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Technology in the classroom is a fiercely debated topic. While some believe it can be a useful learning tool, others think it can act as a distraction and have a ‘it wasn’t like that in my day!’ mentality. If this is your current way of thinking, here are a few points that might change your mind.
Makes learning fun
One of the best ways to encourage children to learn is to make it fun and enjoyable. And technology can certainly do this, whether it’s improving their spelling or learning their times-table– apps and games will make this much more enjoyable than more traditional methods. Learning can’t always be fun and games, but it shouldn’t feel like torture to kids either. Make it enjoyable, especially for younger kids and you’re likely to get much better results and interaction. Even ‘fun’ games like sport or car games can provide kids with real-world skills such as improved focus and concentration, hand-eye coordination, and much more.
Keeps them engaged
When learning is made more fun it’s more likely to keep kids engaged. But on top of this, technology can provide different styles of learning which could suit different children better. For example, some will like to learn by interactive games and pushing buttons, others might do better by listening with things like stories and others might prefer watching videos. Often, it’s a combination of all of these things which will provide the best experience, and technology is able to offer all of these different styles with ease. When you were a child, chances are any educational videos you watched in school had to be wheeled in on a huge, out of date fuzzy television on a trolley. Think how much more convenient modern technology makes learning for kids today.
Keeps information up to date
We live in a world that’s ever-changing, and keeping up to date in the information we provide to children is essential. By the time books are written, published, and distributed, information could have changed. Using technology and utilizing the internet instead ensures that we’re teaching the most recent and relevant information and it can easily be updated if needed. Online scholarly books and journals will always provide the most recent sources compared with textbooks. How many times in your school life did you have to study from a dusty old book that had been knocking around for a decade or more?! Current learning shouldn’t be this way.
Prepares them for the future
Technology is here to stay, and the world our children will grow up in will look significantly different to how it did when we left school. They will absolutely need to know how to use tech, understand things like coding, know how to keep themselves safe online, how to research effectively on the internet and so much more. Organizing tech activities like animation, graphic design, and coding for kids at an earlier age can greatly aid their development. For this reason, making technology and the internet an everyday thing for them now will benefit them later down the line.
There’s no point a child leaving school with a head full of knowledge about the world but no real-life practical skills such as how to work different kinds of technology. We need to plan ahead, keep their skills up to date, and ensure they have the foundation knowledge in their minds so that they can understand things as they continue to develop.
There’s no doubt about it, children need technology in the classroom. It doesn’t have to completely outweigh more traditional methods- things like writing by hand and working out sums on paper are always going to come in handy. But we can’t overlook that the world has, and still is, changing and the way our children learn need to reflect this.