Technologys benefits in the classroom

Technology has impacted business for a while, but little has been said on education which is quite sad, however teachers are starting to explore things such as blogs and forms of social software. Which is a great start for education not only is it motivating students to want to learn but it is creating opportunities to open more doors for learning that pen and paper can not achieve.

The article talks about blogging finding a home in education; this journal encourages students to keep a record of their thinking over time, if we wanted to extend this further we can easily see that blogging also has advantages of students sharing what they learnt, or teachers posting main thoughts of the day or even assignments, it can be used to publish work online, or even show work in progress.

But the power of blogs do not stop there, they provide a wide world audience, this world wide audience aims to motivate children, showing their work to a wide audience provides meaningful learning. Not only can we read these blogs but anyone can comment, allowing for collaboration to take place outside of the classroom, it provides a link for parents to see and comment on what children are doing, it allows teachers to see and communicate with the children and more importantly it allows children to comment on other peoples blog this collaboration allows for multiple perspectives, but it also allows children to critically think and in some cases critique a peers work, these are critical skills that children will take beyond school.

This article states that 7 year old children are in the UK are blogging, not only does this mean that you are never too young to start, but it is showing just how digital we are becoming, if 7 year olds are blogging imagine what they can and possibly will be doing by the time they finish school. Blogging is a great way for children to collaborate and re think their ideas outside of school, it allows them to think about what they are going to write and how they will comment before they actually do, and this makes the experience a lot more meaningful. It provides the shy person the confidence and the ability to share their opinion.

The article goes on to talk about podcasting, and I agree podcasting has become a popular technology in education, however in my belief it is still not used enough. The article states that it is a great way of pushing educational content to learners; I agree that children are much more likely to want to create a podcast rather than writing an essay. However I do not believe the benefits do not stop there, podcasts enable children’s oral development to strive, and this is a vital skill that is taken outside of the classroom, one that they will communicate with everyday so by doing podcasts children are learning the ability to communicate effectively. Just like blogging podcasts are providing students with a wider audience. Podcasts are so easy to use, all that is required is a computer and the relevant software, with this type of equipment and the results that can be achieved it makes sense to podcast. However a lot of schools do not have a lot of computers let alone the relevant software to podcast and it is a lot to ask homes to purchase the right software. However podcasting is emerging into education this can be seen through Apples section of podcasting has a category for education, however I believe schools need to follow suit and start introducing podcasts.

The article goes on to Media sharing, and the photo site Flickr, Flickr provides a valuable resource for students and teachers looking for images. These images are suitable for educational use as they carry a creative commons license; this along with tagging of images makes it easier to find relevant pictures. Not only can we find pictures but students can publish their digital photography, students can also comment on each others work and the wider community can also comment.

These new technologies being incorporated into education aren’t to be looked over lightly; they provide a collaborative, motivating, challenging learning environment that allows children to be in charge of their own learning, making it meaningful. Children aren’t to be passive learners anymore they want to be engaged and they want to learn and the fact is that we live in a digital world where children learn a lot from the internet, they would rather watch television than read a book, embracing this technology will motivate students and help them learn effectively.

Reference: http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/e-learning_20.php