Technology doesn't make school pupils smarter: study

I always find it so frustratingly problematic when studies (or people) conflate being smart or being intelligent with having high test scores.

Technology is taking the world backward. So, you can put a tbousand songs on this little chip, eh? Your tub can fill itself and heat the water, too? Big deal. In everyday life you still have to think with that thing between your ears and make millions of conscious decisions on your own. Also, has technology wiped out any of the bad things which have been around since the beginning like famine, pestilence, disease, war and hunger?

Judging from the people around me, it doesn't seem to be making anyone smarter.

Why would technology automatically make you smarter?

This shows that you can't replace the human need to know with a computer that just holds the information and the drone just looks it up. Learning is education, not finding

This keeps the plebs in line though so I doubt schools will stop using computers any time soon

I think the bigger problem is that increased use of computers and the net would change the way young students would think. If so much information is available so instantly, the concept of thorough research, cross-checking, source accuracy, etc. would all be at risk.

All in all though, I think that computers are far better than not. No one wants to return to the dark ages before the net came about

The OECD urged schools to work with teachers to turn technology into a more powerful tool in the classroom and develop more sophisticated software for experimentation and simulation, social media and games.

Games? social media? Unless its a mind numbing activity such as these perhaps kids have no interest.

Didn't we already know this? I seem to recall reading an almost identical story about technology in classrooms a couple years ago.

If your variable is simply TECHNOLOGY-YES or TECHNOLOGY-NO, you're not going to see a change in outcome. A teacher whose lesson is just a simple Powerpoint presentation isn't going create superior outcomes if it's exactly the same as what that teacher could write on a white board. What you should be looking at is TECHNOLOGY-HOW. What are students doing with technology that they couldn't do in a traditional classroom?

Just as an example, if I take my class to a computer lab and say, "Today you're going to write a composition in Word instead of using pen and paper", why should I expect them to learn anything more than what they learn with pen and paper? But if I use computers to do what they can't do otherwise, say using the network to do a concurrent collaborative writing exercise, research does show that the outcome is superior to solo-writing. You need skilled teachers to be able to know about these techniques though. And that's the problem. All too often, school administrators just throw technology at their teachers saying, "We spent millions of dollars on this instead of the staff. Now figure it out." Teachers need more support than that. Either they need to be given the free time to do this research on their own, or they need an IT department that isn't just tech support, but which regularly and flexibly offers training in how to effectively use the technology they're given.

If there's one thing I've learned watching Japanese teachers, it's that they rarely have time to learn the full potential of the technology they've already got, let alone the cutting edge tools schools want to show off having.

When Texas Instrument came up with advanced calculator, I recall myself spending more time learning how to use it. Good ol' paper and pencil is easier and helpful for developing minds (hand eye coordination) especially with math, I think.

Technology doesn't make school pupils smarter: study

You could say the same with a car: it doesn't take you places!

You have to actually get in it and drive.

@sangetsu03

For research, the computers and the internet are great. But for basic skills, perhaps not so much. I came across some online math tests today that require students to enter math expressions using the computer (e.g. simple fraction notation). Learning how to enter the math expressions will probably take more time and effort than learning the math. Paper and pencil would be so much easier.

Technology can make you stupid and smart but the choice is up to the person. In other words use both methods to learning as we are all unique in our learning styles Knowledge is potential power.

I am always surprised by this, as I remember how difficult it was to study and do research before the advent of the internet. Getting information used to mean a twenty minute trip to the library, and another twenty minutes to get the books I needed, then another twenty minutes to get home. I could have saved almost an hour by using the internet to find what I need.

With information so readily available nowadays, one would think that today's students would learn more, and more quickly than they used to. What an incredible waste.