Wondering how things have changed since your parents were at school? Let us peek back through time.
The internet did not exist in the eighties. Think about that for a second. The first websites were not released until the mid-nineties, which means that those of us around 40 years of age (older Millennials) remember a time when there was no internet. The first iPhone was not invented until 2008. We did not have tablets until much later than that.
The point is that the modern classroom has changed so much in the last two decades that we could not fit a timeline back to our grandparent’s days at school in if we tried. Let us choose to start with your parents, instead.
When our Parents Were at School…
In the 60s and 70s it was still OK for teachers to strike students in the classroom. School corporal punishment was dished out by teachers to encourage motivation and discipline. That is right, if your mom or dad turned up to school without their homework, they got smacked with a ruler over the back of the hands. In 1977 a lawsuit found that hitting students was constitutional, and the practice still exists in nineteen different US states. Reports suggest as many as 160,000 school children are submitted to school corporal punishment each year.
When your parents were at school, this was commonplace. There was no classroom computer and no Google to check answers with. Cheating on a test meant sneaking the answers in written somewhere sneaky. Alexa was not around to ask for help with your homework.
How Technology Aids the Modern Classroom
There should be no denying the efficacy of the internet as a learning tool. Yes, it is easy that our children do not have to go to the library and research facts about their passions and interests. Yes, it is not fair that they will never know the hatred of dial up internet or having to get off the phone so your mom could call her friend. But yes – This has led to teachers trying out new classroom management strategies to help better the education of our future minds.
Nowadays, the teacher can buy devices in a sample or bulk pack. She can pick up a 10 pack of headphones or other devices online. They can install computers or issue laptops to each student. We have the capabilities to do so. In fact, during home schooling in the middle of the pandemic, schools handed out laptops to poorer students to ensure learning could continue even when children were isolating in their homes.
Technology plays a huge part in the current learning experience in our classrooms. It allows students to learn by running digital simulations and studies. This lets them share and recreate experiments in the sciences or share topics for historical references at the drop of a hat. Kids have better communication, both with each other and with the teacher, since they can comment and interact in transparent ways.
The digital classroom provides a safe space where each child can be seen and heard. They can store and retrieve work using digital classrooms and might never lose a lesson again. Technology is improving the learning experience for every child in America. Progress will keep pushing it forward so that we can expect bigger and better tech solutions in the future of education.
