The best method for improving educational standards is to utilize every tool available, including state-of-the-art technology.
Computers and the Internet have expanded the way in which information can be delivered to the students of today. Today’s networking technologies provide a valuable opportunity to practice new learning techniques. Educators are discovering that computers are facilitating learning. Computer-based communications, or telecommunications, can offer many educational opportunities. Therefore, educators will need to adapt current teaching methods to incorporate this new media into the classroom. Computers have made a fundamental impact in most industries, providing a competitive advantage that has come to be essential to many businesses. Therefore, schools must also use technology to improve the educational process.
School systems often consider purchasing a computer network and justify its purchase by applying it to routine administrative tasks, such as attendance records and grading. While these tasks are important, they only represent a small part of what technology can do for a school. Technology must go further than simply keeping attendance; it must focus on keeping students interested and productive. Computers and the Internet have expanded education delivery to students, making it possible to engage in distance education through the Internet. Distance education involves audio and video links between teachers and students in remote areas. Videoconferencing allows groups to communicate with each other.
Desktop videoconferencing promises to bring students together from geographic and cultural distances, allowing them to interact face-to-face via computer. This can make students more interested and engaged in learning. In addition, new educational programs are being developed, including dictionaries, encyclopedias, and atlases that students can access from their own computers.
For example, instead of looking for a particular country and simply finding out where it is in a regular atlas, one can type in the name of that country. Not only will they find out where it is faster, but they will obtain more information about that particular country. Technology has enabled companies to place all of these massive books onto one small CD, making it much simpler than flipping page by page to read about an uninteresting topic such as history. Writing reports on a typewriter was a displeasing method to write term papers, especially if the student runs out of white-out.
Certain programs offer a spell-checker, thesaurus, and other helpful features that make writing term papers easier. These programs are just a few of the educational resources available to students. Educational boards should be open to new technological ideas. It would not be fair for students in one city to receive a better education than those in another city. Technology is not meant to replace teachers but to serve students and make tedious tasks easier.
Therefore, this technology should be available to every student, wherever they may live. In doing this, it not only needs the support of teachers and educators, but it also requires support from communities. However, technology cannot work by itself. Teachers must take a position in designing a tech-powered classroom curriculum and devote time to become familiar with the new available resources. Technology can also improve writing with the use of new word processing programs that provide easy-to-use tools not normally available in the classroom. Technology is able to help students in a variety of ways.
By making learning more enjoyable, students will want to learn and will not see education as a difficult responsibility.
