Technology In The Classroom Research

Today’s addictions are not drugs or alcohol but rather social media; social media is a keystone to our everyday life. It doesn’t matter if we are sitting at a traffic light, getting ready in the morning or in the middle of a test, we feel a need to check our phones and social media constantly. It’s a type of anxiety if we fail to check our phones every five minutes. It really affects us mentally, leaving us with many new age issues like loss of attention to detail, reduction in our ability to retain information has decreased, and just an overall drop in performance and productivity. So how does this translate to the rest of our lives? Well as students, the majority of us are addicted to our devices and it’s a constant distraction in our school …show more content…
School districts are slowly replacing teachers who are not tech savvy; with teachers who utilize and teach technology in their classroom. Results will show, through using social media and devices in the classroom teachers are creating an environment where students can interact and learn together, through the devices we so desperately try to hide behind. In today’s classrooms technology is used mainly as a displaying device to show content which is an eco-friendly way of saving trees and time of handing out papers. But, instead, we should turn technology from a tool to display content to a tool for learning hands on. Imagine every student being equipped with some form of device that teachers can send files to and allow students to open and edit said files any way they choose, right at their fingertips. Now these devices are open for students to write all over making notes and jotting down questions to ask later. These devices will allow a new way for students and teachers to communicate with each other with questions from virtually anywhere with an internet connection creating a community among classmates and the teacher that can solve problems together. A study done by Elavsky and his coauthors saw a large disengagement in their …show more content…
Technology has been at a standstill when it comes to education for years without any advancements since SmartBoards, which replaced projectors. Even using simple teacher websites already provided by the school to interact with students are not put to the fullest use and sometimes not even used at all from my personal experiences. Yet, all the technology we need to create a vast new environment for students to explore and learn together is already widely available to the majority of students and teachers. Web-based programs and apps that are already active and completed can go a long way towards converting social media into an educational tool. Apps like Twitter, Skype, and Facebook can be used by teachers to speak to students in a way that students can likely be reached. Social media can not only be used to create and facilitate discussions in the classroom but also provide an outlet for students to reflect their thoughts to their peers through the use of blog posts or discourse through Twitter. Schools need to evolve with the students they are teaching; students are born attached to technology and driven by it. Technology is now a part of who we are