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Impact of Technology On the Educational System Information

Shortly after the internet explosion of the 1990s, technology was immediately integrated into the classrooms.

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Educational implications

The student teacher dynamic has drastically changed since the introduction of technology based class structure. The instructor is no longer the king of the classroom but rather a middleman between information and student. Instead of a passive sponge soaking up knowledge, the student has now become an active informational architect, procuring, rearranging and displaying information. Two-thirds of teachers surveyed at the turn of the century stated that they were not comfortable using technology, leaving tech-savvy students in a position to assist the teacher in technology based lesson plans.

Technology as a means for cheating and plagiarism

A quantified case study by Christine Jocoy of California State University, and David DiBiase of the Pennsylvania State University, observes plagiarism among the adult learners of an online geography course offered through Penn State's World Campus Geographic Information Systems (GIS) certificate program. Findings of the Braumoeller and Gaines Survey of 2001 show that for every two classes, in a student size of 151, 13% of students per semester copied material verbatim and with poor paraphrasing from web sources. The main concern is the issue of cutting and pasting (transferring data, files, objects, photos, information and material, etc. from one source directly to a destination). With the wide variety of sources that everyone has at their fingertips through the internet, it is easy and tempting for students to cut and paste, and difficult for teachers to locate and identify plagiarized sources. Educators are turning to Turnitin.com, a web site for students to upload assignments for teachers to view with a built-in plagiarism filter coherent with the web.

Effects on children

Technology base educational videos and games are being integrated into the lives and classrooms of new generations. These videos and games are meant to be used as tools to help growing minds develop, and to increase knowledge and awareness. Videos such as Baby Einsteins line of infant DVDs are a topic of conflicting interest, according to the University of Washington study of infant vocabulary is slipping due to educational baby DVDs.

Published in the Journal of Pediatrics, a 2007 University of Washington study on the vocabulary of babies surveyed over 1,000 parents in Washington and Minnesota. the study found that for every one hour that babies 8–16 months of age watched DVDs and Videos they knew 6-8 fewer 90 common baby words than the babies that did not watch them. Andrew Meltzoff, Ph.D, a surveyor in this study states that the result makes sense, that if the baby's 'alert time' is spent in front of DVDs and TV, instead of with people speaking, the babies are not going to get the same linguistic experience. Dr. Dimitri Chistakis, another surveyor reported that the evidence is mounting that baby DVDs are of no value and may be harmful.

The digital revolution hit generation z, also known as the digital generation of youth with a new way of interacting with the world and with their own identities. Social networking websites, such as Facebook are tools by witch the digital generation as a means of assessing their culture. Michel Rich, an associate professor at Harvard Medical School and executive director of the center on Media and Child Health in Boston said of the digital generation, "Their brains are rewarded not for staying on task, but for jumping to the next thing, and the side effects could linger:the worry is we're raising a generation of kids in front of screens whose brains are going to be wired differently."

Neurological changes

Angelika Dimoka, Director of the Center for Neural Decision Making at Temple University in Philadelphia pronounced, "With too much information, people's decision;s make less and less sense." Neurological differences shape the brain of youth, reading and writing are taking a back seat to scrolling and clicking, 80% of families did not buy or read a book in 2007. ADD (Attention Deficit Disorder) has been linked to prolonged exposure of abundant information, 15% of elementary students are on psychotropic medications and by college, 40% of students are taking prescribed medicine. fMRIscans revealed that activity in the dorsolateral prefrotal cortex(a region behind the forehead responsible for decision making and emotional control) increased as information was added to a decision until it reached a critical mass and cognitive overload when the activity abruptly subsided.

Positive effects of technology and education

The Internet itself has unlocked a world of opportunity for students. Information and ideas that were previously out of reach are a click away. Students of all ages can connect, share, and learn on a global scale. Succession at difficult technological tasks, as well as social networking such as Facebook can also lead to improved self-esteem. The environmental aspects of e-mail and online drop boxes are the most compelling argument. Branches, trees, and forests are saved everyday, let alone the countless resources no longer wasted to harvest the paper crop. Students in school today are constanly surrounded by technology, we live in a technological society. Utilizing these technologies is the best way to reach out to students. Many students have different types of learning styles and using different types of technology is a great way to help all kinds of learners.

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