Technology is changing the face of America’s classrooms. Education experts believe that the classroom of the future will have no textbooks and that students will submit assignments through the school’s Web site, as opposed to turning them in on paper. An experimental program at Lilla G. Frederick Pilot Middle School, Boston, Mass., offers a glimpse into this technological future, with 650 of the schools’ students receiving a laptop each morning and returning it at the end of the school day. With these laptops, students use animated education software in which, for example, they compete for high scores by completing mathematical equations.
The school’s principal says that since the inception of the program two years ago, average attendance has increased from 92% to 94% and that discipline referrals fell by 30%. Students at various levels work in the same classroom, and teachers can tailor their teaching to each student’s weakest area. In addition, parents have been more engaged in their children’s education since the laptops were introduced. These are all encouraging results of bringing technology into the classroom, but are the students actually learning more or just being more entertained?
Technology can be a useful tool in the classroom by keeping students engaged in the lessons that they are being taught. But what happens at the end of the day when the laptops must be turned in? Students will have no textbooks to bring home to do homework or read what will be discussed in class the next day. Assignments might be on the school’s Web sites, but what of the students who have no Internet access at home? And what happens when students need to solve a problem with pencil and paper, but they only know how to solve it using a computer? Technology in the classroom can only enhance education if it is used it in conjunction with conventional teaching. Only then will the full promise of technology in the classroom be realized.
