Jan
19
Education, Technology and Culture
January 19, 2008 | |
Education, technology and culture influence each other in a great manner. To what extent? Well, take a look inside the classroom. As a school, we struggle to keep up with students and technology. From cell phones (with everything in the world on them) to text messages to bluetooth. How does an educated but busy adult ever keep up with it all? Find a random person around your age and ask what a proxy is and how to get around it. Ask a student in 8th grade at my school and that student will give you a fairly detailed explanation.
Culture is influenced with the advances in technology. When I grew up, my brothers and I spent most of our free time outside. My mother didn’t expect us back in the house until it was dark. A lot of my students today spend their time at home on the computer or playing a game system. How has that changed our culture? Is this technology influencing culture or is culture influencing technology?
Education is influenced from advances in technology. When I first started teaching, technology was very limited in the classroom. The only technology in my first classroom was an overhead projector. Today, all my grades are kept on a computer. I have a desktop, laptop, Smartboard Airliner, mounted overhead projector and they are all connected to each other. I see how technology is influencing the culture of my classroom. It makes my life easier and students are more comfortable because they see what they are accustomed to, technology.
Technology is influenced by both education and culture. The more people utilize technology, the more of a demand for technology occurs. The more technology is used, the more culture is changed. The more culture is changed, the more education changes. To me, you can’t have one of these things without the other. You need education, technology and culture growing together.
Comments
1 Comment so far
I would have to agree with you that culture is influenced by technology. What we could once do using nothing but an overhead projector, we can now do with a tablet pc. I got a chance to use one in a lesson on isometric cube drawings and I had a lot of options at my fingertips to improve the lesson. Granted I could have done a more basic presentation with it, but the technology opened up new doors to try new things with the content.