Teaching Technologies Trend Upwards

Computer technology as an integral part of the classroom has officially moved from the realm of intimation to incontrovertible truth.

“All of our textbooks have codes that give you access to an online version,” says AJ Perez, a 16-year-old high school junior at Lassiter High School in Marietta. The benefit of this, he adds, is that if he ever leaves his book at school, he can always access the content from anywhere in the world.

This is just one of the litany of ways in which teachers, students and administrators are using computer technology, especially the Internet, to enhance and enrich education. The fact is that every day technology is becoming more important to public education, due not only to teachers’ evolving methods, but also to statewide initiatives.

According to the 2007 Technology Counts report, only two states do not have technology standards for students. In 2008 the Georgia Department of Education drafted the Georgia K-12 Technology Plan. In it, the Department of Education outlines ways for Georgia to increase the use of technology in schools in order to contribute to statewide goals for improving student achievement as well as to meet No Child Left Behind standards.

Goal No. 3 of the plan states that one of the purposes is to,

“Increase instructional uses of technology in order to incorporate 21^st Century technology and thinking skills in the Georgia curriculum.”

These goals are being set at a time when 95 percent of all instructional computers already have high-speed access, 49.5 percent of students have computers in the classroom and 77 percent of students have access to computers in labs or media centers. The plan allocates money to improve upon existing technological trends, such as the increasing amount of online courses, which opens up opportunities for students to take courses that would otherwise be unavailable to them.

Most classroom technologies in use today are paid online resources, such as Blackboard and TurnItIn.com, which teachers use to complement their curriculum. Perez claims that every paper he turns in now must first be submitted to TurnItIn.com, a website that cross-references the content of a student’s paper with information on the internet to ensure that there has been no plagiarism.

Experts can predict which technologies are likely to gain in future classroom usage, even if current hardware capabilities preclude widespread use.. Analysts expect that eBooks will begin to play a bigger role in public education, which will conserve the resources spent on textbooks and lighten the students’ backpacks. Some current limitations, however, are that most eBooks are currently black and white and lack the capability to reproduce some of the important graphics featured in textbooks.

Beyond the classroom, school clubs and organizations are making the most of technology. Kristy Cates, a journalism teacher at Lowndes High School in Valdosta, heads the schools literary magazine. Because of the nature of their publication, it is important that they are sure none of the student submitted work has been plagiarized. TurnItIn.com is Cates’s resource of choice.

Ted Huddleston, a teacher at Berkmar High School in Gwinnett, uses his school’s literary magazine website in many innovative ways that enhance the experience. For example, the magazine might print a poem or short story from a bilingual student with a note at the end to see the website for a translation. Additionally, many of the poems published are actually song lyrics. The website provides an opportunity for readers to hear the music that goes with the lyrics.

In addition to the utilization of technology, schools are also taking on the task of teaching technology to students. Most schools now teach keyboarding to students who do not already have the skill, and many schools provide classes that teach the basic skills needed for the Microsoft Office Suite.

Though schools are doing much to teach, utilize and provide new and exciting technologies to students, there is still a great deal of improving to do. The key is to find the right places and the right ways to use these new technologies, and every answer may not be a correct one. Schools spend thousands of dollars on computer labs equipped with expensive databases and software suites, which students like AJ Perez might use, “a few times a year.”