The lack of interest due to misuse of technology

Experts debate whether today's kids are helped or hindered by their immersion in technology

Nowadays, there are many factors that might hinder directly and indirectly the teaching learning process; one of them is technology in general.  I interviewed a teacher and asked her to respond these questions:  is there any problem in your class that affects directly the teaching process? What do you think the possible reasons could be? Taking into account those reasons, what might be done in order to avoid the problem?  What would you recommend to do? Her answers were pretty nice, under my view point. To start, she mentioned that one of the main problems is the lack of interest and the time they (the students) spend developing activities which do not contribute to the learning process.

She said her students do not usually present their activities on time due to they have been playing videogames, chatting, playing in the computer, etc. To this, she attached the fact that the time spent on these activities is not controlled by any of their parents or caretakers; “at least it does not seem to be like that”, she said. At the same time, this causes their students to be sleepless on class which also affects their attention and, therefore, their performance goes down. She said that this is a problem which affects the process from both perspectives, directly and indirectly. Indirectly because it affects the students outside the ongoing process that takes place in the classroom; however, this same reason has a negative impact when being in the school.

In order to keep away this problem, she said it is something that might be achieved gradually along with their parents. They need to educate or re-educate their children in that sense, but first teachers need to educate parents; “it cannot be possible that children state how things must be done at home”. She said that making reference to the fact that nobody says anything at home of how and when to use the computer, or playing video games before doing homework, etc.  She says that it would be right if parents get aware of this problem by putting maybe a schedule at home so that the child gets used to it, and in that way, they would start noticing that in order to play or doing any other activity, they must follow and respect that schedule.

Finally, she gave me her general view point about this topic saying that it can be easily noticed that technology is something necessary in these times; however, it might have an undesirable impact in our life if we do not educate ourselves with the use we do of it. At the same time, she added that parents need to establish rules which constructively help their children not only in the teaching learning process, but also in a general manner in which gradually the child becomes disciplined. To finish, she told me this “remember that a child who is going to school is a responsibility not only of teachers, but also of the whole community which is involved in the process while this one is growing up”. It is important to be aware of what is happening not only in schools, but also in the environment which surrounds the child.