What is the Optimum Use of Technology in Education?

It has been apparent that the sensible application of technology in the education sector ought to promote efficiency and productivity. The research literature strongly supports the contribution of technology to the teaching and learning process at each level of education.

However, there are increasing concerns about the potential side effects, if not core aspects, of the application of technology in the education sector unless it is used optimally and in quite specific scenarios. In this article, an attempt is made to present the potential negative impacts of technology on education in the long run.

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According to (Alhumaid, 2019), the uncontrolled expansion and application of educational technologies has been found to result in unexpected negative outcomes such us “dehumanising educational environments, deteriorating students’ competency in reading and writing, destruction of the social interaction of teachers and students and the isolation of individual while using technology.” This researcher also comments that such an adaptation is “a bitter-sweet one” which calls into question the performance of students.

A study based on “Use of Social Media in Education: Positive and Negative impact on the students” by (Raut & Patil, 2016) meanwhile claims that the most important negative impact of technology on students is making them highly addicted to it, thereby distorting their attention to their studies, and causing them to miss out on real life experiences and communication.

The study also shows that students exacerbated dependency on educational technologies has reduced their ability to write correct grammar and spelling without using grammar and spelling checkers and has in addition reduced their ability to retain and process information.

It has become an increasing matter of concern that iPads, tablets, internet connections, smartphones, laptops, and social media and other applications might potentially damage the thinking, logical reasoning, analytical ability and creativity of students. It may also misinform students and promote laziness. Students’ capacity to learn new things, remember the past and think critically has shifted to a temporary external memory style.

Another line of argument concerning the negative consequences of the introduction of educational technologies is that it opens the door to widespread cheating and gives rise to the habit of copying and pasting one’s work without clearly understanding and interpreting into a contextualised and useful way. Because everything is already there, students tend to ignore what is happening a class and may use internet and text messages during lessons, too. There is a fear that the students of the future may ultimately be concerned only with where information is obtained from, without looking closely at its details. The widespread use of various devices, it is suggested, has resulted in the diversion of students’ attention to social media, instead of their being focused on working hard and being committed to their actual academic duties.

Although the availability of educational technologies has greatly enhanced the opportunity for teachers and students to teach and learn asynchronously, it has indeed brought costs with it: teachers have lost their full privilege to control what their students do, to know for sure how well they understand concepts and to be able to see whether or not students are really working hard. Consequently, there is no guarantee that the syllabus objectives are being met or not.

The availability of unlimited internet has also been found to produce negative impacts on cognitive development, and results in information overload, affecting public as well as private life spheres and relations (Millar, 2020).

Scholars therefore suggest that there must be a “golden rule” (optimum) level of the usage of classroom technologies if we wish truly to benefit from technologies in a positive way.

In a nutshell, despite its significant positive contribution on education in terms of increased efficiency and productivity, the uncontrolled use of technological inputs and the diversified introduction of various forms of social media in the education sector has the potential to steer education in the wrong direction. In particular, there is a growing concern about its negative impact on students, causing problems such as damaged creativity, increased laziness and cheating, destroyed social educational values and a loss of confidence on the part of students in their ability to create their own content and come up with their own ideas without first checking on the internet.

References

Alhumaid, K. (2019). Four Ways Technology Has Negatively Changed Education. Journal of Educational and Social Research, 9(4), 10–20. https://doi.org/10.2478/jesr-2019-0049

Millar, S. A. (2020). Potentially negative effects of internet use IN-DEPTH ANALYSIS Panel for the Future of Science and Technology (Issue May).

Raut, V., & Patil, P. (2016). Use of Social Media in Education: Positive and Negative impact on the students. International Journal on Recent and Innovation Trends in Computing and Communication, 4(1), 281–285. http://www.ijritcc.org

Author:

Melese Mulu

Article Writer & Content Contributor

November 26, 2020

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The opinions expressed in this article/publication are those of the authors. They do not necessarily reflect the opinions or views of GiLE or its members.