Technology in classrooms could be holding us back

Caelan Saunders, Editor-in-Chief

By Caelan Saunders

Editor-in-Chief

I remember when I was younger, think elementary school, we had those big bulky overhead machines that teachers would use for math lessons and I honestly thought those were so cool.

I  had this one teacher, Ms. G, who obsessively used it in every single lesson. She would always have us volunteer collectively to do the problem on the overhead, and I, along with the rest of the class, was always clamoring to do it, not because we liked math, but because we wanted to write on the overhead. Most of the time we did the problem wrong and there was subsequent swearing under Ms. G’s breath as someone accidentally found the permanent marker and wrote all over the overhead in it, but we were entertained and participated and learned in the hands-on activities she would do with us. I mean, I feel like I know long division pretty well still so I’d say it was a success. It’s this type of learning, this hands-on interactive fad, that South is trying to emulate.

Now that we’re in an age of new technology, our school feels it’s vital that our teachers incorporate it as much as possible, in as many ways as possible. However, what good is it really if it ends up being a frustrating hassle for the teacher and leads to a wasted day of teaching?

What I’m talking about is the consistent and constant failures of our school’s technology. Whether this be the direct result of the equipment or the Wi-Fi, or the lack of experience of the faculty on these matters, many a day has been wasted trying to incorporate this technology into our education. The administration is constantly buckling down on teachers to use technology in their classrooms so students “connect more” and giving them a variety of ways to try to use it in lieu of regular assignments and typical lectures. You can feel the frustration within the faculty. Their bosses want them to use technology, but when they do, the wifi is down, or there’s no log on servers available, or the computers simply take half the class hour to log on. Students may be rejoicing at the thought of no work thanks to the faultiness of the school technology, but now teacher schedules are messed up and require rearranging because of this push for technology.

We’re not advancing or furthering anything if we’re going backwards. I do understand on behalf of the administration, however, why they want teachers to use the various equipment. Money was spent out of the school budget, a hefty chunk, to try to update our school and bring newer and more exciting ways to learn and do assignments, and the administration would like to see that the money is being put to good use. This type of reasoning makes sense to any sane and fiscally responsible person. Get your money’s worth from whatever you buy.

However this push for alternative technology assignments are more of a hassle and are easily an excuse for students to not turn assignments in on time. Places like StudySync that teachers are now using are dreaded by students. It’s often clunky and difficult to easily maneuver when you have to switch between the article and the prompt and the response itself, and it ends up being homework when something almost inevitably goes wrong with the computers. Then students can and will feign technological problems at home with StudySync and the like in order to not have to turn it in. What a headache. When this all probably could’ve been done with a regular run-of-the-mill paper assignment. Either we need to start being more proficient and capable in our use of technology, or we need to stop pushing this technology that isn’t working… for anyone.