Journal # 9

Are Schools Inhibiting 21st Century Learning?
By Dave Nagel

This article focuses on the importance of incorporating technology in the classroom. Nagel explains how many teachers have the desire to use more technology in their classroom, but either do not have the knowledge or skill to incorporate it or want more direction as to how to use it with certain parameters. “Among middle and high school students, 40 percent indicated that teachers are limiting their use of technology in schools…..” (Nagel)
Many students now have relied and adapted to technology use for both personal and educational purposes. Nagel mentions how in today’s society that many students have surpassed teachers and parents in their sophistication of their use in technology. Which, is why it is significant for our nation to maintain the usage of technology in our educational system. Social networking is a tool that can be powerful in educational technology, in which students can have a way to collaborate with others and communicate.
Gaming, “a training technique in which the student is presented situations involving choice and risks. The choices and the consequences resemble real life situations, and the players are reinforced for various decisions. Gaming is typically an enjoyable learning method for the student”, has become extremely popular with kids today. According to surveys taken, the majority of middle and high school students feel that utilizing games as a way to learn makes it a lot easier to understand. Surprisingly, teachers were also very receptive to the idea. They felt that educational gaming” would be an effective tool for students with different learning styles and would help to engage the students in their coursework”.
Along with gaming, teachers and students felt that it would be effective if mobile technologies, such as, laptops, cell phones, digital media players, and other devices, were included in learning. The reason why they think this would be effective is because not only can they use these devices in the classroom, but they can also use them when they go home. For instance, if they have a project that is unfinished, they can take it home and finish it at home.

Questions
Why is it so important to incorporate technology in education today?
The importance of incorporating technology in education today is so that students can have the ability, skill, and knowledge, of how to utilize technological advances with anything that they do. Technology is becoming such a huge part of society today, that it would be a disservice to them if they were not taught it.

What is your feeling on gaming?
I think that using gaming to learn sounds like a great idea! I feel that when teaching it is important to keep the kids attention and interest and what better way to do it than this.