As our society becomes more technology-savvy, will this affect the effectiveness of schools in educating its students? How are schools reacting? The following article explores this issue…
(Excerpted from an article written by R. Murray Thomas, Professor Emeritus of Education at the University of California, Santa Barbara, that appeared in the 2006 Britannica Book of the Year.)
"TV, Cell Phones and Education"
The use of computers as learning tools has continued to expand. A survey in the U.S. showed that 67% of nursery-school children and 80% of kindergartners used computers at school, with 23% of children in nursery schools and 32% of those in kindergartens accessing the Internet. In higher grades the proportions of students using computers were 91% in grades 1–5, 95% in grades 6–8, and 97% in grades 9–12. Data from the PISAtesting program showed, however, that the more time children spent on computers at home, the lower test scores they were likely to earn. Analysts estimated that much of the home time was spent on computer games and Internet chatting that contributed nothing toward test performance. In contrast to the PISA evidence, a study in the U.S. found that children with computers at home—but no television sets in their bedrooms—earned higher test scores.
The damaging effects of excessive television viewing on school performance were assessed in a New Zealand long-term study; researchers found that the watching of TV for more than three hours daily by children and teens was strongly associated with their failure to finish high school.
Problems caused by students' carrying cell phones motivated school officials to restrict or ban cell phone use. Teachers complained that mobile phones in classrooms diverted students from learning tasks and interrupted class sessions by ringing at inopportune times. In Britain 1,013 penalties were imposed on students who used cell phones inappropriately, a 16% increase over the previous year. More than 2,500 British students had their test scores reduced because they had cheated, with the 9% rise in cheating partly due to students' using mobile phones' text messaging features to seek answers from classmates.
To cope with a shortage of teachers in the U.S., more than 1,000 schools imported more than 1,900 teachers from abroad, thereby continuing a recruiting practice that accounted for more than 10,000 foreign teachers in the country's public elementary and secondary schools and another 5,000 in charter and private schools.
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Comments: 6
If will ever be a time for it , I don't know. But since these are part of today's student lifestyle , there is no reason to lose hope that one day it can come true.
As Virginia's vignette with the parent calling their child about their grandmother's death points out, sometimes parents do not exercise their responsbility correctly -- and the profileration of mobile communication technology has not helped.
For instance, in addition to Virgina's story, college students can now more readily call their parents with cell phones since they are so cheap to use. Now parents are spending time coddling their children by calling their professors to complain about how they are actually making their children work and grow. I am sure that many professors shutter when they get a call from a student's parent... How does this help the student?
Further, as it is back to school time, the media has reported on how much the average family has to spend to send a child to school -- elementary, secondary, and post-secondary. Aside from the normal school supplies and apparel, parents are now having to buy their children cell phones and laptops. Since when did a computer lab or a computer that one can rent cheaply from their college or university cease to suffice? Why did we have to trump the expensive graphing calculator for advanced high school math as the high dollar item? All of these expenses are hindering many people from pursuing educational opportunities, and this further contributes to a burgeoning gap between to the "haves" and "have nots" that Laura Ackroyd alludes to in her comment on the "Global Trends in Higher Education" article.