Technologies and education (22/09)

It is a reality that we live in a technological world.  As Tony Blair said: “technology has revolutionised the way we work as it is now set to transform education. Children cannot be effective in tomorrow’s world if they are trained in yesterday’s skills.”

In Great Britain, teachers have a laptop each one, not children as we are used to.

Actually, we have too many differences between old classrooms and new ones. We have more technologies in classrooms, as interactive whiteboards but they are used as a classic blackboard. Students’ tables are exactly in the same position than in old schools, even the teacher’s position in the room (she is the centre of the teaching and learning process). That organisation does not promote modern methodologies.

Actually, we can not run away from technology, we need it in our daily lives. As teachers, we must introduce technology in our classrooms. 

In class, we saw a video where some pupils used an internal net so they were more motivated to talk in an internal forum because they knew that they could share their materials and they made a bigger effort in their tasks because their essays and tasks would be publish, without any kind of punishment.

Nowadays, we have internet in daily live and a lot of new developments. We can expend huge amounts of money, but this would be a waste of money if if these technologies are not use as they were thought.

I leave here a video where some students explain their ideas about what will school look like in the future. If you have difficulties in understanding the video, remember that you can connect the subtitles.