Epilepsy in the classroom

What should you do with technology in the classroom if one of your students can't even sit in front of the computer? Epileptic students may not be able to because it could cause a seizure. As a teacher you can not discriminate against certain students with this kind of problem because they may not be able to sit in front of a computer. And they have every right to do what the rest of the class does and to learn in the same ways. Check out this website for more details: http://www.epilepsy.org.uk/info/employees/computers

(Christina Fitchlee)

A summary of the disadvantages of technology

This article basically sums up several reasons why technology in the classroom hinders education. Authors and teachers give hands-on information that they have observed through this transformation.

• Computers are tools, and often abused in use
  
• Software companies are out for your cash; they want you to buy their product, whether it's useful or not.
• Computers are not available for every student, so individual learning is slow

Here is the link to the article.
http://ezinearticles.com/?Disadvantages-of-Computers-in-the-Classroom&id=175360

Marty Murphy

Computers Destroy Developing Brains!

(2-12 year old students)
Computers are not helpful in elementary schools because they only hurt children’s brains and are not productive. Computers actually can take away from the child’s development.
Alison Armstrong author of “The Child and The Machine” believes that “Children who learn to read and write using computer technology doesn’t enhance or improve literacy skills at all, because the act of reading and comprehension is probably the single most important predictor of how well a child does academically throughout their life. Children’s development is slowed down. There is no research to support that it is tremulously successful from many stand points.”

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vdCC5USzchY

Marty Murphy

Disadvantages of Computers in the classroom

Disadvantages with computers in the classroom:
• some teacher aren’t trained to use technology
• opening students to inappropriate material or too much information
• potentially dangerous
• waste of time
• compete with really interesting but not effective software for students’ attention

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PPJQgFIUGuo

Lost communities

Having the internet for your source of communication not only to do you lack face-to-face communication and miss body gesture, your also missing out on community. You may have many friends other places but they might not be local anymore. "But what technology gives, it can also take away. The time Kate spends communicating with people around the world may take away from her participation in her local community. She does not interact much with her neighbors, nor does she belong to any local associations or clubs." Collins and Halverson (2009) (p.12) Due to this same problem when you run into people in your community you now don't share any common backgrounds because you don't participate in your local community. "Communication becomes more difficult because they do not share the same background..." Collins and Halverson(2009) (p.12-13)

(Christina Fitchlee)

Do we need all this new technology?

"The distance-learning classrooms being built at many colleges and universities also reinforce a single pedagogy. The distance-learning design meets the need to capture the sights and sounds of the classroom with camera and microphone by constraining the location and movement of classroom participants and furniture. The result:Technology limits the form of pedagogy to a very traditional delivery of information, conveyed from an authority- invested instructor positioned at the front of the room to rows off passively absorbent students." Hank Bromely How To Tell If You Really Need The Latest Technology Technology is the same thing because students are just as distant when watching the teacher teach as sitting in front of the computer. So why bother to use the technology?

Technology should be limited

Technology has proven to compute long math algorithms, file and save important information, and even save lives, but there are many setbacks to involving technology in our education. First I would like to discuss the importance of funding. For decades, urban and working class school districts have been under-funded, and inappropriately use tax dollars. As Jean Anyon (1980) cites "there is a "hidden curriculum" in schoolwork"(Anyon 1). If we continue to stress this technology revolution, we will be feeding into social inequities that have plagued our nation.

Read this article about our poverty levels and see if you can afford it.
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2008/08/26/national/main4384762.shtml

(Marty Murphy)