Technology in Education

In this article, I made an attempt to answer the question – Will Technology Solve the Problems with Education?

Before it, I had written about the 2 -sigma problem discovered by Benjamin Bloom and the greater problem coined by myself.

I have dubbed the greater problem to be one created by the school or society either consciously or not to keep students from living meaningful lives.

We have become so concerned with having our children do well academically that we have neglected every other part of their life. The tradeoff of the self in the quest for academic success is so ridiculous and appalling.

We tell them what to do, how to do it, with the false hope that it would make the a better person when in reality, we are doing it for ourselves.

Parents are pushing their kids so they can be able boast about their children in front of their friends.

Teachers are pushing the kids so that they can be rewarded for doing a spectacular job and be dubbed the best teacher.

Schools are pushing the kids to attract more parents to bring in their kids to the school.

The government is pushing the kids so they can get recognized as one of the countries taking education serious in the world.

What about the students? They are caught in the loop of trying to please all of the people listed above so as not to disappoint them.

If there is anything we have learnt from technology is that we cannot accurately predict the level of disruption it can have on an industry. However, it has presented us with something very precious.

Teaching and the role of the teacher is one of the most important aspect of good education. However, the system has placed so much empahsis on the curriculum than on learners/learning and teachers/teaching.

Teachers are seen as servants tasked with doing everything except for the most important job of getting the kids to enjoy learning. Teachers are expected to create lesson notes, mark registers, set test and exam question, mark them, fill in report cards, copy/dictate notes to the students, ensure they are well behaved and so many other irrelevant tasks. The system has trained teachers to do everything except for build quality relationship with the students to inspire them to live meaningful lives.

What technology offers is the elimination of all of these manual labour, giving the teacher the time and opportunity to spark connection with their students.

With a platform like uLesson, topics are taught to the students digitally. Teachers do not need to spend so much time trying to come up with lesson notes and teaching the content to the students. Now teachers can now get students to watch these topics in a fun an engaging way while they come to the classroom to discuss, to engage, to be human.

Another platform like edves can automate a lot of the manual process teachers have to perform giving teachers more time to do meaningful things. In fintech, we have what we call APIs. An API is simply something that sends information back and forth between a website or app and a user.

In education, technology is that API that helps the teacher send information to the users – the students while the teacher is able to engage the students on more important things to enable them live a meaningful life.

It then gives the teacher the opportunity to find more interesting ways to get every child fall in love with the subjects they teach. It gives each child the opportunity to ask questions, to discuss, to build, to be better.

Now, teachers do not need to spend so long a time writing lesson notes, delivering the notes while students are passively taking the notes and listening. Now, teachers to know these students for who they are and lead them through all the way.

I would not deny the fact that academics is a very integral aspect of every child’s life but it is not every part of the child. For a child to live a meaningful life, they have to be well grounded as a whole. Technology allows every child the opportunity to grow wholesomely if used properly by giving teachers the time to focus on the other aspect of their lives.

Maybe technology will not solve all of the problems with education but it definitely will play a major role in ensuring our kids have an opportunity to live a meaningful life.