Taking a look at education

I believe that taking full advantage of technology, although with careful precautions of course, in the classroom will benefit the students because technology in the classroom provides opportunities for creativity and curiosity to grow. A child’s mind is eager to learn and built to absorb the world around it. There is so much information out there to help mold children’s minds while they are young. Also technology could provide different teaching and learning techniques to help all students have a better learning experience.

·         15^th century during the beginning of the Renaissance the printing press was invented creating an information revolution. Books, pamphlets and other items were published and made available to many more people.

o   Today we are in a technological revolution with a surplus of information at our finger tips.

·         During the Enlightenment, around the 1750s, many great minds revolutionized education. Men such as Jean Jacques Rousseau and John Locke recognized and gave emphasis to the idea of “shaping young minds early.”

o   This revolutionized education but unfortunately 300 years later we are still applying the same standards that they set up. How can we learn from their school system but better adapt it to our ever changing technological society?

·         Sugata Mitra, a professor of educational technology performed an experiment which he called “hole-in-the-wall” back in 1999. One thing that led to this experiment was his discovery that in certain areas where good teachers won’t go, like an area where their personal safety might be an issue is where they are needed the most. It is from these areas where kids are not being educated that trouble tends to arise. So for his experiment Mitra put a computer in wall outside in New Dehli. He put about 3 feet off the ground and left it there. As time went on kids began to explore the computer and the internet. After a short amount of time they found games that they could download and play. Games that taught them how to build things and to use math. Technology is there to help us. Let’s use it to tap into the creativity of children and to enhance their learning experience with the help of technology.