DISCLAIMER: I am writing this from a student's point of view. So this might be completely unhelpful. Or even more helpful than the viewpoint of a teacher. Either way, just take this with a grain of salt.
What's important is not necessarily the technology, but methods of teaching. Regardless of available tech, if you can get students interested in a subject, they will succeed. However, if you just give students a laptop, or a graphing calculator, they're going to be interested in the piece of equipment as opposed to the lesson. In fact, it will easily make your lesson less interesting. Therefore, the point is to use your resources to add to the lesson, not detract from it. Technology, and even computing equipment, can be used, but the way it is used is more important.
For example, if you're teaching about graphs of trig functions for the first time, it doesn't hurt to have students do something as simple as graphing the six functions on Wolfram|Alpha usin a smartboard and figuring out, "hey, the graphs of the cofunctions are just translations and/or reflections of the original trig function." In that case, their attention would be drawn towards the front, and they would actually be paying attention. Also, it would help them figure out things like that on their own.
However, if you tell them to graph it on their personal little TI-84's, it's almost as if you have given them an excuse to go off in their own world and start playing BlockDude on their calculators; their attention is immediately yanked away from you, the teacher, and toward some tiny little device in their hands, that will be a crutch, a distraction, and therefore a complete detriment to learning. Also, TI-84's just suck, because the time it takes to learn all the different functions, as well the time taken to input functions and such, is ridiculous for the small gains. Tech shouldn't be that (relatively) difficult to use and that easily distracting at the same time. And the very fact that you can put games on there makes is unsuitable for the classroom setting.
Hehe. I guess in certain cases, the tech used does make a difference. If you use tech that is easily used for distracting purposes (that iPhone that she's texting with? or that Mac that he's checking his FaceBook wall on?) it renders all you efforts to hold your students' attention useless. (Even if the class is so intricate that not paying attention for a second will cost them significant knowledge of the subject) It seems like common sense, doesn't it? Apparently most of my teachers didn't seem to get that.
Of course, in any discussion regarding technology and learning, the issue of PowerPoints comes up. As far as I'm concerned, teachers need a lesson on using powerpoint properly. Or maybe 30 lessons. Teachers more often than not make the fatal error of putting up every bullet that they're talking about in the powerpoint. This, again, detracts attention from you. Seriously, you could just put the powerpoint online and let us students take notes on it on our own time. There's a great powerpoint (haha) about this very issue at http://www.slideshare.net/GlobalGossip/steal-this-presentation-5038209
Quite simply, I agree with "pedantic bore". Tech for its own sake is useless for real learning. It's the method of getting students' attention toward a subject that really makes a positive difference.
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DISCLAIMER: I am writing this from a student's point of view. So this might be completely unhelpful. Or even more helpful than the viewpoint of a teacher. Either way, just take this with a grain of salt.
What's important is not necessarily the technology, but methods of teaching. Regardless of available tech, if you can get students interested in a subject, they will succeed. However, if you just give students a laptop, or a graphing calculator, they're going to be interested in the piece of equipment as opposed to the lesson. In fact, it will easily make your lesson less interesting. Therefore, the point is to use your resources to add to the lesson, not detract from it. Technology, and even computing equipment, can be used, but the way it is used is more important.
For example, if you're teaching about graphs of trig functions for the first time, it doesn't hurt to have students do something as simple as graphing the six functions on Wolfram|Alpha usin a smartboard and figuring out, "hey, the graphs of the cofunctions are just translations and/or reflections of the original trig function." In that case, their attention would be drawn towards the front, and they would actually be paying attention. Also, it would help them figure out things like that on their own.
However, if you tell them to graph it on their personal little TI-84's, it's almost as if you have given them an excuse to go off in their own world and start playing BlockDude on their calculators; their attention is immediately yanked away from you, the teacher, and toward some tiny little device in their hands, that will be a crutch, a distraction, and therefore a complete detriment to learning. Also, TI-84's just suck, because the time it takes to learn all the different functions, as well the time taken to input functions and such, is ridiculous for the small gains. Tech shouldn't be that (relatively) difficult to use and that easily distracting at the same time. And the very fact that you can put games on there makes is unsuitable for the classroom setting.
Hehe. I guess in certain cases, the tech used does make a difference. If you use tech that is easily used for distracting purposes (that iPhone that she's texting with? or that Mac that he's checking his FaceBook wall on?) it renders all you efforts to hold your students' attention useless. (Even if the class is so intricate that not paying attention for a second will cost them significant knowledge of the subject) It seems like common sense, doesn't it? Apparently most of my teachers didn't seem to get that.
Of course, in any discussion regarding technology and learning, the issue of PowerPoints comes up. As far as I'm concerned, teachers need a lesson on using powerpoint properly. Or maybe 30 lessons. Teachers more often than not make the fatal error of putting up every bullet that they're talking about in the powerpoint. This, again, detracts attention from you. Seriously, you could just put the powerpoint online and let us students take notes on it on our own time. There's a great powerpoint (haha) about this very issue at http://www.slideshare.net/GlobalGossip/steal-this-presentation-5038209
Quite simply, I agree with "pedantic bore". Tech for its own sake is useless for real learning. It's the method of getting students' attention toward a subject that really makes a positive difference.