Technology — What? Where? How? When?

Neetu Grover

 The term ‘technology’ simply means anything that helps us in simplifying the tasks at hand. It is a magic wand for all of us. It has created marvels and has made our life most comfortable than ever before. Through my hand made art work, it is well-explained that it is because of technology that Man’s journey from Eden Garden to E-World became possible.

collage

Artwork

This all is about technology but education too plays an important role in bringing happiness and prosperity in one’s life. Nelson Mandela has rightly said, “Education is the most powerful weapon that you can use to change the world”. Education provides a platform to a person. It is the only asset which can be used to fight against the inhuman activities like corruption, unemployment, eve-teasing, kidnapping, environmental practices etc.

Technology in Education is well understood by the PDF ‘Facilitating Learning’. “Educational Technology is the study and ethical practice of facilitating learning and improving performance by creating, using and managing appropriate technological processes and resources.” [Robinson, Molenda, Rezabek]. After knowing the accurate explanation of all the terms mentioned above, let us know the relation between the Technology and Education. Actually, technology and education complement each other. With the advent of technology in every sphere of our life, it holds a significant meaning in the field of education. It has altered the way of teaching, role of a teacher and what not.

Therefore, Role of Technology cannot be ignored in Education at all.

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Traditional Pathshalas To Digital Classrooms

Neetu Grover

TextBookVSIpads

Starting from the traditional ‘Paathshaalas’ and moving to smart classes, education has already seen major inroads of technology in the past few years. However, with advancements taking place at a quick pace, technology will totally turn around the education in 2025.

With education spreading its wings, classrooms these days have computers, laptops and tablets as ingredients. In the present scenario, we are interacting with a smart generation holding smart phones. For them; knowledge is just one click away. The things will be quick, brisk and precise but will that ever replace a human teacher? Well …… No! Technology can never supersede the role of a teacher in the lice classroom. But in the hands of a great teacher, its  transformational.  Technology plays the part of a facilitator. It bridges the gap between the knowledgeable and the ignorant as it offers a plethora of ways of learning.

With latest developments in the field of technology we can expect major alterations for improvement in the field of education in future. Technology is helping teachers, parents and students in a lot of different ways. It has helped in engaging and motivating this generation of ‘digital natives’ to explore the world. It has also ignited the spark of independent learning.

“An investment in knowledge always pays the best interest” (Franklin, 2016) but investments in technology have become a pre-requisite to assure a bright future of our future generation. Therefore, the transition to digital within education has opened a wide way of our exciting opportunities for education and is bound to provide every student a holistic learning experience.

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UTILIZATION OF TECHNOLOGY IN EDUCATION IN PAST

Neetu Grover

education books chalkboard courtesy of Cherries shutterstock com_213333985In order to understand the future of education in 2025 we need to understand the past and perhaps how to utilize in order to achieve maximum results. In traditional schools technology was introduced to increase efficiency and effectiveness. This increased knowledge and skills among students in a variety of ways. Integrating technology is more than just a tool in learning, when technology in a classroom updates, students become more engaging and develop their brains faster, thus becoming more self-controlled learners. I will be demonstrating examples through the history.

1650: Horn books are invented for the first time; it helped a lot of people in terms of education for printing topics and lessons. People utilized this technology by writing papers instead of photocopying like in today’s world.

1870: The Magic Lantern is the next thing; this machine is capable of printing images on glass plates. Commonly used by some large public school students in Chicago. People utilized this technology by demonstrating their ideas and thoughts through the use of pictures and graphs, unlike today’s world which is made easier through the use of projectors.

1890: School slates and chalkboard started to appear in 1890, later on pencils showed up in 1900. This utilization helped a lot of students with grammar and educations as there was no Word, or Excel to check spelling errors.

1920: Radios on air are introduced in a classroom for educational purposes; this helped getting the news across students during the storm or any bad weather. This was also used to present a lesson to different lectures in universities to get the message across.

1930: Major breakthrough occurred during this time, overhead projectors and ballpoint pens were introduced as this made less usage of slate and chalkboard, also the communication was written neatly.

1972: Scantron system was introduced; this gave teachers a break from marking test during the busiest time of the year.

1981: Computers were introduced into the education for the first time. There was only one big computer in every hundred students. This technology gave student the opportunity to research variety of topics in a short time.

1985: Calculators were invented; this would help students to solve some difficult mathematical questions in less than a minute. This was also a time where DVD ROMs were introduced, this meant getting rid of the books as to make a big storage and compress all the documents into one file.

1996: Internet was used into homes and education also solved a lot of problems of physical and academic institutes.

1999: Interactive whiteboards were invented which was connected to computers which made easier made easier for students to take notes and convert it to computer which help save a lot of paper and time.

2007: Ipad were introduced into early education school, this helped students interact through the use of games and applications which made it quicker for children to learn alphabets and mathematical tables.

Living in 21st century made education much easier in million of ways through the evolution of technology. And we are changing swiftly to have faster growth rate in comparison to before, and in this fast changing world, Technology has an impact on each and everything. Education too could not be escaped from the impact of Technology. The internet has totally revolutionized the process through which we are accessing and disseminating information. Technology in the past 20 years has changed rapidly.

To get a clear vision of this topic,we have made a YouTube video. We have tried to sum-up the whole post in this YouTube video. Click on the link below:

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The aspects of present utilization of technology in education

Neetu Grover

Over the recent years, the word ‘Technology’ has become a trade mark for a successful nation. It helps in growth of human beings  into a bright future. Technology, on the other hand, can help in taking the education one step ahead. Till now, technology has been playing a vital role in the education system. Technology and Education are incomplete without each other. Education, being the roots, and Technology being the soil, will result in the growth of an illuminating tree to spread knowledge and wisdom in every nook and corner of the world. Both will together mark a dawn of new era.  Indeed, the quality of technology show cases strength of a nation. In the coming years, technology is going to be the major part of education system. To showcase the aspect of the present utilization of technology in education, MOOCs, another source of a free online system for people to be educated at anytime and anywhere would be the most apt in this case. MOOCs is massive online open classes/courses where you could access from anywhere to globally. As the guardian has stated, “Things are already starting to move this way with the emergence of massive open online courses (MOOCs)” (the guardian, 2013). I never used to see Google docs online to share the documents from the teachers in high school and now my little brother who is five years younger has been using the technology to do homework and assignments which surprised me very much. Even the article Technology in Education: The Past, Present, and Future from Cxtec have said “Technology in education from the time of the first small computer lab in most high schools to the present day, you would see a steep climb upward” (Cxtec, 2016). To evaluate it more, they mean by practicing kids to use technology to fit the present day requires at least a computer, states the article, “Modern computers, Electronic files and storage, Computer Networks, a Major role of the Internet…” (Cxtec, 2016). Another proof is right here in this classroom, there has not been an online course that forms group work in the past, however, in the present day, our generation and so on has become even bigger internet users that cannot go through school without a computer, same as to what the article stated earlier. Even kindergarteners are using the source technology such like texts books that are becoming electronically in use rather than physical books. As in the 5 ways technology in the classroom is changing education articulates, “E-books are becoming more popular. Which makes sense; they are cheaper, more up-to-date, quickly accessed, and more interactive” (Sour edge, Ashley Wainwright).

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Vision of Technology in Education in 2025

Neetu Grover

Accenture-T4-Cloud-Animation

“Technology can become the ‘wings’ that will allow the educational world to fly farther and faster than ever before – if we allow it.” [Arledge, 2017]

Technology is ready to take everything under its influence. It is not even going to let go the education system. The books which are worshipped today may not exist in future and technological edu-laptops will be handier with generations to come. Vanessa Vega has rightly said, “All the heart of effective technology integration, technology offers opportunities to be more actively involved in the learning experience.” [Vega, 2017]. The advent of information technology in schools has accerlated the changes in our education system even further. “The main goal of technology is to create an educational environment which encourages students to read more and learn from anywhere in the world” (Ramey, 2012). Hi-Tech laboratories and online education will also be key aspects that will be seen making an impact. There will be a possibility that robots may enter classrooms for giving lecture. Trips to NASA and such organizations will definitely `gone in coming years as science and technology will mean a lot for the students. Even technology cannot replace human intelligence.

The following changes will be seen in 2025:

  1. New medium of Education: In the future, IT will be the main medium for education and the focus will be on the effective use and manipulation of computers. Blackboards will transform with Smart boards. The stationaries like pen, paper, pencil, etc. will be obsolete by then and the laptops, fold-able tablets/ I Pads and so on will be inn by then. Though language will still be a very important part of education, shorter versions of the words and sentences will be widespread and universally accepted. 
  2. Digital classroom: Students will give more preference to group studies with same capabilities. There is a possibility that Robots will replace the human teachers but in the same way there is a fact that technology in the hands of human teacher is like a magic wand which can make everything possible. Classes will be fully connected to social media. All the students will be able to study together.
  3. Exams will be replaced by assignments and live projects: Students will use more of more of technology to execute tasks at every opportunity. Each of the students will  have a digital portfolio where they store all of their projects, assessments, notes. Assignments will be completed and immediately shared with stakeholders. Live projects will be given more importance than pen- chart paper projects.(TeachHub, 2016). 
  4. More online classes will be in trend: Classes will be available online via Youtube or Google Hangouts both in real time and archived. Keyboarding will be taught and reinforced in all classes. Each class will have a website, a wiki, a Google classroom – or some sort of digital version of the classroom which will closely replicate what happens in the class on daily basis.

As we know that every coin has a flip side. In the same way, technology also has a dark and dismal side. If we give a glance to its grey side, I would like to put forth the opinion of a significant body of researches who has made it clear that despite the influx of new technology into the classroom, there remains limited evidences to show that technology and online learning are improving learning of the children and many parents have shown their resentment as they find their children more inclined to technology.

Well….. This remains a mystery for us as to what is hidden in the lap of future. Will human be a lost thing in future?? Will the concept of school be a bygone concept for us?? Will there be no real world??

Let’s wait and let time unfurl these pages of obscurity.


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TECHNOLOGY IN EDUCATION CONCLUSION

Neetu Grover

conclusion

Technology can be found in every education instituted. There is nearly one computer for every student. Canada spends roughly 3 billion per year on up grading digital technology. Government is planning to bring high-speed internet in to every high school. Middle school and High school will be admiring technology device instead of relying on paper and pencils. Despite in growth of technology, teachers have been slow to transform the ways they teach and flexibility to use these devices is the major issue.

The future of classroom will be access to learning anywhere at any time. Future of education will be like social networking as students from across the globe can participate. Things have already started to move this way. Emergencies of massive open online course (MOOCs) have already started to shape our future. School will not need software installation or server,  they will require fast pace internet connection.

Bring your own device (BYOD) movement has given students a connectivity tool to help them adapt quicker to learning through the use of apps and online simulations. This  has been installed in local high schools. Through this program teacher can grade online work, comment and monitor your activity. Schools and classroom will be changed.  Thanks to the mobile device and online computing where students can access news and updates even when playing in the field.

  • Augmented Reality (AR)
  • 3D Printing
  • Cloud Computing
  • Online Social Networking
  • Flexible Displays
  • Bio-metrics: Eye Tracking
  • Multi-touched LED screens
  • Led touch board
  • Game Based Learning

In future, Education will not be restricted just to classrooms. Education will be seen as gratifying part of life, which will require proactive movements. This visionary technology will no longer require us to instruct but also to invent. This brake through will take away one half of the education research process. It is predicted that 65 % of today’s graduates will end up at job that haven’t been discovered yet.

What’s needed to be learned from this technology is that schools must evaluate periodically this technology to ensure any new improvements. Employees will also need to be trained as to be confident in being beneficial in this outcome. There cannot be any margins for errors as to shaping our education for tomorrow.

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