Technology Brought Both Advantages and Disadvantages to Students - Research Paper Example

Technology brought both advantages and disadvantages to Introduction The widespread development in technology has been felt in large measures in almost every sector, from information, to communication, to education, among others; technological innovations have been applied in all these areas, thereby leading to great transformations and alteration in the way of doing things. This century has seen both a massive growth and development of technological innovations that have revolutionized sectors, from production, to service delivery; in the education sector; for instance, literary instruction has changed in great ways due to the introduction and incorporation of new technologies in the classrooms and e-learning approaches. Today’s improved technology has various implications for both the students and the learners; new technologies have long been associated with the creation of opportunities to enhance and to extend learning experiences in the classroom. What it means for both the students and the learners is that they both need proficiency, strategies, and insights that will enable the optimum exploitation or utilization of the new classroom technologies that emerge every day in the educational context. Nonetheless, technology did not only bring advantages for the students and the teachers, a number of disadvantages too, that have also been associated with the introduction and incorporation of new technologies in the classroom environment, besides the many advantages it brought. This paper will examine some of the major advantages that have been brought to both the learners and the teachers in the classroom situation; additionally, some of the major disadvantages of new technologies will also be highlighted. Advantages of educational technology One of the great advantages of new technologies in the classroom is the digitalization of learning resources such as books and journals by converting them into electronic formats that not only embraces text and illustrations, but also multi-modal features such as animation, sound, music, video, in addition to hyperlinks. The current generation of books is nothing close to the conventional formats, particularly because, by using software like Adobe Reader or Microsoft Reader, students can access a large proportion of learning resources in the form of e-books by viewing them on their personal computers both at home and at school. The digitalized learning resources provide a broad reservoir of learning resources, which students can access easily by purchasing e-books from online bookstores or by renting them free from online libraries (Larson 122). The electronic book resources have many advantages over the conventional books because they often have user-friendly interphases and editing tools that allow the reader a lot of control over the reading resources. For example, the students can utilize those tools to manipulate the text in so many ways including editing, deleting, marking passages, highlighting, and even inserting comments on sticky notes, among many other things. This way, students engage more with the learning material, thereby enhancing their comprehension and overall performance; in this case, technology leads to enhanced student performance because it leads to the transformation of learning experiences in the classrooms. Introduction of learning technologies has also created new opportunities for extended learning, particularly because students are able to conduct extra research on their own away from the classroom situation, in addition to the knowledge delivered in the classroom. The internet is a rich source of diverse information and learning resources that students can utilize on their own away from the classroom, thereby not only transforming their experiences by understanding the knowledge gained in the classroom further, but also extending their learning experiences through additional information. The pervasive spread of information and technology has facilitated the access of course material by students because teachers can post learning material and other relevant information related to course work for the students to access on online databases. By helping students conduct research through the internet, technology has not only increased access to information, but also the ease of access to the information; technology has facilitated numerous ways of accessing information. For instance, students can engage with each other through online interactions and discussions that yield even much more information concerning educational concepts and topics, thereby increasing comprehension and overall performance accordingly. Technology, in this case, enables the students to accomplish more, within a short time, as a fundamental research tool that facilitates the access to information, and ease of access to diverse research material, without the need of having to travel to physical libraries in search of books for research. In this respect, technology provides wonderful opportunities to take learning out of the conventional classroom situation because it helps learners to access information and learning material outside the classroom situation. Technology also enhances both teaching and learning efficiency in the classrooms because it increases the attention span and motivation of learners to acquire new information in the instruction process. For instance, technology enables the incorporation of audio-visual presentations in the classroom learning experience; audio-visuals provide very compelling learning experiences that help the students to focus their attention, thereby understanding better. LCD projectors enable the use of various attractive leaner-friendly interphases that students find more interesting than the conventional instruction ways such as lectures, which may inhibit the learning process in the classroom; instructional technology leads to great enhancement of comprehension, and the general learning experience. The use of technology in instruction makes the students to be more involved in the learning process especially because it focuses their attention on the instructional goals and objectives; therefore, students are less likely to be bored, or to lose concentration in the course of instruction. Teachers, however, should adopt the right kind of technology that work perfectly well for their students and should not be tempted to adopting technology just for its own sake, without considering the specifications of the students in their classroom. That notwithstanding, however, technology used in instruction has a lot of potential in boosting and extending the learning experiences in the classroom to the advantage of the students in particular, because it leads to better understanding of the concepts and content of instruction both through reinforcement and knowledge transfer. Furthermore, students can engage in learning experiences outside their immediate classroom contexts through technology; for example, students can attend online lectures delivered by external facilitators through teleconferencing. The online presentations and discussions further enable the students to extend their comprehension and to reinforce what has already been learnt in the real classroom with the teacher; students are able to interact with fellow students, scholars, and other specialized experts from all over the world, thereby becoming more versed in the knowledge areas. Real time online discussions allow for quick and immediate consultation from peers and subject experts, thereby enabling a fast and rapid knowledge and information transfer rate between the students. In this case, the integration of technology into the learning environment is highly beneficial to the learning experiences in the classroom because it is a seamless and effortless integration rather than a complex and confusing one due to familiarity with the users. Dis-advantages of educational technology With the coming of new technologies, there also came new challenges into the learning situation (Healy 8); in addition to the many advantages of technology in educational settings, a number of disadvantages have also been associated with the introduction of technologies in the classroom. One of the critical aspects of technology that has inhibited its successful incorporation into classroom instruction is the demand for skills, knowledge, and creativity in the use of new technologies. The introduction of new technologies has highlighted the previously invisible technical challenges that existed in educational settings in the form of inadequate competence in information technologies; many students have suddenly been overwhelmed with the increase in technology in the classroom because they lack the technical competence to explore the new technologies in achieving educational goals. The vast knowledge gap in the students limits the full utilization of the new technologies in the classroom, thereby acting as a bottleneck instead of a tool for enhancing instructional experiences in the classroom. Moreover, the high initial costs of installation of new technologies inhibit the introduction and adoption of new technologies in the classroom instruction, thereby disadvantaging the learners by creating disparities in the educational sector. Those who can afford the expensive educational technologies and support systems have a high likelihood of excelling further in achieving impressive educational outcomes because the technologies enable them to extend their classroom experiences; however, those who cannot afford to integrate due to financial constrains lag behind and are totally disadvantaged. Social inequalities, in this case, become a great barrier to the effective integration of technologies in the classroom instruction, particularly because they reinforce educational inequalities in the context of instructional technologies in the classroom. Discussion Educational technology, the study and ethical practice of facilitating learning and enhancing both individual learners’ and the overall performance of the students in the classroom, through the creation, use of, and management of relevant processes and resources of technology has had its advantages and challenges to the students. In as much as the advantages have been associated with positive outcomes for the students such as improved comprehension, interaction, engagement, and overall performance in the classroom situations, the challenges have been less or equally frustrating. For instance, the lack of sufficient skills and knowledge of educational technologies has impeded the adoption of those technologies in the classroom for the benefit of the students and created the inevitable need for both the students and the facilitators of learning to seek for the appropriate competence of handling the technological systems and processes. However, regardless of the disadvantages brought about by the introduction of educational technologies, it is obvious beyond any reasonable doubt that the integration of new educational technologies into the learning situations has been very instrumental in engaging students and enhancing their performance accordingly. Technological resources such as the internet, mobile services, social media, cloud computing, among others, have provided wonderful opportunities for the students to both reinforce, and even extend the classroom learning experiences (Grismore 2) in so many ways including, but not limited to online research, assessment, consultations, and discussions. Effective integration of educational technology into the learning process does not only entail online researching through the internet, rather, it also enables the students to connect with and to exchange knowledge with a host of other diverse and highly skilled human resources across geographical boundaries. In this respect, technology has not only increased access to information, but has also created numerous ways of accessing that same information by the students, thereby enhancing learning experiences and boosting the students’ morale to learn. By use of technology, students have extended the learning experiences by taking them out of the conventional classroom, through the creation of more learning opportunities such as synchronous discussions with subject experts and professional, and with their peers in online chat rooms and teleconferencing mechanisms, which have not only enhanced understanding, but also overall student performance. Conclusion Ultimately, it is clear that the adoption and integration of new educational technologies into the classroom instructional process did not only bring about advantages, but also a few disadvantages to the learners as well. On one hand, technology has empowered the students beyond imaginable heights of scholarly excellence and academic research; the students have been able to explore new educational technologies to enhance and extend their learning experiences by accessing a variety of knowledge and information sources such as online digital learning libraries and human resources. On the other hand, technology has also inhibited learning experiences thereby promoting educational disparities in the classroom situation accordingly; the insufficient knowledge and skills of information and technology systems and high initial costs of technological systems and gadgets has prevented the students from fully participating and taking advantage of technologies in the context of the classroom-learning environment. Nonetheless, the disadvantages brought about by the adoption of technology in the classroom experiences do not necessarily outweigh the subsequent advantages to students, particularly because technology has transformed the learning experiences in totality. Learning in the contemporary classroom situation is no longer through the conventional ways of instruction because the modern student has been provided with wonderful opportunities, through technology, to broaden and deepen their understanding. Works Cited Grismore, Brian A., Mini technology manual for schools: An Introduction to Technology Integration, 2012. Web. 25 Nov. 2013 Healy, Jane M., Failure to Connect: How computers affect our Children’s minds--for better and for worse. New York, Simon & Schuster Inc., 1998. Print. Larson, Lotta, C.,“Electronic Reading Workshop: Beyond books with new literacies and instructional technologies.” Journal of Adolescent & Adult Literacy 52(2), 2008, pp121-131. Read More