Are students more engaged in learning using technology?
Are students more engaged in learning using technology?
Written by Yasemin A
Almost all educational institutions are now using forms of technology and the internet to support learning, particularly after the COVID-19 pandemic. There have been many mixed opinions on the topic of virtual learning but what are the real benefits and harms of using plenty of technology in young people’s standard lives?
According to a recent UK study, 56% of students were noticeably more interested in learning when the internet or technology was used. 98% of all schools have access to computers. 58% of schools provided a personal laptop to students. Although this may seem like a huge advance in education, there are many dangers to excessive computer/laptop use in schools.
The average UK school provides access to a computer or laptop for students, typically in a library or a computing room. A single computer radiates at least 400 THz of electromagnetic radiation. Considering there would be at least 30 in one IT classroom, 12,000 THz would be emitted into one classroom. This is a great amount of radiation that young people are subjected to and the future effects are still unknown.
Medical board certified paediatrician, Jennifer Cross, MD, who is also a professor at Cornell Medical School has studied screen time and radiation effects on the paediatric brain and has found that children who were over exposed to radiation and mobile devices performed worse on reading tests in school compared to ones with limited screen time and spent more time having verbal conversations with their friends and family. She advised parents of 2-5 year old children to limit their child’s screen time to only one hour of educational, quality content and for 6-12 year olds she advised to keep them off of social media and make sure they still have balanced and healthy offline lives along with online. Overall, she advised to generally make sure that developing children spend lesser and lesser amounts of time surrounded by radiation from mobile devices since it could potentially be a threat to development. Although it is only potentially, the fact that we do not know any of the future side effects is the most terrifying realisation.
Leora Lawton from University of California, Berkeley believes excessive exposure to radiation emitted from technological devices as a developing child or teen could increase the risk of depression, shorter attention spans and addiction - substance addictions and mobile device addictions. Both of these addictions, though very different, lead to serious mental illness that could last a lifetime.
But perhaps the various benefits outweigh the negatives - at least the negatives of using technology for educational purposes in schools. Mrs Green, Head of ICT at Waldegrave School, believes that it is worth the risk to use technology in schools because of its various benefits and contributions. For example, it is extremely important to have experience using ICT because every single job young people will do in the future, that job will involve technology and “the more you’re exposed to it, the more confident and comfortable you will become”. She also thinks it is fair and important that every pupil has access to the same material through the virtual learning environment at Waldegrave.
Furthermore, Mr Isted, Deputy Head of Waldegrave School who introduced Google suite to the school, has seen a very positive change in learning engagement and confidence since introducing the tool to the staff and students. He believes it has solved many issues in the school such as communication with teachers and access to learning being completely cut off when a student was not present in school but after the introduction of Google, students can learn independently from home and get support from teachers and faculty. Especially for Y11s and Y13s on study leave, the virtual learning environment Waldegrave has created would benefit them tremendously and improve the outcomes of their exams.
A Year 9 student who stayed off school for a week due to COVID thinks that the virtual education resources saved them from falling behind. They felt more organised with all their work together on their Google Drive and easy to access/find. However, they also think education should never fully be converted to online because having an equal balance of virtual and in person education is the best for success in learning and mental health of students.
Ultimately, there are clear reasons to limit and monitor screen time but the benefits are hard to live without so we should make sure our health is not majorly affected by technology but continue to make the most of the convenient benefits they create, especially in a school/learning environment.