The importance of Technology in Education

Why Technology is important in Education????

Today, technology is the need of the day and one of the most discussed subjects of our everyday lives. Facebook, Twitter, computers, smartphones and now tablets are some of the words almost everyone recognizes. While most of you won’t have to further the knowledge you gained in various school subjects, you can’t do the same thing with your knowledge in technology. Why? Because technology is constantly evolving and you have to keep up with all the latest news.

As we are student teachers of Teofilo Kisanji University, we have a wealth of information from which to choose for our classrooms. We can now bring our knowledge and skills into the classroom through pictures, music, and other visuals to a degree never before possible. We can communicate with students from other countries, and we can take classes from teachers we have never met in places we have never been. We can apply the knowledge  and skills from the classroom to simulations available to us through the Internet, and we can develop projects across grade levels and campuses. Students are no longer limited by the walls of a classroom or the knowledge of a single textbook. The world is available to most classrooms, even when students do not have their own computers. We can bring the media into the classroom through visuals, sounds, smells, and tastes. Because our brains rely heavily on stimulus from the outside for learning, this is just one of the reasons that teaching with media is brain friendly. In addition, we should bring technology to the classroom

Because: Technology is not limited by the classroom walls. Technology does not know or care what the student’s socioeconomic status may be, and thus helps to level the playing field for these students. Technology provides an equal opportunity for everyone to learn. Technology is more in tune with the way our students learn today. Technology is so much a part of the real world that to limit its use in the classroom is to limit our students’ ability to compete in the world. But then;

You as student teachers, you should know that no matter what job you have decided to do, you must know how to use the computer and do various tasks in almost any operating system like Windows, Mac OS X, or even Linux sometimes! You must know how to use an office suite and maybe even more programs/applications, depending on your job. There is no need to say that all the institutions or schools have such requirements from their employees. You can already see the importance of knowing how to navigate yourself around an operating system. This is one of the main reasons why technology should be one of the main courses in schools, Colleges or University.

What’s more, subjects like history, economy and science, English language and even Kiswahili, would be done much more efficiently with the use of multimedia such as pictures, videos, graphs and more. Just by using projection screens, the lesson would instantly become less boring and students, especially the visual learners, would be able to absorb the material much easier. Today, it’s not enough just to know how to pass the information to children and adolescents in order to be a teacher. You have to know how to use an office suite and maybe even more programs/applications to do several tasks. You can’t just hand write some information, photocopy them and hang them to your students. You must know how to write documents on the computer and make spread sheets to keep an organized students’ database, among other, and this is just an example to see the importance of knowing how to use a computer. The teacher’s role is not just to read a book in the classroom. A student can do this by himself, or even use an online library, like Wikipedia, which will provide him a plethora of information anywhere, anytime. The teacher’s role is to help the students to understand his lesson, and this can be easily achieved by using multimedia. If a student sees his English language lesson on a video, he will learn things much easier than by listen to his teacher reading it or by reading the book.

Speaking of books, another advantage of technology is that there is no longer need for books. Instead of carrying dozens of books every day, students could just carry a laptop, net-book, tablet or e-book which will contain all their books, notes and projects and even a research. They weight far less than an average of 10 books and 10 notebooks that each student has to carry every day, they are more Eco-friendly (less trees cut) and less expensive.

Technology can also help to teach children that leave in remote areas without schools or teachers. Just by using a computer, students could watch lessons online and send their projects via email to a teacher who will check them and rate them. As a result, children who don’t have access in schools can be taught and make their dreams come true, no matter where they live. Not being able to realize your dreams because you live in a remote area is a form of racism after all! This has already begun in the Tanzania and even in other countries all around the world!

Furthermore, there are people who say that children are “spoiled” by technology. Regardless of these arguments, technology is an important part of today’s society. Therefore, by incorporating it into the classroom students will be better equipped to make the transition to the workplace. In addition, studies have shown that children conversant with technology show improvements in their writing, reading and math skills.

Overall, I don’t write this to say that teachers in school are not important or that everything can be done just by using computers. It shouldn’t be ignored though, that all workplaces now require from the employees to know how to do certain tasks on a computer and that by familiarizing their students with technology, teachers can prepare them for what’s ahead of them. As they say, details make the difference, so having that little extra piece of knowledge could help you succeed.

Your sincerely,

 @ Brother Jaribu Amry.