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Technology in Education

ALTHOUGH technology has a dark side, we cannot deny the fact that it offers a wide array of benefits for its users. More than any point in history, education nowadays necessitates a wise facility of technology particularly computers. Therefore, it is a must now for every teacher to become adept at using the technology.

Education should be geared towards equipping the learners with competencies that they need to cope with the present times. Since the society of today is highly-technological, it is the teachers who should, first and foremost, be the ones to be acquainted with the existing technological advancements. The logic behind this is simple. How can a teacher train his pupils to be technologically competitive if he himself does not have the skills?

To probe deeper, what are the uses of computer technology in education? The list is endless but let me cite those that immediately crossed my mind.

In planning lessons, the internet is a rich reservoir of prototyped lesson plans which could be used as models (although writing your own is strongly encouraged since your LP should be based on the nature of your pupils). A magnitude of references for your lessons is also available online, thereby freeing the teacher from browsing over dusty books stacked in webby shelves.

If you are the kind of teacher who is dead bored in providing the same learning activities over and over again, the internet can surely help you in finding tested, more innovative, and more interesting pedagogical tasks.

With regards to lesson presentation, your computer and LCD projector can spare you from straining your back and staying up to the wee hours of the morning in making your charts which your pupils will need for them to easily learn the concepts.

Is computing grades a tedious task? Not anymore. Typing the formula in a cell and dragging it down can help the teacher in coming up faster with non-erroneous results. You can even play with the data and compute for the mean, standard deviation, and other statistical tools which will give you a total picture of your pupils' standings in just several clicks in the mouse.

For those teachers who still wish to further their competencies, they can avail the benefits of distance learning via enrolling in an open university --- an undertaking that is also facilitated by computer technology. Scholarships and seminars/trainings are also posted online so that interested teachers can avail them.

Do you want to conduct researches either for promotion or intellectual/personal satisfaction? The computer is there for you to search for related studies and other references. A variety of programs for statistical tools are also available to assist you in extracting the substance from your studies.

If you are a super conscientious mentor, perhaps you would like to know your IQ and EQ which both affect your profession. If you also would like to have an idea about the learning styles and dominant intelligences of your pupils, they are all available online.

As a teacher, it is also your responsibility to be updated with the policies and other memoranda issued by DepEd and CHED. This is easy to accomplish if a teacher will seek the help of the computer in navigating to the websites of the aforementioned agencies.

Are you tired of and fed up with issues such as overwork and underpay that you want to apply for a job abroad? Visit the website of POEA and you will be drowned with the listings that you can find there. You can even submit your resume and other credentials online.

The benefits of computer technology is endless. On the other hand, we should be particularly cautious with its effects to our sense of accountability and diligence. Let us not be slaves of technology. We should not entrust our pupils to computers. It can be recalled that there was once an issue regarding computers as substitutes for teachers. I personally believe that this shoud not happen since computers appeal only to the intellect of the pupils unlike teachers who have hearts who can understand the learners and can train them to become humans in the true sense of the word.

My Perspective in Technology

COMPARING the current technological level with that existing during the primitive times will make us realize how crude the latter was. We can also be encouraged to reflect and celebrate mankind's ingenuity brought about by their facility of their thinking caps. The growing complexity of an already complex technology attests to man's interminable journey in proving that impossible things could be made possible, an unquenched thirst to surpass the limits set by the past centuries.

Nobody can argue with the fact that the needs of societies are continuously increasing and metamorphosing. Therefore, it is not surprising to know that thousands, if not millions, of inventions and discoveries are being patented each year. Necessity is the mother of all inventions, so to speak. The long compendium of human feat is a statement of man's life characterized by sophistication which he himself has made.

Indeed, man had gone a long way. He was able to traverse the road of impossibility. Virtual reality, bartending robot, and DNA-analyzing machine are only some of the things that the mind has conceived and are now achieved. Many have been designed for human comfort. And so, it is just spontaneous for an individual to react positively towards technology because he has already a preconceived notion that it guarantees an easier life for each of us.

If we are to immerse ourselves in the analysis of the real impact of technology, we can deduce that sometimes, inventions lack anchorage on ethics. Nuclear weapons can kill a multitude of people and can even erase a place on the map. The YouTube can showcase to the viewing public the most private and intimate moment of an individual. The internet, particularly the wide array of search engines, facilitates an easy routing to rich reservoirs of porn materials.

Undebatably, technology should be viewed from different angles. It could be God's angel or a devil's trident. It solely depends on how we use it.

My Experiences with the Subject Basic Computer Applications

WE cannot negate the fact that a large number of Filipino teachers are still unadept with regards to their facility of the technological advances offered by computers. Despite of the inclusion of computer education in the past curricula for teacher education, it is still seemingly insufficient to equip the would-be teachers with skills which will enable them to harness the endless possibilities that technology offers.

A product of a secondary school manned by competent mentors and characterized by a low-tech environment during our time, I was first acquainted with computers when I was in my first year in high school. After two sessions inside the computer laboratory, the terminals bugged down even before we master how to use the mouse.

After years of not seeing one, I was thrilled when I've found out that I have to enroll Computer Science 100. That was during my second year in college. To my dismay, the dexterity that I was hoping to have after the semester just turned out to be a skin-deep mastery. Our professor for the lecture sessions was fine but the laboratory instructor was a total disaster. Whenever we asked her to explain how something is done, she will just snob us claiming that she is a Social Science major.

A large portion of what I know now about computers were brought about by informal learning. But those informally-acquired skills need refinement. Thanks to Dr. Gaboy! Enrolling the Basic Computer Applications enabled me to immerse in a more technological environment. Before taking this subject, I was insecured with my students becasuse they know blogging and other stuffs. Thanks that I know how to do it now.

This subject also made me feel that I am a student again. I have to face the truth that my score in the pre-test is way below the mean. I have to grapple with a handful of requirements. I have to accept that some of my past students, now my classmates, are better than me in terms creating presentations. I have to go to Lingap in search for a butterfly or a bird which I could closely take a picture of for my MovieMaker assignment. What an awesome experience!

Basic Computer Applications made me realize that (1) so much about computer technology were developed without me mastering them and (2) I was and will always be a crammer, unless I do something to change this attribute.

Now, I can claim that my confidence level with regards to computer facility is way up high than what I had before enrolling the course.