When a professor uploads a few articles to Dropbox using his smartphone I become inspired with the digital mainstream of 21th century. Indeed, if you do not want to be behindhand the high-tech generation, you would better take your iPad and move ahead. Only a few years ago we could observe crowds of students carrying heavy bags with numerous books, copybooks and stationeries. Fortunately, nowadays we live in an innovative world and modern technologies had upgraded, eased and fastened our everyday life. Today it is hardly possible to find a pen or a textbook entering the classroom of a College or University but every student has a digital device and usually not the only one. Nevertheless, some scientists argue that technologies can be also harmful for the education and the development of the society.
Speaking of technological devices in education, my position is extremely evident. I believe that technology is a fundamental and a building material of the post-industrialized society. In the epoch of innovation people have to be more fast and enthusiastic to keep developing.
First of all, the use of technologies can be considered from the economical point of view – the majority of education recourses is available online for cheaper prices or for free. Electronic devices provide fast and easy access to all recourses carrying only one light tablet instead of tonnes of books, notebooks and papers. If you want to be successful and efficient you have to be a fast learner, fast-maker, fast-active. Oklahoma State University provided a survey that proved the decrease in student expenses with the use of iPad, while the university decreased paper and printing costs as well as reduced network storage with the use of “cloud”. Also, more than 90 % of students replied that IPad enhanced their academic experience. (Oklahoma State University, 2011).
Besides, devices in class provide fast and easy access to supplemental information during the classwork. All the smartphones have the Internet and you can always find more information about the author and its theory. It is always useful for international students, because they can easily consult all the unknown words in the electronic dictionary, record lectures and decode them after. While working on a common project, a group of 8 students is hardly possible to meet all together and create a project at one time, but with the help of cloud technologies students can do it online.
Electronic devices are not limited by laptops, tablets and phones. Projectors and screens are highly appreciated today in almost all the educational institutions. Students make presentations using interactive effects, graphs, tables in the Power Point and perform in front of the audience that provides better connection between the student, the group and the educator.
Today universities even create apps for iOS and Android where students can manage their schedule, check courses, timetable, exchange tasks with teachers. Institutions provide online learning opportunities, electronic recourses and podcasts giving a 24 hours cycle of education. There exist also huge educational platforms like Coursera providing courses in many fields and languages with the certification. Today in the US 48 states provide and support online learning, including dual enrolment, credit recovery, short-term and summer programs, or remediation classes. At the California School students have electronic portfolios containing grades, the teachers' responses, examples of works and other (U.S. Department of Education). In addition, there are areas of education that cannot exist without digital devices like web-designing, programming, nanotechnologies, IT, engineering that require proficiency in devices.
In spite of endless advantages of using devices in education one should admit that the more people use electronic help the less self-dependent they are. Students stopped thinking and memorizing. Everything is available on the Internet you can consult at any time and you don’t have to learn and know a lot. Thus, students do not make efforts to train their memory and keep the information in mind. They don’t have their own point of view because they can find an answer in the Internet. As a result, the whole generation is under risk of regression. Maria Wimber from the University of Birmingham hold up a survey in which she studied the human behaviour while remembering information. She resumed that, the recalling information creates a permanent memory, while passively repeating information (consulting the Internet) makes a person remember less (Maria Wimber, 2014, p. 7). Daniel M. Wegner in his study also proved that using electronic devices inevitably affects your memory and availability to hold the information. It has become so easy to google the answer to any question at any moment that people remember less information because they can always rely on the smartphone in their pocket (Daniel M. Wegner, 2011, p. 776).
Besides, electronic devices cause high dependence. It can be even a psychological problem. The longer the student uses the device the more he becomes dependent on it checking his Facebook, emails, news, twitter. The idea of having only 10 minute break turns to endless procrastination. Social nets take keep your face tied to the screen, sharing posts and “liking” pictures causing myopia of your eyes at the same time.
However harmful and dangerous technologies could be, the impact on the growth and development exceeds all possible disadvantages though arguable they are. The digital multidimensional world we live requires at least basic computer knowledge to survive and real proficiency to move ahead. The idea of using more and more devices in education and later at work provides so many opportunities for saving money, time and efforts. All electronic devices became an essential part of peoples’ everyday life and the trend will deepen even more. The main contradiction that students and teachers face now is how to balance social entertaining and studying while using electronic devices. Also, memorizing facts and figures is always more useful and effective than “googling”. To achieve better academic results and to enhance educational experience, students have to be good at time-management and careful using social nets and online recourses.
References
IPad study released by Oklahoma State University (2011). Oklahoma State University. Retrieved from https://news.okstate.edu/articles/ipad-study-released-oklahoma-state-university
The Pearson Foundation Survey on Students and Tablets (2012). Retrieved from http://online.annamaria.edu/sites/amc/files/PF_Tablet_Survey_Summary_2012.pdf
The rise and impact of digital amnesia (2014). Kaspersky Lab. Retrieved from https://blog.kaspersky.com/files/2015/06/005-Kaspersky-Digital-Amnesia-19.6.15.pdf
Use of Technology in Teaching and Learning. U.S. Department of Education. Retrieved from http://www.ed.gov/oii-news/use-technology-teaching-and-learning
Wegner D.M. (2011). Google Effects on Memory: Cognitive Consequences of Having Information at Our Fingertips. Science. Retrieved from http://scholar.harvard.edu/files/dwegner/files/sparrow_et_al._2011.pdf
