Barriers to Effective Use of Technology in Education

As with the majority of posts on this blog, the post How Technology has Changed the Way We Learn focued on the positive aspects of technology as an educational tool. This post aims not to move towards the negative, but rather, highlight some of the ways technology is prevented from being as effective in education as it can be.

Changes

 

Ch ch changes...(photo: fanpop.com)

“Technology changes faster than teachers can keep up.” (Roblyer & Doering, 2014, p. 20)  To adapt to the changing technology the teacher must continue to learn about new technological advances and how to incorporate them into their teaching.  This, added to the already busy schedule of a teacher, takes time and effort.

New gadgets and ‘fads’ are often introduced to a classroom setting without assessing if the technology is actually the best tool for the job at hand.  “…teachers must be careful, analytical consumers of technological innovation…” (Roblyer & Doering, 2014, p. 20)

There is also a risk that as technology becomes more and more advanced, the human element of teaching may become lost.  Ager reminds us “We still need excellent teachers who, by their infectious enthusiasm make us change the way we think about a subject.” (2000, p. 3) Naisbitt further supplements this view by saying that “Whenever new technology is introduced into society there must be a counterbalancing human response…” (1984, p.35 quoted in Roblyer & Doering, 2014, p.20) This is especially pertinent for students taking distance-learning options.  Students may start to miss the human interaction of being in a classroom, so it is important to create on-line discussion groups to bring the social aspect back into learning. (Armitage, et al., 2007)

Funding

With so many potential technological learning and teaching tools available, educational establishments have to choose where to spend their money. Funding is not always available to provide top-of-the-range equipment to teachers and students.  Extra training may be required to ensure teachers are skilled enough to use new pieces of technology, which again costs money.

Not all computer rooms have enough computers for all the students in the class. Putting students into pairs or groups is a good way to overcome this, but it might take longer to complete the task.  In some colleges and universities, computer rooms for teaching may have to be booked out in advance, making accessibility difficult. (Ager, 2000) Further to this, technology that can help students with learning disabilities have equal access to learning are often difficult to purchase.

Skills

In adult education the computing skills levels can differ greatly.   Within adult education there is also the problem of the ‘digital divide’.   This refers to the accessibility people have to technology, and how they are able to use it. (Roblyer & Doering, 2014) Armitage et.al. point out that mature students are often “fearful of using a PC.” (2007, p. 122) Ager illustrates that in order for a particular use of technology to be effective, the students must be able to use it, or be familiar with the particular function.  Without this prior knowledge, some time must be spent teaching the student how to use the piece of technology before they can undertake the activity. (2000)  This may dissuade teachers from using the resource. 

Reliability of Internet Resources

(photo: lolsheaven.com)

The Internet is an invaluable resource for information, but it must be used correctly.  Anyone can publish online and there are no quality or fact checks in place.  Some students may find Internet searches quicker than finding information in books and journals, but it in some cases sifting through all the sources acailable may take several hours before a  source of academic value can be found. Worse still, not all students area aware of how to be critical of Internet sources, and may use inappropriate sources. Armitage et.al. argue that while there is a lot of valuable information on the Internet, “much of it is repeated from site to site, some of it you have to pay for and some of it you can’t trust”. (Armitage, et al., 2007, p. 124)

Technology as a distraction to learning

Evidence has suggested that students are more likely to be engaged in learning when interactive, multimedia tools are used. (Armitage et.al., 2007) However, when using technology for learning, whether in a classroom or at home, there is a risk that students may wander away from the task at hand.  “For many students, use of social networking takes so much of their time that it could prove a distraction” (Goodman, 2011 cited in Roblyer & Doering, 2014 p.26) This suggests that even when tasks are directed and focused, there is still the temptation to 'check Facebook.'

 

Conclusion

 

Technology, when used properly has vast potential in the learning environment, but there are a number of barriers to its full effectivness.  With proper training, and a full understanding of how particularly peices of technology work, many of the problems can be overcome.   

 

References

Ager, Richard. The Art of Information and Communication Technology for Teachers (London: David Fulton Publishers, 2000)
 

Armitage, Andy, et al. Teaching and Training in Post-Compulsory Education. 3rd Edition. (Berkshire: Open University Press, 2007)
 

Roblyer, M.D., and Aaron H. Doering. Intergrating Educational Technology into Teaching [New International Edition] (Essex: Pearson, 2014)