Classes shouldn’t integrate tech devices

For courses at any educational level in which technological devices such as laptops, tablets, and smartphones are not necessitated by the curriculum, their forced integration can decimate any chance of effective learning.

It is nice in theory for various reasons, but the reality is technological devices in traditional classrooms are negative. Some of the most prominant reasons are that students are likely to fail rudimentary tasks, they are more isolated in their thinking, and they are less motivated to learn.

Students are likely to fail rudimentary tasks

I help tutor fourth graders in math during the week. I am constantly amazed by how intelligent they are, in fact I have to keep on my toes otherwise they will be tutoring me soon.

One day a very smart student asked me to help them with part of a problem, “What is five times four?”

Wait, what? That is something a fourth grader should know in their sleep. I asked her to work on it more before asking for help and she said, “I can’t figure it out because I don’t have a calculator.”

It was not an isolated instance as many other students simply could not multiply either — all of them inherently very smart individuals.

Not only do children rely on calculators for all their multiplication, they also are failing at other rudimentary tasks. According to a survery applied by over 2,000 mothers, “58 percent of children ages two to five know how to play a basic computer game; conversely, 52 percent can ride a bike.”

Older kids and even adults are not exempt from this. When people talk about subjects like geometry, chemistry, and Earth science, I feel shameful.

Why? Because I know nothing about them. Why? Because my teachers always gave us laptops in school during class and I did nothing but play games along with everyone else in the class. This is on us, but also on the teachers, schools, and school district for not providing an environment conducive to active learning.

Students are more isolated in their thinking

One of the most lobbied positives of technology being intergrated with traditional classrooms is that it networks the students with an abundance of knowledge.

For example, in a college class in which we are allowed these devices, we can look up information that will help us in-class. But let’s be honest, 90 percent of us are primarily on Facebook during those classes. So what are we learning from the professor that we are tuning out to the sounds of friends’ Facebook posts?

So when it comes time to do an assignment out of class, we have to rely solely on our own thoughts since we don’t remember what the professor said. This is isolated thinking.

Students are less motivated to learn 

The following is an excerpt from “What Teachers Make,” a poem by Taylor Mali: “I make kids work harder than they ever thought they could. I can make a C+ feel like a Congressional Medal of Honor
and an A- feel like a slap in the face.

When technological devices become the primary source of learning, what is going to motivate them to do so? Because I and most other are not going to be motivated by a piece of plastic that is absent of any human element.

As a prospective teacher and someone who aspires to bring out the potential of the kids around me, I have nothing but their best interests in mind. So along with having to independtly re-teach myself the aforementioned subject, I am thinking about what is in the best interest of the students.

I might not like technology personally, but this belief is primarily built on the idea that I truly think technological devices in their classrooms, and ours in college, are having a huge negative impact on all our learning.