Creating A New Education

Technology has brought us many great advancements but it also led our generation to lack social skills, communication skills, and a lack of focus. Our generation has an issue with face to face conversations due to texting, so how could we gain those communication skills back? Who can teach those who struggle with this? Society has changed in many ways, but our education system has always stuck to tradition, leaving us with no outlet to learn how to progress along with technology.

“Were still going to school the way we did in 1993, which is to say, pretty much as we did in 1893.” (6). We still follow the main traditions Socrates created, and focus mostly on getting good grades on standardized tests and working to get into a university. Although those aspects create work ethics and gain us knowledge, we should be learning how to fit in society. School is the one place we are we are told to not use technology, and that never suceeds. Our generation is addicted to the advancements we have made in the technology world, it is hard for us to shut that out for hours inside a classroom. “Its odd and irresponsible that formal education that formal education is the one place where we are not using the devices on which we do our learning all the rest of the time.” (76). Technology has allowed us to have every answer to any question in the palm of our hand, so why would that not be useful to use inside a place of learning? 

Almost all of our assignments are due online and tablets have become the new loose leaf. When we step outside of the classroom, we use the internet to help us complete our assignments. I think if we could do the same inside the classroom, students would be more confident in particiapting and would get more out of the class. In one of my recent classes last semester, I used my laptop as my “go to” to look up a lot of questions my teacher addressed and it helped me to be more confident in participating. 

The issue is that some teachers are technophobic, and can not stear away from their old school traditions. To them, they think they are helping us because “things were easier back then” but in reality, it is only regressing the quality of our education.  We are only taught how to be successful prior to and during college but not after. Once we graduate we may have many science formulas memorized and know ancient history, but we don’t know how to function in society to succeed. I see this as very alarming issue and something I would want to see change, but an important question that still evokes my mind would be the “how”. How can we create this major shift in learning as a society? Many teachers are much older than us and did not experience growing up with technology, therefore they are against it. Say we create a “new education” and cirriculum, how can we be sure that those teachers will know how to properly help us succeed or if they will still stick to their traditions. I think the reality is that we are too far along in advancements to try and forget about technology in certain scenarios. Incorporating technology into classrooms and teaching us how to succeed outside of school will benefit us students more than the old traditional ways. Going to school should mean we are being taught the needs to suceed for our future. “The college education we need today must prepare our students for their epic journey, the mountains and cliff’s edges.” (13). We are constantly modernizing and advancing our society and education should be included in that. 

Discussion Questions:

  • How can we steer away from old traditional classes and create more on how to succeed in society ? Do you think teachers would be upset and stick to their old ways still?
  • Do you believe that incoroporating technology into lectures would help you focus worse or better in class?

Davidson, Cathy N. The New Education: How to Revolutionize the University to Prepare Students for a World in Flux. Basic Books, 2017.

6 Replies to “Creating A New Education”

  1. Technology needs to be used in classrooms more often. Another point that can be made is that technology is beneficial for all learning styles as well. A teacher can incorporate different types of lecturing styles such as audio, pictures, or maybe even having in class activities. “dumping iPads into conventional classrooms without without changing teaching or assessment methods and putting traditional lecture courses online and grading them by automated multiple-choice testing systems simply digitizes tenth century assumptions”(9). Teachers need to not just throw technology at their students and just throw up tests online. Technology should be used in a way to help enhance students learning. Teachers could learn how to use the different types of technologies with their students to learn in a more collaborative way. This could also enhance all different kinds of learning styles because different students would be able to learn in their own way. The students could follow up with each other to find out how they each did an assignment differently.

  2. Hi Hannah!
    I loved reading your blog post! I thought it was compelling and skillfully written. I like how you mentioned the fact that “school is the one place where we are told to not use technology, and that never succeeds”. Unfortunately, our generation is so addicted to technology. However, we have not been properly taught to use technology appropriately in the classroom. Personally, I think that professors are fearful of technology because they only see technology as a distraction. They do not see the benefits technology can bring in the classroom. In the reading, Davidson states that “our complacency in the face of the technologies that run our lives should make us even more determined to ensure that our students have the computational literacies they need to prepare for their future” (3). If the education system continues to fear technology in the classroom then, it will only create a harder future to adapt to. Inevitably, technology will keep advancing. With that, we should focus on how we can use technology to change the classroom instead of forbidding it.

  3. Technological advancements are inevitable at this point in history. An education field is a place of constant discovery and a place in which improvements should be made to better the learning experience inside the classroom. Although society likes to recognize technological advances in a social setting, some scholars and other people in the field of education are trying to raise awareness about the benefits of involving technology in the curriculum. In The New Education, Davidson states: “…the educational technology movement, often championed by business people and pundits who campaign for ‘modernizing’ higher education” (9). As a society, we need to get teachers to explore what having the advancement of technology could do for our children. The lens of seeing technology being only promoted by the higher educated/more modernized should be shifted to having teachers using practical and accessible programs for each of their classrooms that will help time manage, keep records, access multimodal learning for students, just to name a few benefits.

  4. The use of technology in the classroom is often a controversial topic for educators and institutions. The introduction of technology into the classroom is an inevitable destination for education at all levels because it is so intertwined in our culture and how we function in society. The prolonged avoidance of technology is only slowing the process for improvements in the education system that needs to compete with an ever-changing outside world. Like mentioned in “Creating a New Education”, educators need to make technology work with teaching and learning not just place it into the classroom and expect change or improvement. An important point made in the reading is that the avoidance and stigma of using technology in the classroom has made this generation less confident in their academic ability despite their actual progress. When addressing a study done by Stanford Professor Emerita Andrea Lunsford, about the quality of students writing at the University she mentioned, “The only clear negative she came across is that students enter Stanford with a higher level of confidence in their writing ability than what they possess when they graduate, possibly, Lunsford suggests, a consequence of their professors reminding them repeatedly of how social media use is destroying their intellect.” (92) A crucial change will have to come from the mindset and influence of educators to empower their students to use technology for the benefit of their education. Personally my learning and education requires the use of the internet very often and to say I would not be distracted during a class with my laptop would be a lie. However, I believe that the benefits of using technology in the classroom outweigh the potential downfalls of distraction.

  5. Technology surrounds us every second of every day in some way, shape or form. It is a fact that, even if we wanted to, there is no escaping. Knowing this, why wouldn’t schools want to use it to their benefits. A quote that stuck out to me, and you actually referred to it to, was “we’re still going to school the way we did in 1993, which is to say, pretty much as we did in 1893” (6). I think this stuck out to me so much because of the lack in advancement has not been as great as I thought it would have been over the years. Who else agrees? Don’t get me wrong school classrooms have certainly changed since 1893, but have they changed enough? Teachers teach the same material over and over agin every year. And why? So every year the students in their class do well on standardized testing. The problem is some students do not do well just sitting there. Pen and paper does not work the same for everyone. It’s time to move away from the worksheets and get with the times.
    A few years ago, the school that I grew up in decided to provide each student (in the high school) with a surface pro during the school year. The students in elementary would have get time set out of the day to work on the surface pros. However, the high schoolers could take them anywhere with them. After purchasing, teachers began to incorporate this technology into their class more and more. They started putting classwork, homework, and other notes on a class website. Student where even able to use it as a “notebook” instead on well, a regular notebook.
    The truth is, technology is a gateway to many other things. Technology does not just need to be used for schools, but it sure helps being introduced to it early on. The thing that we have to remember though, is that it is not our only gateway. And, when it is in use, we need to use it to our benefit in a positive way.

  6. Hi Hannah. Really interesting blog post. To your question about lectures, it really depends. That was one of the main points of Davidson’s chapter. “The lesson here isn’t what tool you use but how you use it,” (84). Careless use of technology can very easily be detrimental to learning. Playing videos for the who class period is a use of technology, but so is having a meaningful collaborative project on Google Docs, for example. Posting class slides on BlackBoard or another platform might be viewed as letting some students slack off on note-taking, but it’s also a good way for students who absolutely cannot focus in class to catch up later in an environment which is better for their learning. I just think a lot of the technology used in class needs to be meaningful and thought-through. If you can teach the class exactly the same without technology, then it’s just an add-on, and its only purpose is to be able to say that you’re integrating technology in your classroom.

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