The Pros and Cons of Classroom Technology

Week Six

After reading A Conversation among Faculty Regarding the Pros and Cons of Technology, six authors with educational backgrounds debate the advantages and challenges teachers and students face using technology for curriculum delivery. Their dialogues were further categorized by student access, online education, instructional strategies, communication and the implications technology plays a role impacting. While the authors address the pros and cons that different technologies presents, they fail to address the simple principle that great teachers develop equitable learning opportunities for their students on many levels. Great teacher provide differentiated instruction which caters to the learning needs of the individual. Great teachers provide valuable feedback for students which aims to improve student performance. Blanket statements about how technology can create voids in learning are no different than broad statements about how ineffective teachers can simulate the same results.

Although the authors mainly addressed the ramifications of technology on collegiate education, one cannot ignore the increasingly wide array of ways technology is impacting primary and secondary schools. It is impossible to address the consequences of online learning for the future of K-12 education without doing longitudinal research. Online classes come with their advantages such as time flexibility or not having to commute. The trade off offers more challenges such as lack of teacher feedback due to large class loads, not being provided guided practice with instant feedback, long turnaround windows for formative and summative assessments, getting lost in the technology loop, and the lack quality of instruction due to a high student to teacher ratios. Here blended or in person classes appear to cater to many of these challenges as being the best of both worlds.

One cannot deny that the ever-changing nature of technology is here to stay. As the sophistication of technology improves, so too, the skill of the teacher and learner need to adapt to these new environments. This means that students will need technology incorporated into their curriculum in the most advantageous ways possible for them to succeed in school and in life. Having a fair playing field for the least financially privileged and technologically sophisticated student is the most relevant issue here. How can society guarantee access for all students in an equal technology playing field? These are the questions that need to be addressed to make education equitable for all.

Kemp, A. T., Preston, J., Page, C. S., Harper, R., Dillard, B., Flynn, J., & Yamaguchi, M.

(2014). Technology and teaching: A conversation among faculty regarding the pros

and cons of technology. The Qualitative Report, 19(6), 1-23. Retrieved from

http://www.nova.edu/ssss/QR/QR19/kemp6.pdf