Diagnostic essay: Using Technology

Diagnostic essay: Using Technology

Ryan Donovan

In the advancement of technology there are things that schools should consider as they adopt technology to promote student learning.  The internet has virtually infinite amount of data but, will students access this to learn all the time? How will this change how they learn? Does every student have access to this technology?

Schools changing to digital from paper is a good thing but it feels strange. The feel of a book in your hands, the ability to look and see how far in you are, the way you can skim threw pages fast. In reality, E-readers cannot compete with books until they can withstand a spill, sand, being thrown across a room, never run out of battery. But one E-reader can store ten thousand books, the same amount the average library can hold. The amount of paper saved from not having to use books is alot.

But, what if the student(s) cannot afford an E-reader when everyone else in the class is using one? They will learn at a slower pace. Many of the books on electronic readers and the Internet aren’t free and it may become more difficult for students to happen on books with the serendipity made possible by physical browsing. There’s also the question of the durability of electronic readers.

            With this technology students could be pretending to learn but in reality playing a game in another window. Which means some won't be learning. “There are modes of learning and thinking that at the moment are only available from actual books,’’ he said. “There is a kind of deep-dive, meditative reading that’s almost impossible to do on a screen. Without books, students are more likely to do the grazing or quick reading that screens enable, rather than be by themselves with the author’s ideas.’’ 

          But simply if the students use only this technology to learn they will be able to more effectually learn that with out this technology.