The world of pen and paper is quickly changing to fingertips tapping on keys and touch screens along with eyes scanning the bright screens of computers and tablets. These changes are significant in education because younger generations are growing up using all sorts of technology.
In my New Literacy class this past Monday we spoke about how teachers need to adapt to the way students learn. This entails teachers learning how to use and teach with the technologies that students so often use. Allowing different aspects of technology in the classroom that students use in their daily lives may help students become more engaged and excited about learning. Some of these aspects of technology include social media, YouTube, Google, Wikipedia, and other platforms that teachers usually do not allow in the classroom.
Many say that the efficiency of technology makes it is easier and faster to complete school work. It may seem faster to type a paper rather than hand write it, or read an assignment on your tablet rather than taking the time to print it out, but technology comes with distractions. I am not saying I have anything wrong with technology and the potential efficiency we can get from it, but I think we need to learn to not be distracted by everything technology has to offer.
It seems the more I have used technology in my life, the less productive and motivated I feel. I would love to learn how to open my laptop and focus on typing a paper for school, but I always seem to stray from my assignment to watch Netflix, check my social media, or start searching things on Google that aren’t even close to school related. I feel as though having technology at the tip of your fingers makes people more lazy and impatient when it comes to learning. We don’t have to work hard to learn an answer to a question because we have computers, phones, and tablets that can tell us the answer in seconds!
The growing use of technology reminds me of the book Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury which is about a society that is so consumed by technology that they don’t even know what’s going on around them. I read this book quite a while ago so I don’t remember all the details, but I do remember they would wear an earpiece that would tell them all the information they needed to know because books were not used anymore. Obviously our society is not like this right now, but part of me thinks it’s very plausible.
I am in no way trying to say we should be without technology; it is an extremely useful tool in school and at the workplace. I am thinking that maybe we need to learn how to use these wonderful technologies we have in a more beneficial way and combine the use of them with the “old-fashioned” use of pen and paper. Maybe it’s because I read Fahrenheit 451 and I get very immersed in the books I read, but I don’t want our society to become consumed by technology.