There is no doubt that technology has played and is playing a great part in the education of our children. They are capable of things that were once unheard of by their predecessors. However, the reliance of technology both in the classroom and out of the classroom is causing a hyper-cognitive response in their bodies by weakening their attention spans. These children are becoming increasing bored by traditional instructional methods so educators are having to step up to the task of creating more computer based instruction time to accommodate this new generation of technological minded intelligences.
Just sit in a sixth grade classroom while they work on a science worksheet about the solar system with a fill in the blank vocabulary list, and you will notice the inability of these children to even reference their science book when provided. If you add a soft cover dictionary to the mix of reference materials so that they can spell the words correctly so that they fit into the blanks on the sheet, you achieve indifference within the masses. They repeatedly ask to use their devices stating, “There is an app for that.”
Sadly, the simplest words are misspelled without the use of technology. The solar system is now becoming the “soler” system, and frankly, the kids do not care because they are not graded on spelling, they just need to know the material. Interesting enough, misspelling of “solar” still occurred with their science books opened up to the overview page of “The Solar System” which was overlooked by many. When asked, “What will you do when you are tested on this material?” the reply was, “We are tested on the computer and it is multiple choice so we do not need to know how to spell everything. We just sound it out.”
The illiterate person can maintain scholarly productivity with the use of computer tools such as grammar and spell check, but this does not change the fact that they are still uneducated. What would happen if the power went out? Would we find that the mentality level of most was less than that of a sixth grader?
Technology provides instant gratification to the queries of the developing mind so much so that there is a nearly complete transition from traditional methods of study that could have detrimental effects in the future. We are using the technology, but are we absorbing the information that is provided within the structure? Is it so fast-paced that the human brain cannot keep up with the information, and therefore only absorbs an overview of the information without the details? Of course, there is probably an app for that too.