Technology and Education

As I continue to progress through Technology-Assisted Music Teaching and Learning class, I am learning more and more ways that technology can be incorporated into the music curriculum and how important technology is to education. After reading the articles for this week, I am again able to develop a more refined perspective on the use of technology in education. I feel that the articles highlight some interesting ideas about how technology is impacting education, as well as how technology can be incorporated into the educational process. I also think it is interesting how the articles discuss how people learn and the impact technology has on learning and ultimately on the educational process.

In particular, I think that the article, “Digital Natives, Digital Immigrants,” by Marc Prensky, raises some intriguing points about the way technology has been incorporated into peoples’ lives and how it impacts how they learn. I believe that the article makes a great point that students growing up with technology (digital natives) do seem to think and process information in a different manner than the people who did not grow up in the era of digital technology. The article mentions that students who are digital natives “thrive on instant gratification.” That is something that I have noticed in my teaching as well. Anytime students have success immediately, they take to the material very well. However, if I give students a piece of music that they do not have success with immediately, they tend to turn-off to that piece of music and they need a great deal of encouragement to learn the piece, even if they eventually like the piece after they learn how to play it better. In addition, I have also noticed that students like to play games and have competitions to learn material as opposed to “serious” work. Even the simplest games and competitions seem to peek the interest of students. For example, having fifth grade students demonstrate their ability to play a note by timing how long it takes to go around the room and have everyone play seems to get the students excited, as opposed to just having them play a note to demonstrate for the teacher. Along with these concepts, I also agree that the process of teaching concepts slowly, step-by-step is often mundane to students because they want to have instant success. I also believe that it is true that students are used to being able to use technology to eliminate some of the processes that digital immigrants had to learn to complete tasks. Therefore, students today often do not see the value in learning how to complete basic steps. For example, today calculators and computers can complete many tasks that people had to do on their own before. However, I still feel that some of the processes are important for students to learn and understand. Therefore, a teacher may have to alter his/her approach to almost “sneak” the learning steps in to the educational process with activities that help students learn the basic concepts rather then just presenting material in a slow, step-by-step manner.

In addition, I think that the article demonstrates the concept that students who are digital natives learn differently than their predecessors in the way they approach learning and completing tasks. I believe that for the most part I have grown up in the digital era or at least on the brink of the digital era, and for the most part have grown up with technology around me. However, I still think that I have some tendencies of a digital immigrant because of the way I have learned information. For example, as the article mentions, digital immigrants may not start with the internet to find information, and may print out emails. I think that is an interesting point because although I feel that I have grown up in the digital era, I still print out the articles to read rather that just reading them on the computer. However, students probably would just read articles and emails on the computer, and they most certainly are comfortable with the internet and using it to find information. From my experience, students will almost always go to the internet for information first, and will rarely even use books if they are not required to do so.

Therefore, as I read the article, I came to the realization that students do learn differently then their predecessors, and a different approach to education may need to be taken to better present material to our students. I have considered how I have presented concepts to students and how I could do so more effectively. I do not believe, that teachers necessarily need to completely change what is being taught, rather they need to restructure the way the information is presented. I think that incorporating technology and the materials available today can make learning more interesting for students and ultimately more effective.

I also feel that the article, “How People Learn (and What Technology Might Have to Do with It),” by Marcy Driscoll presents some approaches to help consider how to better integrate technology into the learning process. I think the article “Digital Natives, Digital Immigrants,” presents a great case as to why teaching strategies may need to be updated, and I think that this article helps to reinforce the concept and show how technology has impacted the learning process. For example, the article mentions learning occurs in context, learning is active, learning is social, and learning is reflective. As a result, technology can support these concepts in many ways. For example, technology can be used to help students be active in the learning process by using music software to help learn and practice musical concepts. In addition, technology can be used to help connect students and it can be used to capture events through recording so that students can reflect on what they have learned. I agree, as the articles mentions, that technology is important to learning and that it is impacting how students learn and the approaches that teachers must use to teach students. However, as the article by Marcy Driscoll mentions, no matter how much technology is available, it is how the teachers and students use the technology that makes it beneficial to the learning process. It helped me to realize how I can reconsider my own teaching methods to best incorporate technology to help students learn.