Since the creation of the internet in the early 1990s, the development of new kinds of technology has exploded, whether it is a new cellphone, laptop, gaming systems, or even mobile applications. But, due to of all of this advancement in technology, today’s society has developed the stigma that children from recent generations are too concentrated on their mobile devices or even just use technology in general way to often versus that of people from previous generations. Due to this vast development of technology, it is quite obvious that a debate would arise on the use of technology in the education of our youth and whether or not it is more beneficial than it is hurtful. This debate has gained quite a bit of attention as public and private schools alike have begun to pour more and more money into installing new forms of technology in learning environments and providing students with online resources such as online schooling and online textbooks. Although technology can be a major contributing factor in distracting students from their school work if not used correctly, it plays a much, much more important role in helping students take their education to new levels. The number of new things that students are able to accomplish with the assistance of technology involved can drastically improve the quality of the education that the students receive versus the education that their parents and even grandparents had the opportunity to receive.  

Many public and private schools put millions and millions of dollars into new technology such as smart boards, tablets, and personal laptops, but one key component that they are missing out on is training for instructors to properly be able to teach students. This training is ultimately the deciding factor on whether or not students benefit from the use of technology. As Mike Dorsey, a director of secondary curriculum, said, “…it’s not about new toys. It’s about teaching kids to think.” (Madda) Although all of this new technology in school’s costs lots and lots of money, this use of the technology also has various different ways of saving money as well and we all know that learning institutions like to save money whenever they can. (Whiteside) The schools can use “virtual field trips” to educate kids on certain places without having to put in the exuberant resources that it takes to transport possibly hundreds of students for an actual field trip. The schools can also use electronic forms instead of paper forms, e-mail memos, create virtual learning labs, use electronic textbooks, called e-textbooks, and use many, many other resources to not only save money, but to also help cut down on paper waste that the school contributes to the local environment. For example, the Darla Moore School of Business at the University of South Carolina has areas that are designated as “flyer free zones” in the school. These zones have TVs in them that flyers are cycled through on a PowerPoint slide so that there are not hundreds of different flyers scattered everywhere that create an unnecessary mess and waste. By saving so much money and preventing so much waste, technology is helping improve learning environments for students in schools. 

Continuing on with the idea that an instructors training with the technology that is provided in their classroom is the deciding factor on whether or not the students are going to succeed, Kentaro Toyama, a former Microsoft employee enforces this argument by saying “It is not the technology itself that helps or harms students, it is the technology augments already in place” (Meiksins). Toyama decided to create a team and take his study across the world to schools in India. First, they created a new technology known as “Multipoint” which is a software that is “affordable and effective” and is sold by Microsoft. The first school that Toyama’s team completed their study in was a well establish, high ranking school. The team made themselves easily available to the instructors and offered any assistance that was necessary. The results of the study showed that with the proper reinforcement from the team, students demonstrated much success when using the new technology. But, when the team chose to study the technology in a struggling, poor schools they found the complete opposite results than those from the previous study. The schools showed a decrease in the productivity of student’s performance due to the fact that instructors spent most of their time troubleshooting the technology they were provided rather than using the technology to teach the students, wasting valuable class time. Whenever the team focused their study on students that were homeschooled, it was not so much of a monetary issue that impacted the students’ performance as it was just the student’s personal ambition to learn the material. Therefore, the study showed that if a student was motivated with their school work then they were able to benefit from the technology they used. But on the contrary, if the student was not very motivated, they ended up just being distracted by the entertainment that they could get from other uses from technology, such as online games. The benefit of this study that Toyama conducted was that it proved that technology can be a huge benefit with proper funding in schools and also when there is a motivated student behind the technology. 

Improving education and test scores in highly populated classrooms such as basic entry level courses with over one hundred students is the goal of many universities across our nation and many nations around the globe. With the implementation of different kinds of technology and online resources in classrooms, instructors are better able to get feedback from their students and communicate better with them as well. For example, “iClickers” give instructors the ability to create polls that students can answer individually and the instructor automatically receives the results of the answers via their computer, so they can determine whether or not their students are grasping a topic that they just discussed in class. Students can also use various online resources such as websites, online tutorials, and various online resources to help them understand a topic better if they aren’t fully able to grasp the concept behind it. Also, the students are able to contact their instructor after school hours via email or other online resources so that they can discuss a problem that they have or even just to get some “one on one tutoring” even if they are not technically meeting with their instructor face to face. These benefits that technology provides to the students assist universities in improving the quality of their large basic level lecture courses. (Whiteside)

Not only are students better off when they are better able to communicate with their instructor outside of school hours, but also in the case of younger children, parents are also able to communicate better with their children’s instructor. This may not be the case for higher level education, but in the lower levels such as elementary school and middle school this is a huge deal. Instructors are able to contact student’s parents directly regarding behavior issues, student’s participation in class, or even if it is positive feedback on how their child is doing. With this communication between teachers and parents, the parents are able to make sure that their children are staying on track with their school work and with their expectations for behavior in the classroom and outside of the house in general. (Whiteside)

Another benefit that has been gained from the progression of technology in recent years is the rapid development of online schooling. (OEDb) Students of all ages are able to benefit from the use of online schooling whether it is for a high school dropout trying to get a GED, a college student trying to graduate early, or even if it is just somebody trying to learn a new language. About three million people in the United States are currently enrolled in online degree programs and about six million people have taken at least one online class as part of their degree program. The variety of programs and courses that students are able to take online has expanded over the last few years so now people are able to earn every academic degree possible from an associate to a doctorate degree without always having to physically attend a classroom. On top of there being a extensive list of courses they can take, the courses that are offered are also usually cheaper than traditional classes at a university. These classes also tend to be more convenient because students are able to do the work on their own time instead of during a scheduled time period, but many say that online classes do consume more personal time that traditional classes do. Many middle-aged adults that already have a career in a field are able to utilize the benefit of online courses while they also work their full-time job, so they are able to further their education and most likely will eventually attempt to get an even better job or move up in the ranks of the company they already work for. But, one downside of online courses is that if the students are not able to manage their time well, then these classes could hurt them more than they could help due to the fact that it makes it much easier to procrastinate or just not utilize resources they have. (Montgomery) These online courses provide sensible evidence as to why technology is helping shape the way that people are able to obtain a better education without having to attend a physical classroom. 

If you were to look back at the world just a meager 20 years ago, you would easily be able to tell that the world is more connected now than it ever has been. You can send a text or email to somebody on the other side of the globe and it will arrive in just seconds and you can even talk to somebody on the cell phone that is just across the globe with only a few second delay. With this astounding advancement in communication technology across the globe, logically comes the advancement of students being able to learn of current information. Instead of students learning of a major scientific advancement that NASA has just uncovered in space a few days later via the newspaper, they can get information on this advancement in a matter of minutes via a news alert from their phone or seeing NASA itself tweet about it from their personal Twitter account. With the ability to gather information on current events so much easier and sooner in today’s generation, students are able to education themselves in current world events more than they have ever before whether it’s on politics, medical advancements, space exploration, or any other topic. (Brown)

Adding on to the theory that worldwide technology influences how students are able to educate themselves with current events across the globe, another benefit that stems from recent advancements in communication is the fact that students can communicate with one another. With this new-found ability, students are able to work together on projects and assignments without having to physically meet up with one another. Of course, there are still times when it is necessary for students to meet up with one another, but it is not always required now that the students can send a quick text message or an email to communicate. But, one downside that comes with this easier communication is what many refer to as “texting language.” With this new increase in the ability to communicate people have begun to create shortcuts to typing such as “k” meaning “Okay,” “gtg” meaning “got to go,” and many, many more than one can even try to write down. Many instructors have stated that this new increase in texting language in student’s personal lives has begun to affect how they write papers in their school work. Not only do students tend to make simple spelling errors but many people say that their works has a whole tend to have a larger volume of grammatical errors as a whole without even noticing that they are committing these mistakes. Even though many instructors have gone on record to say how this “texting language” is affecting how their students type, they admit that the benefit of students being able to connect with one another so much easier outweighs the negative impact of the grammatical errors. (hands on)

Although it is true that technology is an overall beneficial thing when it comes to student’s education, it is also true that there is naturally going to be some downsides to it as well. Researchers from the University of California Los Angeles conducted a study in 2014 on how student’s social skills were hampered by the amount of time they spent looking at a screen. The researchers started by taking two groups of sixth graders at a camp and giving them a pre-test and allowed one group to use technology as usual and then virtually cut the other group off from all technology. After the week was up both groups had to take a post test and the results showed that the group that was limited in their screen time had made significant improvements over the other students. The good news is that if students use interactive learning on technology versus just using it for entertainment, it is shown that they can improve their learning. When the students use interactive technology, versus just passive screen time, for academic work they are more likely to interact with people around them, work more cooperatively, and develop skills that are valuable in the 21 century such as how to operate technology that is possibly going to be used in the work place by the time they reach the age when they will be in the work force. (huffington post)

Many people have their own opinions on whether or not technology benefits the education of today’s youth, but the fact is that the benefits simply do outweigh the negatives of technology. Whether you are looking at online classes, improvements in communication, or making large class sizes seem much smaller, technology is helping how our students learn every day. But, although we would like to think that there is, there is no true way to measure if technology really helps students or hurts them because we cannot find correlation between the two but we can only speculate. Due to the lack of a method of being able to truly measure the effects of technology on the education of our youth, the argument of “Is technology hurting education?” will remain mostly an opinionated argument rather than a factual. Ultimately it is up to the personal beliefs and values of the person that is being asked the question. So, with that being said, do you think technology is benefiting the education of our youth or doing more harm than good? 
