No Computers in the Classroom!

Ever since my first day of school we were trained and instructed on the art of reading and writing, and sadly to say those days shall never be lived again. Instead of writing in a few years young children will be typing and the time and practice that it takes to master writing will not be necessary anymore because it will be a dead art. Why is old fashioned pencil and paper not good enough anymore? If we have computers what do we need teachers for anyway? These questions are often asked by my peers and I because we can not see the value of computers in the classroom. Yes, in these ever changing technological days a new invention is like a common everyday occurrence, but sometimes technology creates more problems than it solves. As we place more faith into our computers and accessories that go along with them ( hard drives, zip drives, etc.) , we rarely realize how dangerous this is because what about when computers malfunction, the Internet goes down, or a viruses are enacted chaos is sure to ensue. Students will not be engaged with each other to communicate because with computers in classes like oral communication the only words ever said are through computer now. This means that a future President could have been born in a class, but for the lack of true oral communication he fails. Things like feedback in communication will become less common and things like the use of symbols and encoding will become the new way. Eventually turning us all into cyborgs in sense.

The first problem that computers pose in the classroom is that cheating will become more prevalent. Students will be able to navigate away from the test pages and go search for answers on the web, thus degrading the integrity of grades. Also the possibility of emailing answers or screen shots of test answers will continue the cheating and G.P.A.'s will be worth nothing anymore. According to nku.edu computers in the classroom will lead to more cheating because most teachers are veterans or of an older generation and student who know more about the technology will find ways to cheat.

Another issue that arises is the cost and efficiency of the software that goes along with the computers. On elsteachersboard.com the teachers give their argument on how computer software sometimes occupies the students more than educates them. They have come to the understanding that computers are tools in the classroom like books but they can not take the place of a good teacher, and in the classroom computers should not be for entertainment only education. Also with some of the expensive price tags on computers these days some schools may simply not be able to afford this technology and there students will not be able to keep up with the rest of the fold. This will lead to problems like mass transferring of students and problems of that nature to get better education, and the students that remain at the school with less technology will be at a disadvantage when college time rolls around.

Finally, it is a known fact that computers are not the most dependable entities on planet Earth. Sometimes when you are the last page of a term paper that has to be turned in, your computer blacks out and you have to start all over from scratch and your not the happiest camper in the vicinity. I will also infer that this is not the first time this has happened to a person and that it will not be the last. On a larger scale teachers sometimes plan a lesson out online for their students to part take in, but the Internet suddenly goes down and their lesson plans for the day are shot. So there is always an ere air around computers because you never really know what they are going to do.

To conclude, computers are not a big great evil of the world yet, but some of our growing trust and confidence should be checked by some of the information about the technology floating around out there. Computers have done many positive things for the world, but they also pose threats to education as we know it today. So I say be vigilant in the changes that go on to yourself and possibly children as we plunge further into the computer age.