Every aspect of today’s human life is directly or indirectly connected to technology that has become an indispensable part of our lives. Lauren Bradshaw, an essay writing expert at CustomWritings once said, “Technology has become a part of our lives, and it’s up to us to use it to simplify life by subtracting the obvious and adding the meaningful.” Because technology creates new industries that make many of the things we use every day and has improved the manner of how certain careers used to be done.
Technology is here to stay, then this begs the question: why is learning technology important for the future? To get the appropriate answers to this question, we have to look at the key impacts technology has brought to the entire world. Similarly, we have to explore how technology has assisted the student’s learning.
It has become as valuable as the textbooks and the traditional learning modes for the students in a world that have become dependent on technology. More importantly, traditional learning on its own cannot prepare the students fully for the adult digital future.
What are the benefits of technology in the classroom?
Benefits of technology in learning
Some years back you could only access a computer for learning purposes if only you visited the school’s computer lab, now they are on every student’s desk. With the fast changes in the technological world, we don’t know what will happen to today’s learning systems years to come.
Thus, some benefits realized from integrating technology in the classroom include;
- Lessons are more fun; since they have been gamified, and they are no longer static; students love them more, especially the young ones who can use games to learn and stay focused for longer.
- Students learn at their pace; the learning is self-directed to ensure all students can learn at their own pace. For example, some students can learn the lessons for longer to grasp as much as they can, once satisfied they can move to others.
- Has led to increased collaboration; between the teachers and their students, even remotely.
- Structured learning; has differentiated some lessons to enable each student to learn how to use other methods apart from traditional lectures and reading. Technology facilitates a mix of learning tactics and provides content that suits every individual student.
- Facilitates distance learning; events such as the COVID-19 Virus has forced many of the students to rely on technology to take their classes remotely. Thus, it supports virtual learning in the absence of physical/traditional learning mode.
What is the importance of learning technology for the future today?
Future benefits of learning technology
It is difficult, to sum up, all the future benefits that can be realized from the students learning technology in the classrooms. But it is vital to prepare them for the changes in the future. Students can expect benefits from learning technology from an early stage such as;
- Enhances their creativity.
- Helps them to solve problems.
- Facilitates collaboration between different people.
- Boosts creative thinking.
- Equips them with the vital skills for the future.
Learning technology for the future is the best way for the students to balance their overall lives’ aspects as early as today.
How technology prepares students for the future
Technology without a doubt helps the students to get the vital skills for the future. The importance of technology for the future includes;
- Teaches new technological skills. With every new day’s break, there is progress in technology which creates more jobs and sectors, for example, coding and Artificial Intelligence. Students have to be taught the right technical skills to fit in the advancing maker’s world. For example, students are learning AI, IT, design and so much more in the STEM sectors that allow most of them to get acquainted with their preferred careers. MIT has created a tool known as APP Inventor that teaches students how to create new apps using available coding languages. Because in the future AI will replace up to 40% of traditional jobs and these students will fit perfectly in these jobs. More so, by being problem solvers, designers, and creating advanced AI.
- Equips students with ideal entrepreneurial courses & skills. The opportunity to learn new entrepreneurial courses and skills is presented to the students outside the classroom. Therefore, students can comprehend life aspects and subjects practically. For example, business courses allow students to create replica businesses. Thus, this way they practically learn how to handle business accounts out of the class. Thinking like entrepreneurs through technology prepares them perfectly to leverage technology in the future. Hence, innovators, inventors, and business moguls are created as they learn how to use technology in their entities.
- Students explore future career options. With technology, students have the best career learning opportunities that help them to explore their future career options early enough. Through technology, they are inspired and encouraged further to explore topics that interest them.
- Prepares the students for future workplaces. Practical learning through technology activates learning and students learn workplace skills. Active learning which is more project-based tries to train the students on skills that they can use to get answers. Often referred to as cognitive activation that is facilitated by technology tools.
- Encourages teamwork. The student’s individual; learning styles are tapped through technology which encourages working in teams as they learn and handle class projects. This way the students share, listen, support, and assist each other to solve problems in class. Hence, teamwork skills are nurtured in them for future use.
- Develops critical thinking. Through technological learning tools and resources, students develop critical thinking by handling different tasks in class in many diverse ways. Hence, they are better placed to deal with future issues by finding alternative solutions to them.
From the points highlighted above, it is clear that technology has already started to shape the future of students in many ways. However, technology integration in learning should be handled with all the necessary precautions since students are exposed to a lot as they learn.
Such as hackers, prostitution, pornography, child predators, and more which forces the education system to come up with mechanisms to curb all that.