Computers In Classrooms

This is a report I did in school, recently. Thought I might as well share.

Persuasive Essay: Computers in Classrooms

Technology is quickly growing in the world of today. People use technology for like everything now. Some people even have grown to need it and would crack without it. This includes children. You may doubt what I’m saying but got to ten children and ask what you would do if you had no T.V., wifi, phone, computer, game system, and tablets. I’m sure at least six out of ten of them will say they’ll be bored.

Students have grown especially attached to technology over the years. You can tell this by just looking at how they act in school. Always stuck on their phones, some even on their tablets. The children of today and tomorrow are and will both be attached to the technology they will be accessible to. Sometimes it takes technology to teach some of them how to learn correctly. Computer have even started to be allowed in classrooms around the country. And I believe it attracts the students more than a pencil and paper. And I believe if you asked most students if they would rather write or type an assignment they would usually say type. It is just what I believe.

According to the New York Times or nytimes.com more classes have agreed to use iPads as learning tools. Schools and school teachers allow students to use the iPad as a learning tool. They can use things such as Jeopardy game apps to learn how to do Math using step by step animation to help explain complex problems. As part of a pilot program, Roslyn High School on Long Island handed gave up to forty-seven iPads, on December 20th, to the students and teachers in two humanities classes. The school district hopes to be able to give iPads to all one thousand and ten of their students.

Teachers have stated that they are thinking that they will but the Seven hundred fifty dollar iPads instead of buying textbooks. Then make digital lessons, and also digital portfolios. Technology has come and gone in schools, and other experiments meant to make the educational experience for children raised on video games and YouTube have had mixed results. Teachers, for instance, are still divided over whether initiatives to give every student a laptop have made a difference academically.

“If there isn’t an app that does something I need, there will be sooner or later,” said Mr. Reiff, who said he now used an application that includes all of Shakespeare’s plays. Teachers often compliment the iPad’s physical attributes, including its big touch screen and flat design, which allows students to keep eye contact with their teachers. And students like its light weight, which offers a relief from the heavy books that weigh down their backpacks.

Scott Wolfe is Principal of South Mountain Elementary said he would like to get more iPads for the students at his school. “I think this could very well be the biggest thing to hit school technology since the overhead projector,” Mr. Wolfe said.

The Australian Government has decided to do as much as it can to ensure that students in schools get computers. They have done many things to make sure this happens.

The Computer Technologies for Schools Project takes donations. They take computers and other Information and Communication Technology equipment from public and private organizations and donates it to many different schools. The computers are given to schools across the country whether they are government schools or non-government schools.

One Laptop per Child Australia Project helps kids who live in a poor community or family by giving them with purpose-built, high quality XO laptops, and educational software. The project is trying to give out 500,000 laptops to primary school aged children by 2020.


Two of the Center for the Study of Testing, Evaluation and Educational Policy researchers was that kids do better on computer tests than pencil tests. They published a study on computer-testing in the electronic journal Education Policy Analysis Archives. The study found that students who use computers to do their school work fare better on tests. Also they do better on computer tests than they do on paper-and-pencil tests.

The researchers mentioned earlier are name Prof. Walter Haney (SOE) and School of Education doctoral candidate Michael Russell. They believe that testing methods have not kept up with the rise in the use of technology in the modern world’s children. They also say that pencil tests are no longer an accurate test of how well students are learning.

"If you look at the student who's doing it on paper, he or she is doing at least a grade level worse than the one who's doing it on computer." Russell stated.

"Thirty percent of the paper answers were rated as satisfactory, versus 70 percent of the computer answers," Haney added.

They said that there was a difference in even test results between girls and boys. Though, they did say that females did fairly better than the males.

Three fourth-graders sit around a computer in one corner of a classroom at Harvey Milk Civil Rights Academy, a school in San Francisco, which has two hundred twenty students. One student in the school has his own headphones to listen to digital books on the computer. When he stumbles over words, voice-recognition software from IBM tells him to give it another try. And, wow. I’ve never even heard of that before, that’s amazing. After all the kids finish, the computer program gives the teachers a report on the students' progression. It even allows the teachers to see the words that threw the kids off.
One of the only problems I see with computers in classrooms, is funds. As we know schools don’t get as much money as they should or as they need. Teachers are often laid off, and the money usually need to go to other things. Though, this doesn’t mean that someone should give up the idea of technology in the classrooms. I believe that if we could make the money to support the idea, it would really help a lot of students and it would affect how much they learn. Even though, there are students who rely on certain things such as paper studies and teachers. But you can still give students packets printed off the computer. And you could always have a teacher teach the lesson and then give them a lesson on the computer. So, once again, you could do it many ways depending on how your students’ learn.
Let’s get into another story of how technology has impacted students. Stacey Roshan, is an Advanced Placement calculus teacher at Bullis School—a private school for students grades three through 12 in Potomac, Md. She teaches Math to many of those students, and they are usually confused. They leave her class with more questions in their little heads than answers. "They wanted so much more time in the classroom to work on problems," Roshan says. And oh my gosh, she had an awesome idea on how to help them. She had an awesome idea on how to help them. She used a program that edits and records video, then uploaded her lectures to iTunes so students could listen to them, while they were at home. She assigned her pre-recorded lectures as homework for the students. "We've kind of reversed the whole dynamic of the class," she says. "Instead of lecturing in class, I lecture to them when they're at home, and we work problems together [in the classroom]. I liken it to an English classroom where the kids go home and do the reading and then they come into class and have this lively, engaging discussion." The kids she taught that year using that style, averaged a GPA of 4.11. This is compared to that of the students who took it the traditional way. They got an average of 3.59. This proves that computers can help more than paper in classrooms.
Other teachers have put technology into their classroom, and it worked perfectly. According to a recent study by CompTIA—which surveyed 500 K-12 and college instructors across the country, seventy eight percent of Kindergarten through Twelfth grade teachers thought that it worked. Sixty five percent say that they believe students are doing better now with the increase in technology, compared to that of a three years ago!

Jim Tracy is the headmaster at Cushing Academy in Ashburnham, Mass. He says the process of technology coming into the classroom is inevitable. Cushing has provided an interactive whiteboard in every class and wifi access across the high school's campus for students to use laptops and tablets, thanks to Tracy. Perhaps the feat most worth mentioning is Cushing's implementation of an all-digital library.

"We were able to offer our students a library that was anywhere on campus where they were," Tracy said. "For the same amount of money you would pay for a few thousand books on a shelf, you could have access to digital databases that give students access to literally millions of sources.", he continued.
The next idea would be something I would be interested in. Kristen House, a former instructor at Belmont University and founder of A Novel Idea, a novel-writing workshop for middle school and high school students, believes that any school with a limited budget should be spending the money on training teachers. "As educators, we're expected to do so much with so very little," House says. "And instead of sitting down and getting to the root of the issue, which is the [student], we throw gadgets at the problem." I like the writing workshop, but anyway to his comment. I do believe that if a student needs help, and if he/she needs help, they’ll need it from you, the teacher. Though, from what I have read I do believe that computers can help in the classroom. From being as a student myself in a school environment, I can see it. I, myself would rather work on a computer than pen and paper. And I might even agree that it really show if the student is learning the information or not. You must really be careful if you use the technology though.
Cushing Academy's Tracy believes that teachers who do not approve of or do not believe in putting technology in the classroom, is losing the battle. It is losing the fight for our kids to get their education the best way they can. "Students inhabit a 21st century world for 18 hours a day," Tracy said. "And, all too often, educators put them in a 19th century classroom for six hours of that day, and the students feel a tremendous disconnect. We have a responsibility to teach them the skills to optimize these tools."
Students really need to be educated on how to use modern technology, why? Georgetown report has said that computer specialists’ jobs are supposed to increase up to 700,000 new jobs over about the next decade. While, jobs in computer systems design and such careers are expected grow up to forty percent through 2018, according to the Department of Labor.

As humans develop, they get intrigued with new things. The kids of today have gotten sick of a piece of tree and a smaller piece of tree. We use technology for about everything else, let us adapt to our generation. And if you’re going to give us computers, don’t expect them to do everything. You, must still teach us. For us to really learn and be up to date in knowledge, we need a mixture of both. This is what you must think on, how you’re going to prepare the lesson, with the help of technology. And I hope after you’re done thinking, you come to the conclusion that, it’s what we need.

You can't run away from the future, it's too quick to get away from. So you must learn how to embrace it, or you'll fail in life.



















Sources:
• Myself
• http://www.nytimes.com/2011/01/05/education/05tablets.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0
• http://deewr.gov.au/computers-schools
• http://www.bc.edu/bc_org/rvp/pubaf/chronicle/v5/F13/csteep.html
• http://www.businessweek.com/stories/2008-12-16/rethinking-computers-in-the-classroombusinessweek-business-news-stock-market-and-financial-advice
• http://www.usnews.com/education/high-schools/articles/2011/07/14/study-emerging-technology-has-positive-impact-in-classroom
• http://www.usnews.com/education/high-schools/articles/2011/07/14/study-emerging-technology-has-positive-impact-in-classroom?page=2