Technology's Influence on Classrooms

 

https://elearningindustry.com/how-important-is-technology-in-todays-education-industry

    This week I am discussing how technology impacts the classroom. For the most part I will be talking about my ideal classroom. Since I am going to be an adolescent math teacher I want to hold my students to a higher standard. Personally I do not want my students to use technology. I believe that technology is essential to today's world however, in a math class I believe that it is essential for students to know how to do mental math as well as be able to do computations by hand instead of relying on using technology. We see how people who were able to do all of these higher levels of math by hand in order to help the US government achieve their goals. If we ever lose technology forever a lot of people will not be able to do these computations by hand because they relied too much on technology. Don't get me wrong technology is a great tool to have however  we can not rely on it for every thing we need to complete. 

    Aside from being able to do mental math and physical computations there are a lot of negatives that can come from technology usage. One issue is that students can use their phones in class. In my personal experience we could not bring phones into school. We had metal detectors and we were only allowed to bring in laptops and even now they stopped allowing students to bring technology into the school. "Sexting. Cyberbullying. Googling test answers. Taking a picture of a quiz and sending it to friends who have the same class later in the day. Paying more attention to Instagram notifications than biology class" (Klein, 2019). Sexting is a whole other issue that can cause a lot more damage to not only the students but the school as well. My best friend got involved in an issue where our classmate said she shared a sextape taken by our classmate. The NYPD was involved and it was a huge thing. Even though my best friend had not partaken in any of the events that she was blamed for she was still interrogated by the police for half of the school day. All of this could have been stopped if there wasn't any kind of technology. A couple of weeks ago I talked about cyberbullying. Cyberbullying is becoming a bigger issue since a lot more students have access to technology. 

    "More teens and young adults — particularly girls and young women — are reporting being depressed and anxious, compared with comparable numbers from the mid-2000s. Suicides are up too in that time period, most noticeably among girls ages 10 to 14" (Kamenetz, 2019). As I said in a previous blog post a lot of victims of cyberbullying suffer from depression and anxiety. Cyber bullying is easier to get away with since you can use an alias and no one will ever know where you are bullying them from as well as your true identity. The documentary Plugged In explains how people feel more anxious and depressed since they are constantly going to their phones and social media accounts to see what is happening. It's the need for approval from others on social media which causes people to feel more anxious and depressed when they don't get the right comments that they want.

 

    Even though there are plans in place to keep teens off of their phones and keep them from feeling anxious or depressed not every teen will listen. "TIPS FOR TEENS: HEALTHY SOCIAL MEDIA USE" (Tips for Healthy Social Media Use, 2023) is a list of tips that can help teens use social media in a healthy way. By following these tips teens should be able to use social media in a healthy way and keep them from feeling anxious or depressed due to their unhealthy usage of social media.

    

    While technology is a great tool there are a lot of negatives that have to be worked out before we can fully rely on technology in the classroom. While there are a lot of tools that not only help the students but the teachers and admin as well, there needs to be steps taken by the school district, individual school, and the teachers in order for it to fully work. "The personal data of about 820,000 current and former New York City public school students was compromised in a January hack." (O'Neill & Bamberger, 2022). My siblings and I were all affected by this cyber attack. Due to the NYC DOE ot having enough safety precautions in place the hackers have access to all of my family's records on where we live, our email addresses, and even our home address.  Even though the program worked great when I was in high school someone was finally able to break through the security wall and take the information of 820,000 people. If a big school district such as New York City can let this happen then what does that mean for the smaller school districts?

References

Klein, A. (2019, September 6). Schools say no to cell phones. But is it a smart move? Education Week. LinkLinks to an external site.

Kamenetz, A. (2019, August 27). NPR's The Scientific Debate over Teens, Screens, and Mental Health. National Public Radio. LinkLinks to an external site.

O’Neill, J., & Bamberger, C. (2022, March 27). Personal data of 820,000 NYC students compromised in Hack. New York Post. Retrieved April 12, 2023, from https://nypost.com/2022/03/26/nyc-students-have-personal-data-hacked/

Tips for healthy social media use: For parents and teens. University of Utah Health | University of Utah Health. (2023, March 29). From https://healthcare.utah.edu/healthfeed/2023/01/tips-healthy-social-media-use-parents-and-teens

Willett, R. (Director). (2019). Plugged-In: The Toxicity of Social Media Revealed. [YouTube Video]. Brick in the Wall Media.