The role of modern technologies in education

[Albina Welsh]

Technology is changing every aspect of life today. It is currently applied to education, healthcare, finance, and production systems. In particular, modern technology has influenced and changed education by bringing in the use of laptops, smartphones, and tablets making studying more interesting and interactive. What is more, the opportunities for collaboration and communication have been expanded through technology. In fact, by means of the Internet, books, audio, videos and images are available just at a single click of the mouse. Students can easily follow expeditions of scientists, view photos of friends, e-mail questions to the scientists and even chat with their tutors via video conferencing.

Modern technology has numerous important roles in education. These primarily are:

1. Promotion of independent learning. Educational resources are available online and due to it, students can easily handle their homework with little or no help. All e-books and other web-based content are easy to use and are up to date providing relevant data to the students who are outside the classroom setting. They can navigate through educational websites finding out all the relevant information on the subject matter.
2. Future development of students. Technology is changing every aspect of life. In education, students can be prepared to use technology comfortably from an early age. It is evident that the future will be digital and technology-based. That is why it is better to introduce students to it much earlier. A student who is technology savvy will have no trouble fitting in the techno world. The students will be relevant due to the skills and will easily get a job after graduation.
3. Access to information at a lower price. Modern technology in education has enhanced accessibility to cheap study resources. Students no longer need to purchase textbooks because they can access the same books online on the digital platforms. They only need to have a laptop, tablet or a desktop computer to download the necessary material. It is easy to carry such content because you can save it to a USB drive. Transferability is also easier because there is no need to photocopy the book, and the teacher can share the content via e-mail.
4. Lowering the cost of tuition. Students can now have lessons on the online platforms. A teacher can arrange a class with the students at any time via Skype. This arrangement means that each student remains at home sitting at the computer. It can reduce the utility bills, transport allowances for teachers as well as students and consequently, lowering the cost of education.
5. Creating an encouraging learning environment. With modern technology in education, teachers can now incorporate images, videos, and graphics when delivering lessons to the students. Apps, programs and educational websites have a variety of instructions which teachers can use at their lessons. The days when a teacher was limited to books, whiteboard, blackboard chalks and markers are gone. Today the teachers comfortably use smart boards, Skype, emails and PowerPoint presentations on a regular basis.
6. Development of new teaching methods. Modern technology has brought in advanced teaching methods in education. Today teachers and professors use podcasts, blogs, and social media rather than the traditional form lecturing, when teachers talk most of the time and students listen to them. Web conferencing technologies have enabled teachers to give instructions to students and receive immediate feedback. Students with special needs have certain software tools and technologies like voice recognition, translator, word prediction, text-to-speech converter and volume control that can simplify the process of studying for them. Therefore, teachers can easily deal with students with all types of disabilities.

As seen from above, technology is extremely useful and has numerous advantages. These primarily include:

1. Making the process of teaching easier: the audio-visual presentations simplify the process of delivering theoretical material and improve the level of students’
2. Ranking students’ progress: the old diaries are time-consuming, and the records can easily get lost. With a personalized software such as MyStudentsProgress, you can keep track of the achievement of each student and be sure that nothing will be lost.
3. Environmental benefits: nearly all books are digitalized, less paper will be used. Trees will be saved if every school goes
4. Distance learning: students can take lessons from any corner of the globe thanks to the modern

However good the application of technological advancements to education may seem, they still have certain disadvantages. These are:

1. Access to inappropriate content: the Internet contains various information, which is not always good or useful. Students can easily access the materials that contain pornographic or violent elements. Parents and educators must ensure all the computers are fitted with control software so that students cannot easily access vulgar videos.
2. Cyberbullying: while searching for information, students are often likely to become victims of cyberbullying. Access to anonymous accounts in social media is a leeway to bullying which is detrimental to the mental health of the students.
3. Increasing the cheating rate: with the development of technology and its implementation into education, students can cheat much more easily. For example, they to complete a writing task, they can use any writing service available on the Internet. This is one of such: reflective essay help. It offers help students help with any type of academic writing.

So it is obvious that technology is on transit and is likely to influence every aspect of life in the coming future. Let’s look at how modern technology is likely to influence the education in the future:

1. Tablets and smartphones. It is evident that in future, every student will be using a portable device in learning.
2. Wi-Fi connectivity. Schools will be equipped with Wi-Fi to enable students, and teachers to access the Internet using their portable devices.
3. It is the use of computer games. In the near future, the classroom will be a new playground for students. Classcraft is one such example.
4. Virtual reality. Oculus, Google, and Samsung are already working on creating a virtual reality. Virtual science labs enable students to carry out experiment without using the dangerous chemicals.

All in all, the modern technologies play an important role in every sphere of human life, especially in education.