There was a time not too long ago when schools had one computer per classroom and sometimes only three or four computers for the entire school. People would take turns learning the basics of how computers work and how they can use them for other tasks. As time has gone on, digital technology is now used as a part of everyday life. Schools around the world are now embracing technology and incorporating it into all aspects of education.
Embracing Technology: the Ability to Learn New Systems Is Gaining Ground on Static, Established Knowledge Sets
From a young age today, kids are being exposed to devices and online content. As learning new modalities, devices, and systems become more common, learners have to be more plastic and adaptive. While digital natives do not necessarily have more knowledge than older generations, the ability to learn something new is gaining ground against established knowledge sets. While mobile devices were once widely seen as distractions, teachers are beginning to embrace them, incorporate them into lessons, and write them into their curricula. Kids can also start playing educational games on tablets from a young age at home. So in school, they can also certainly be beneficial for certain classes and lessons.
App developers have taken note. Subjects like reading, languages, math, and science can be complemented via educational apps.
Using technology in class does come with extra costs, but there are different ways in which schools can tackle this. District funding is continuing to make allowances for classroom technology. There are also numerous federal and state grants available. One-to-one device initiatives may also seek support from parents and families.
One of the other issues that can arise from using tablets with the students is it can create a lot of noise when played via internal speakers. Students in many cases need audio to learn. You can tackle this issue with headphones for school. Some who have individualized education plans may use headphones at certain times in each class.
The Power of the Internet
The internet not only allows teachers and students to connect more easily – it also gives classes access to subject matter experts in a way that was not previously possible. This translates to benefits for both students and teachers. Learners can experience real-life role models, and teachers can augment their instruction.
Online communication has also proven indispensable as natural disasters and the coronavirus pandemic have shut down schools.
Over the last year that saw schools closing, opening, and closing again, learning from home has allowed instruction to continue. While the switch to online classes was, in many cases, not ideal, teachers and learners soon onboarded to a remote environment. Without digital technology, this would not have been possible.
Digital technology has also revolutionized school administration. Learning management and student information systems have streamlined the collection and use of student data. Schools have been able to use less paper and store their information more securely.
There are so many benefits to having technology used in our schools. As time goes on, the uses of technology will only continue to increase.
Featured Image: Maxim Hopman, Unsplash.
“As bots enter the classroom, both teachers and learners will have to reflect on their uses and outcomes. They will need to adopt an awareness of AI’s presence. Teachers must recognize AI’s short comings, such as inherently developing biases and its inability to process human emotions.”
This statement is correct as it relates to AI, generally; however, it assumes that AI exists as THE entity that students directly interact with. There are many potential expressions of AI, including a human-in-the-loop approach, in which it is configured in such as way as to facilitate dialogs and interactions between people, either studentteacher or studentstudent.
For example, we’re building an L2 language speaking practice app (Language Hero Smart Chat). We use AI to enable beginning students, who speak different languages, to have natural, real life conversations in each other’s language from Day 1. They speak directly to each other, interacting with the system only to select from multiple content choices suggested by it, designed to facilitate a real free-ranging dialog resulting in real bonding, to the extent it’s possible, rather than to practice a particular lexical structure (they can also text or go off the grid to have pure video chat).
Teachers can use this system as well for group chat. They can upload their own curriculum as well (the Smart Chat system configures it as multiple vector (branching script) chat or merges it with the system curriculum (focused on real life useful topics like travel, food, shopping, social chat, expressing ideas, etc.). Everything they say is comprehensible to their students, and so are all student responses.
When such a system is implemented in a manner that pays particular attention to the affective components that make human interaction so effective for creating the desire to learn (and corresponding openness to processing L2 content, in this case), we think it can be a more effective tool than bot chat.