Children and Technology: A Good Idea?

Technology has consumed our lives. You may read this and think to yourself that this is either good or bad. However, no matter if you are a huge fan of technology or you are totally against it, you have to admit that it has made our lives easier in one way or another. But what about technology and education? Our children have no choice but to succumb to our technologically driven society. But is that a good idea?

More and more schools are instituting technology in their classrooms, and out. Many classes are conducted online, in addition to online education portals where children can study, do homework, activities, and even collaborate with one another and their classroom teacher. There are also technological initiatives to provide each student with a laptop or iPad.

Now that sounds nice, right? Yeah, it’s great...but with the budget cuts nationwide, how are schools going to afford to provide EACH child with a laptop, or iPad for that matter? Schools today can barely afford teachers’ salaries and books...never mind top of the line technology. Our country has to get their shit together before we can provide these great things to our children. Steve Jobs said it best that education cannot be fixed with technology.

Even if the economy and our schools improve and suddenly we have all the money in the world (an obvious exaggeration...) to buy our kids these fancy technological gadgets...what happens to textbooks? The fundamental tool we have used for education since the invention of the printing press. We’ve always thought that we couldn’t really learn without books...so what happens if/when education goes paperless? Wold that do more harm than good?

If you are a parent, or grandparent, or teacher, or older sibling, or have even spent a minute around children, you will see that kids today are more emphatic about technological gadgets, video games, and cell phones than reading or studying. I get that this is why schools are trying harder and harder to integrate technology into their classrooms and curriculums, in order to keep kids focused. However, children today aren’t interested in reading books. And it’s really a sad thing. Kids are already losing the ability to read and write up to graduation standards due to constant instant messaging and texting shorthand. Are our kids and our kids’ kids going to lose the ability to read and write English? What kind of world would that be?

Back in what seemed like another life for me, I was pursuing a Master’s in Education. One of the courses I took was Technology in Education. I thought it was going to be an extremely boring class...but not only was my professor interesting, but I found that the coursework was just as interesting. For my final paper, I did some research on “multiple intelligences” and on children and how their minds work. Children of what is now as today as the “Digital Age”, have actually begun to learn digitally. So it’s possible that our children and their creative minds have actually altered from the traditional learning methods that we possess, and now have the ability to not only be more creative, but have the ability to learn technology and digital methods easier than us.

So I ask you...is technology and education a good idea? Sure...I think we can all agree that there are definitely benefits involved, but there’s a lot to consider. The cost and the long term repercussions. However, today it is impossible to avoid children’s collaboration and ability to get their hands on technology.

© Xavier Gallego Morell | Dreamstime.com