April 2008 — News
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Are Schools Inhibiting 21st Century Learning?
Extra Credit What did teachers have to say about education technology in the 2007 Speak Up survey?
More Information --D. Nagel |
The idea of technology in education is to enhance learning, not limit it. Yet a large portion of students say teachers and school IT departments are doing just that: throwing up barriers to learning with the very technology that's supposed to facilitate it. And teachers, administrators, and parents seem to be largely unaware of this, according to the results of the 2007 Speak Up survey released Tuesday by Project Tomorrow.
The fifth-annual Speak Up survey polled more than 367,000 "education stakeholders"--parents, students, administrators, and teachers--and found that while 66 percent of administrators, 43 percent of parents, and 47 percent of teachers said they believed "local schools are doing a good job preparing students for jobs and careers of the future," students disagreed. Among middle and high school students, 40 percent indicated that teachers are limiting their use of technology in schools, and 45 percent said that school "security" practices, such as Web filtering, were limiting their ability to take advantage of technology for learning.
"Students continue to be on the leading edge in terms of adopting, modifying and re-using digital content and technology tools to enrich both their personal and educational lives. The students in many ways are far ahead of their teachers and parents not only in the sophistication of their technology use, but in the adoption of emerging technologies for learning purposes," said Project Tomorrow CEO Julie Evans, in a statements released to coincide with the survey release. "It is in our nation's best interest that we support and facilitate student usage of technology for learning."
