Technology in Education: The Problem or The Situation?

A Vision of Students Today, a youtube video by Michael Wesch makes me wonder how technology plays a role in modern education (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dGCJ46vyR9o). By showing many different statistics, the video forces viewers to question problems in today’s school system and the benefits or harms of technology. Quotes like, “I’m a multi-tasker. I have to be” show viewers how tough it is for students to keep up in today’s society. The question is, does technology help those students keep up, or is it making them fall behind?


One of the first things that entered my mind after viewing that video was how different it was from my two sisters’ college experience. What I saw in the video was the exact opposite from what my sisters wanted in a college. The video quotes that a student’s average class size is 115 people and that only 18% of a student’s teachers will know their name. My sisters’ school, however, has class sizes of between 20-30 people and all their teachers know their name. That told me that many of the statistics from the video were very biased to a certain type of university. Is it bad that some colleges are like that? I certainly think its bad that some colleges are like that, because the colleges with big classes tend to be at larger state schools. I don’t think its fair that the majority of students who cannot afford the high price of a private college education miss out on the chance to have a more personal college experience. That made me wonder how technology can play a role in the problem. In many ways technology makes this problem worse. Teachers create online presentations that make the class even more impersonal. But at the same time, technology can be used to help students. Programs can be used to make a large class seem a lot smaller through things like small group discussions through blogging. Technology can even be used to make already-small classes more personal. For example, this blog allows my teacher to get to know me, my thoughts, and my opinions better. Technology is changing our world. It can cause great problems by creating distractions, making our world more impersonal, and making life a lot more expensive. But technology can also be an equally helpful. It can make huge classes seem just a little smaller and it can make the chaos of modern life just a little more manageable; but it all depends on how it is used.