Technology in the classroom
I tend to take for granted the level of technology around us. I have seen firsthand the progression of the machinery we as a society have been able to incorporate into our everyday lives. It seems almost impossible nowadays to live without items such as our cell phones or laptops. However, there is a debate on one specific type of technology: should e-readers or tablets be used in the classroom? I myself love a good book and the feeling of turning the pages. Be that as it may, I find tablets and e-readers to be more useful in certain settings. In this paper I plan to show the benefits of using this technology in the classroom, and why books should become obsolete in the classroom.
EVOLUTION OF CLASSROOM TECHNOLOGY
Going back as far as 1890, we are able to see the creation of two common items found in schools today: the Chalkboard and the School Slate. These items were one of the first of their kind, giving students a valuable tool that would help them to learn by giving them information on a visual level. The School Slate was a hand held chalkboard that gave a student the ability to copy what the teacher was writing in order to practice and absorb the lesson.
Throughout the following years we saw many technological advances in the classroom. For example, the overhead projector, which was created in 1930 and used by the military for planning attacks, found a way into the classroom. Another key point in the development of the idea for e-readers occurred 1949 when the world's first automated reader, ancestor to today's e-readers, was invented by a woman named Angela Ruiz Robles.
The reader, which she named the “Mechanical Encyclopedia”, operated on compressed air. Text and graphics were contained on spools that users would load onto rotating spindles. The spools and other inserts were housed within a hard metal case with a handle. Robles hoped her Mechanical Encyclopedia would make it easier for children to carry this device...