ED 243 Magazine Project

From then to now
Unlocking
O&A
With N. E. Bell
What are your thoughts about technology in
the classroom? I think technology in the
classroom should be limited. Our world is
technological enough outside the classroom.
Coming from a parent, I think they are wasting
valuable classroom time. Not only that but, kids
these days don’t even know how to spell because
teachers have told them that relying on “spell
check” is okay. It is not okay, they are not learning
the critiquing skills needed to know the difference
of the words “Form” and “from”. Yes they are
spelled correctly, but that doesn’t mean it fits right
into the sentence.
When do you think is too young to introduce
technology? It doesn’t need to be introduced into
at least middle school. Because hands on learning
is the way kids will learn best and remember best.
How does giving them technology in first grade
help them begin to read? It doesn’t. When they are
that young they need something physically in front
of them so that they can read and follow along with
their finger. When you touch technology, it
becomes a game.
Do you think teachers are becoming too
dependent on the use of technology? YES. My
daughter has one teacher that only relies on
technology for her lesson. She comes home and
tells me that she will google a random lesson every
day for class. Which tells me that she doesn’t even
write lesson plans! If teachers google everything
then they are
lacking the practice and are becoming too lazy to
actually teach, in my opinion.
From a parent point of view, how does this
affect your child that is still in school? First
of all, I make my youngest who is in 7 th grade,
physically pick up books and read them. And
because of that I know she doesn’t like to go to
school to work on research projects that are
completely on iPads. Not that she doesn’t know
how to work them, she can in fact work my phone
better than I can, it’s the fact that
she has to do everything electronically when at
home she has to do everything by hand. She tells
me that she would rather open a book to gather
information rather than open an iPad to search on
google for literally anything. Not only that but when
they don’t finish on the iPad’s, they have to use the
“cows” (Small lab tops that don’t connect very
well). On those school computer cows, they block
everything completely to the point where they
can’t finish their projects at school. So the real
question is, are those high tech technologies really
helping them or inhibiting them?
We hear about inspiring teachers all the
time; do you think that is still a standard for
today’s generation? Well first of all, if they
didn’t google a lesson plan then teachers would be
fighting for the “teacher of the year”, they would all
be inspiring. But reality is, you can YouTube or
google anything so therefore google is the teacher
of the year. There are ways to use technology to be
an “inspiring” teacher, but again, some teachers
are not even making lesson plans, so why would
they inspire any child? Any kid can go google
something.
In your opinion, what is the “best” way to
approach education to children? The way I
see it, if you physically put something in front of a
kid that they can physically turn the pages to, they
are more likely to remember what that book was
about. The way they see it and hear it, or see it,
hear it, and feel it, a child will have that structure to
help their brain actually remember what they are
trying to learn. The kinesthetic movement is so
crucial in those early ages. Using the senses in
every way will more likely help a child remember.