responsibilities, alongside literacy and numeracy and consists of a wide range of subjects which are known as citizenship, interacting and collaborating, producing and data and computational thinking. I attended a seminar where myself and the fellow classmates received digital training. This session consisted of learning the basics of how to teach other people to use technology, which increased my confidence in breaking down instructions when explaining a topic to another individual. We carried out scenarios of people who have never used the internet and discussed contrasting methods on how to teach them. I also learnt a range of statistics about the topic of technology. I discovered that over 400,000 people in the UK have not used the internet. This made me realise that there are still numerous amounts of people who have not used this source of technology. This enhanced my thoughts of encouragement towards people to the use of technology in order to change their lives. During the seminar of digital training, my class discussed the benefits of online shopping, saving money, the expansion of education and finding out any information through the use of technology. We were also debating about whether digital training is just as important as learning literacy and numeracy. This is becoming a necessity in learning environments and children are learning independently in schools and at home through this technology. 

During another seminar, we had also used our digital competence knowledge in order to create an ‘imovie’, along with using our acting skills:   https://twitter.com/dylancerddora/status/1060587240982802434 

The negatives of using technology includes the practitioners and children in learning environments not being able to benefit from this. The introduction of new technologies into educational settings has rarely lived up to its promise in terms of benefits for learning. This may be because children could be coming too obsessed with the mis-use of their resources and not focusing on their learning and development. Others may predict that technology simply does not promote learning and is only used for pleasure rather than broadening their knowledge. Some individuals claim that just because teachers are explaining to students how to use a device, this does not enhance their learning? This represents the thought that there are no other uses to technological training apart from only learning how to use the device. Some individuals are completely against using technology in learning environments and wants to abolish it. Even today, in many schools Luddite administrators are locking down machines, refusing to allow student to access email, blocking instant messaging, cell phones, unfiltered internet access and Wikipedia (Prensky, 2012, p.3). The reason for this action may be because children and young people are getting distracted, reducing their stimulation for learning. Children often obtain other apps and entertainment to distracting them from using technology for learning purposes. They will lose interest in gaining knowledge and learning from education, only to become focused on their social life of leisure, rather than developing their skills towards an academic future. ‘For the first time, today’s parents and teachers have very little, if any, experience with the tools that children are going to use every day in their adult lives’ (OECD, 2015). This is due to the fact that individuals are obsessed with what society presents in terms of people and stereotyping others. This may even result in severe anxiety or depression which could lead to serious complications in the future. 

Reference list 

Donaldson, G (2015) Successful futures: Independent Review of Curriculum and Assessment Arrangement in Wales. Welsh Assembly Government. Crown 

Learning Wales (2018) Digital Competence Framework. Available at: https://learning.gov.wales/resources/browse-all/digital-competence-framework/?lang=en (accessed : 22/04/19) 

OECD (2015) Students, computers and learning: Making the connection, PISA, OECD. Publishing, Available at: https://dx.doi.org/10.178/9789264239555-en (accessed: 12/12/18)  

Prensky (2012) p.3 Digital Natives. Digital immigrants on the horrizon (5)- 1