Technology And Technology

Media culture and technologies influence on curriculum in the classroom over the last 20 years has been astronomical. The increase in the use of multimedia and technology in our everyday lives has become a major influencer on the way students and teachers navigate within their classrooms. This has created a sense of urgency to incorporate this new tech culture into the classroom. With so many advancements and ideas for the facilitation of technology in the classroom, there are a number of seemingly outlying factors that contribute to technologies successful incorporation and use. When technology is seen as a valuable collaborative tool in the eyes of the students and educators it can aid in student learning, understanding, and lesson facilitation. When technology is not seen as a valuable collaborative tool its implementation and use is stagnant. The perception and attitudes of teachers play a major role in the success or failure of the introduction and implementation of technology in classroom.

The effect of the creation of the internet on individuals is hard to quantify. While it has led to many positive changes for society, many would argue it has only complicated our lives, but the increased access to learning and cultural resources and information is difficult to ignore as a source of self-improvement. In the essay “Project Classroom Makeover” Cathy Davidson discusses how students born in the information age interact differently with learning because of their experiences on the internet. Thomas Lethem also posits that changes in our environment, like the creation of the internet, change the art that we create in his essay “The Ecstasy of Influence: A Plagiarism.” Even with these great resources, human nature does not always tend towards the self-improvement made possible by the internet and humans often self-organize to avoid it. In the essay “The Myth of the Ant Queen” Steven Johnson discusses how humans tend to group themselves up in ways that keep different types of people separate and aim to minimize personal growth and improvement. Fighting against this human tendency towards complacency, the internet has created incredible opportunity for individuals to improve themselves by learning and expanding their minds through access to global culture, free information, and instant social interaction without borders. Despite this, many people have ended up in internet communities where they do not see global culture, are given false information, and have interactions with only a very ideologically limited set of people. This can lead people to become more misinformed and hostile to ideas other than their own, so to fully take the opportunity granted by the internet, individuals must push themselves to not settle into any such narrowly defined community and to use the resources given to them. To understand why this self-motivation is so important, it is important to first understand how much opportunity the internet and technology provide.

Emphasis within the workforce has shifted within the last century: from building weapons and machinery to support the war effort to working 9 to 5 jobs to support a family in the rising population, work had a purpose. However, as society settles into a century of peace, a number of issues have arisen that has challenged success within the workforce. Some of those issues include technological advancements and overworking. As society pushes forward scientific advancements, technology continues to take over skill-less jobs, such as cashies, while employees’ tendencies to overwork increases as the pressure to succeed increases.

Technology is said to make us more connected. We can text people who live miles away from us to stay in touch and talk to them now daily. With all the new apps to connect us with people like Facebook, Snapchat and Instagram are they just stopping us from really socializing with people face to face? Some people even go to the extreme to say they have made us more alone than ever. From far away or even from the next room technology has connected people all over the world.

Technology, such as cell phones, ruins human interaction. As a teenage user of this expeditious technology, I have concluded that this consumable “must have” item of our time destroys the peaceful tradition of social contact. People today find it hard to talk to others in person. They fidget, avoid eye contact, and on some cases lack the want of any social attention. These accumulating flaws of our human interactions are the doing of our praised technology,  as many have proven through research. Previous generations did not have this problem. Our ostensibly innocent pieces of technology has molded ourselves into people who struggle  to have decent interactions amongst others. Our deceivable devices may seem like they are not doing any harm, but technology is indeed ruining simple human interactions with one another.

All children develop at different rates. However, they all develop in the same way. There are four major areas in which children develop and learn skills. They develop socially, emotionally, physically, and intellectually. The way children develop with their social and emotional skills tend to go hand in hand. All these ways that children develop can be effected by the use of technology in some way. With the increase of technology, the willingness of parents in letting their children use it increases. “But there’s still so much we do not yet know about the uses or misuses of new technologies” (Farber). “Diagnoses of ADHD, autism, coordination disorder, developmental delays, unintelligible speech, learning difficulties, sensory processing disorder, anxiety, depressions, and sleep disorders are associated with technology overuse, and are increasing at an alarming rate” (Rowan). These disorders can also affect the child in all the areas in which their minds develop and can be a hard battle for the children to fight.

How does technology affect our society? In “Technology use and learning characteristics of students in higher education: Do generational differences exist?” Kwok-Wing Lai and Kian-Sam Hong discuss the impact of technology and how it continues to grow and thrive in our society; however, it constructs a complicated part of young people’s lives that the current generation of students has a different approach of thinking and learning from their predecessors. For example, Lai states “In 2009, 8-18 year olds spend an average of four and a half hours daily utilizing technology digital technologies out of school” (Lai 725). Lai argues technology experiences will definitely affect the approach an educator communicates, socializes, and learns. Since Lai utilizes credible evidence, his argument is credible. Furthermore, he was able to successfully ignite his readers. Technology can produce both a negative and positive impact the way a student learns; however, if technology is excluded in higher education, it can become a negative impact on student success.

The feeling of being compelled by our smart phones and other devices is beginning to affect much more than just our mental and physical health. The impact of our advanced technology and popular culture has created maybe the most noticeable diversion to take place yet, between family. Both factors contribute to this rising division regarding the means and roles in which children and parents play, meanwhile also redefining those same lines between each other. Over the decades, our promoted television shows have sent messages to children who watch television, which is a majority, that our parents are incompetent, clueless by the means of parenting, and self-centered. This implement is resulting in the limitation of communication and understanding between children and parents. So while kids stop listening to their parents because they “don’t know what they're talking about” means it creates a whole new level of difficulty as they now lack any sort of authority, in the children’s point of view at least, to monitor their use.  Common sense seems to dictate that the use of any high-tech device around family and friends, not only results in losing quality time in which one can bond and grow and learn about one another, but also isolating yourself into your own world. In “How Is Technology Affecting Your Family”, Rosemary Strembicki goes on to talk about the ways in which the overconsumption of technology has resulted in the separation between interpersonal relationships and even

Social media tools and electronic communication provide a variety of opportunities to learn, teach, communicate with students and communicate with colleagues. In this digital world, technology can help students access assignments, resources and, it can help them to connect with learning communities all over the world. The concern raised through discussions with fellow BTM students is that upon entering university, students noticed that professors were not using technology as much as they could. Students found that when they compared their high school experiences with technology in the classroom to their university first year classrooms, they noticed that some of the university classrooms were not using technology to enhance the student’s learning to its full potential. (Bowden, 2016), The purpose of this report is to provide information to professors on ways that they can use technology in their classrooms more effectively to meet the needs of the 21st century learner.

Today, there are so many new developments in technology around the world. This means that the places we work in are changing as well. Things may be easier. As technology advances even more in the future, jobs may be more limited. People may need higher education. We may not even need people to do the jobs anymore. Robots might be doing it all!

Today, technology is everywhere, in every corner, in every turn, in every place; furthermore, everyone that has a connection with technology will agree with the concept that technology has benefited humankind in all kinds of facilities especially classrooms. The use of technology in classrooms has highly evolved into being used every single day. Few times before a couple years back; just maybe a teacher would allow someone to apply a device's capability to accomplish work in class. Now, however, times are different and everything is changing; moreover, technology is now being used in classrooms to complete online assignments, for research for in class projects, being able to easily count attendance, and to complete the state exam test known as STAAR.

Today our lives are controlled by technology. We don’t control it, it controls us. More and more we find ourselves losing track of time on mobile devices, television or tablets. Little do we know that this overcoming of technology is not only affecting us, but it is affecting the children of our generation even more so.

I have heard it said many times that technology is going to be the downfall of us all, that someday we will wake up, and robots will be taking over the world. Technology will cause the world’s population to desocialize and break down! I have also heard that technology will start a new renaissance, a new age of human creativity and passion for the arts and sciences. And this idea is just as preposterous as the first. But how could that be, you might be asking. The answer is simple: it’s human nature. Humans have been doing the same thing they have been today for millennia, looking out for themselves, and that will not stop as soon as there is a large technological advancement. Brooking and Singer in their article War Goes Viral backs up this argument, with examples to how new advancements in technology have essentially weaponized social media, turning it into a tool to instill fear into others. Technology has only enabled humans to do what they do best, which is to defend themselves and push an agenda. That’s what it has ultimately boiled down to, and that’s what will always happen with any new technology. Society has been impacted by technology by enabling humans to connect to each other easier, and spread ideas and ideologies faster than before, at the cost of human selfishness and zealousness being more pronounced.

With technology giving us better methods of communication, modernized education and immediate answers to our every question, we use it on a daily basis with little comprehension of what is does to us; but is there a price to pay for that? As the Internet progressively becomes our primary source of information and the use of technology continues to increase, it is speculated that our neurological processes are changing. Although smartphones and other related mobile devices are seen as influential and efficient, it is now thought that these devices have a lasting negative impact on our ability to process information, think critically, remember clearly, and mostly, pay attention. With this new digital lifestyle making it difficult to stay focused on one thing at a time, the human attention span has shortened greatly in the last decade (Borreli). In his essay, “Is Google Making Us Stupid”, Nicholas Carr uses anecdotes, personal examples, and scientific studies to make the point that the Internet is affecting our critical thinking skills and ability to process information. In expansion from the argument that Carr makes to prove that the Internet is affecting certain mental abilities, it is important to question if and how technology and the Internet are also negatively impacting our attention spans.

In today’s society, technology has become a very useful and helpful part of education in our life. Traditional classroom methods do not provide a fun learning environment for kids. Using technology in the classroom has become very common in schools as it helps teachers to involve kids in learning activities. Software and programs, equipment such as laptops and virtual school systems are a few examples of technologies that teachers use to enhance students’ classroom experience. (Coleman, 13) Children learn very quickly from what they see and hear from their parents, family, T.V. or any other electronic multimedia device. (Baker, 72) In order to get the full attention of today’s generation and make them actively involved in learning, teachers should use some form of technology in the classroom to make learning fun and interesting. Multimedia projectors used by teachers from the preschool level create a visual connection. Through watching colorful pictures, stories and listening to music using multimedia tools, kids enjoy the environment and are encouraged to learn and absorb information. For example, the use of Smart Boards in the classrooms helps to boost activities involving students. Students from elementary school use the computer to increase the learning experience throughout the learning period, regardless of grade or subjects. Teachers can use some software programs to identify a