The days of chalk boards and slates are something that only
reside in the memories of the parents of those of us that are in our late
twenties and early thirties at best. To ask a child in the education system of
today if they remember the roll down boards which I know I even remember at the
grand age of twenty-three, you would more than likely be greeted by a rather
bemused expression and a head beginning to lean to the right. Even exercise
books are slowly in some sectors starting to see the end of the line as the use
of technology in our enlightened period of the 21st century grows
and grows as we are trickled new ventures, gadgets and gizmos on a quarterly
basis.
In the final stages of a Masters myself, and going through
the sometimes difficult periods of essay writing and endless amounts of
reading, my mother might occasionally pass comment on her education in response
to my moaning. The tales she spins in my mind almost feel Victorian, with
horror stories of standing on chairs and recanting the times tables, doing long
hand on slates, slates! And of course, being cautioned with board erasers and
punished with a whip of the cane to the knuckles. Truly dark times in the
spectrum of education some might comment, however, this is only some forty to
fifty years ago.
So are we now truly enlightened? Blessed that technology has
graced our classrooms, lecture theatres and teachers staff rooms? In a lot of
ways yes, but I believe there is a counter argument. I’ll begin by assessing one
of the positives though.
Paper. A commodity that we have for centuries taken for
granted as being one of the only ways to harbour our knowledge and information.
From the countless rows of books in libraries, to the endless circulation of
the daily printed newspapers, paper is still a strong runner in our every day
lives but it does come at a cost. Our source for paper is trees, and their
yearly cultivation although replanted and nurtured, greatly affects our
environment. Not to mention the significance the process of making the paper
has on the world’s carbon footprint. So, the technology hero here has been
quite literally the creation of virtual storage.
With hard drive capacity now in a region that we wouldn’t
have dreamt of ten years ago, its possible to store nearly the entire catalogue
of books your community library would hold on a tablet no bigger than a sheet
of A5 paper. Access to such material has exponentially altered this magic also,
with the ease and low price of getting a hold of digital material now through
sources such as Amazon and hardware to put it on such as the craze of the
kindle, reading has become an altogether different venture.
In the classroom, this now means fewer textbooks, because
they’re on the five hundred iPad’s the school bought, and writing up your
notes? That’s covered too, because there’s an App for that, in fact, there are
more Apps for that than you need. Remember all those handouts you would get as
well? Yep, it’s all good! Because you can store those on your tablet, laptop,
phone, mp3 player, in fact, any device that has a screen and memory, will just
about have the capability now to hold software that will let you read a simple
document file. Handouts lead to the next point actually…
Like I have already alluded to, I’m twenty-three, so I’m not
really that old, but when I left school, we had just moved to ‘wipe boards’
rather than chalk boards and that was pretty impressive, and not just because
we loved the smell of indelible markers. We still had OHP’s (over head projectors)
and the A4 transparent slides that the aforementioned pens also wrote on, and
they were also pretty cool!
Just before I left sixth form for the lofty heights of a
University education, there were projectors and there was this thing being
talked about that was beginning to make its name but was spoke of only in
rumour. I never saw or used it before leaving, but have since come to rely on a
version of it. The VLE (virtual learning environment)
The VLE has seen the death of conventional homework, the
creation of poster boards and physical handouts. Now at school, you have a username,
which is usually an eight digit number and an assigned password which you
change on first login. Much like a new online shopping account. Once you have
access, there is an abundance of educational wonders at the end of your fingertips.
This rumour I heard of the virtual learning environment at school became the
way in which I would near enough complete my entire undergraduate course. My
university had a different name for it, but it was the same thing. My entire
years worth of modules were on there with nearly every lecture, seminar and
group piece of work for each week, and all course work assignments and essays.
I’d edge my bets that I could have completed my degree with next to no human
contact whatsoever. This brings me to a bad point.
The possibility to interact with technology on the level
that we do is making a huge impact on our sociological standing. I have
personally had some of the most mind-altering experiences in the terms of my
education, in the company of others, through group debate, the exchange of
ideas, and the flurry of an open floor forum. A concept not too dissimilar from
that of the Romans some two thousand years ago. The point I’m trying to make is
that sometimes the old and trusted ways don’t need technological advancement,
that they in fact inhibit them.
We’re beginning to loose a sense of what society is meant to
be simply because we don’t interact with one another on a personal level as
much anymore, and its also making us lazy. Children now have a language of
their own, abbreviating and shortening words for ease and to make the length of
a message or passage of writing shorter is ruining the literacy of an entire
generation. We openly encourage it, with words like ‘selfie’ even finding their
way in to the Oxford English Dictionary. This is in my view is no virtue. Some
will address it as progression, I think in this small way we are regressing.
I don’t doubt for a second that on the whole, technology in
the education arena has been something to marvel at and even revel in.
Something I particularly congratulate is the opening up of knowledge and the
access to education it has given us. Those who before couldn’t do that course
because of time commitments, because they couldn’t afford that kind of
education, can now access the world’s database of knowledge and even subscribe
to courses offered online by open-end sources and some Universities. This is a
remarkable feat.
The way in which we now communicate is also truly wonderful.
At any one point I am never
usually more than an arm stretch away from connecting with the other side of
the world, ordering dance shoes from a shop in Beijing, reading about civil
unrest in Venezuela, or deciding which holiday I want next. Using Google Earth
and zooming right in on the water front beach resort in Los Angeles.
What we can now do is fantastic and in the terms of
education, we have never been so greatly connected, which allows for our
knowledge to strengthen continuously as we consult internationally, with minds
across the world and produce research that we once would have had to be on
location to collect and assess.
However what we must not forget is the dangers of becoming
completely reliant on these technological advancements. We were doing fine
before they came along, and were still producing some of the greatest minds
that we have ever known. Albert Einstein never had the use of Google and he
still delivered enough to keep us both quoting and using his work and
discoveries.
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