This is the blog site for the technology committee at the Lawrenceville School. We hope to use this site as a place for discussion about the role of technology in a Lawrenceville education, bringing in the voices of teachers, students, parents, alumni, and the world at large. We will also maintain a collection of related resources here.
Lawrenceville thrives on technology. Lawrenceville mainly benefits from the presence of technology. Technology is useful medium to learning, and life here at Lawrenceville. We as a total school, rely on smart boards, blackboards, and emails. We as a home also rely on technology to keep up with our family and friends (via Facebook and Skype) favorites shows, movies, and online games.
ReplyDeleteIn the class rooms of Lawrenceville you will generally find Smartboards situated next to the very much dated whiteboards and blackboards. The Smartboard acts an interactive projector. This is ideal to specifically instruct what is expected and correct. It is more time efficient for teachers, and thus leaves more time for other teaching tools and methods in the class period. The time eaten by writing problems, and rewriting notes, is salvaged, and now can be used more constructively. It is also much more environmentally friendly. The chalk particles and dry easer markers’ pungent smell pollutes the air.
The use of internet is also a vital part of Lawrenceville as a school. There are infinite situations where the use of blackboard and email have informed me and made me more aware of what I need to do. The thought of having school meetings every day to do so scares me. The beauty of internet is that it is personal, quick, and accessible. Communication between teachers and students is the area which I feel is most dependent on email. Teachers’ and students’ schedules often conflict, but with email it is possible for arrangement of a life meeting, or a clarification of homework. Internet is a wonderful encyclopedia and almost an instant teacher. Just Google something up! -- It’s nice to know that, that’s a verb =)-- To look up certain backgrounds and clear up certain detail the internet is perfect.
Being that this is a rigorous school, we may not be able to tune in every Thursday at 8:00 to watch a certain show. We could though, access it online and watch it at our disposal. In this mind-straining environment a quick online game could be an escape, just as a movie could be an extended one. Being that this is a boarding school, the internet is able to eliminate distance and bring loved ones virtually across from you; this especially useful for the international students, where frequent travel is not possible. There are several social networks were you can share memories and photos instantly, and those posts may be viewed and review to all your love ones. Cellphones now are ever more reliable and could be used to reconnect with friends and family back home. We are able to walk about while talking to someone who is plenty of miles away, we are chained to the land line. Texting is another advancement of cellphones. It is useful for situations where silence is recommended, or for quick clarification such as location. Cellphones can also connect with the internet and act as a portable computer. You can capture photos and memories, quick and easy and then be able to show them to friends. The interactive technology does have its disadvantages. The access to information may be integrity binding: plagiarizing is more and more evident. -The essay was so far away till now and … this is basically what I was going to write anyway. -Though the internet has taken precautions to prevent such dilemmas like sites turn it in. The internet may pose a distraction (to academics) and even worse an addiction: such as the game of World of War Craft. Our use of the internet may be weakening ourselves. I know for myself i give spelling a word my best shot and then have spell check figure it out: I never seem to actually learn the word. This is also true with grammar check. I also find our short hand lingo in texting has been transferred to our speech; our grammar may suffer. It would be an understatement that the internet must be used wisely. We feel the power that it beholds daily, image someone posts something personal: it is instantly exposed to billions of strangers. Without your knowledge until after it is too late. I’ve personally noticed the websites have made an effort to customized and define privacy settings. This is appreciated step to a human friendly web. The dangers of the internet don’t outweigh the benefits. The use of technology here is excessive but efficient.
ReplyDelete@amarissa - thanks for giving the view from a student's perspective.
ReplyDeleteBill Freitas.
@amarissa -- it was fun to read all the ways that technology positively impacts your life at Lawrenceville...and a few of the dangers of the ubiquity of technology too -- I can totally relate to spell check, though I find grammar check wrong as often as it's correct. I'm curious that you find the Internet "personal," because my experience is that it's very hard to read tone, context, etc. in an online posting. Or, by personal, did you mean "personalized" -- e.g. able to be designed/used by each person how they want?
ReplyDeleteThe asynchronous tools of email, bulletin boards are wonderfully convenient. They allow you to multitask and keep in touch one a myriad of issues and to-do items, that, as @amarissa points out, can be quite time consuming in day to day life. You have to be careful to keep technology use in context. As someone who leverages it in a very busy corporation, I constantly see people who over use asynchronous communication. This can lead to a couple problems.
ReplyDeleteElectronic communications are helpful for more basic or superficial communications. There is a point at which electronic communications can do harm. People can start dialogs with enough complexity and nuance that they are better addressed by a face to face meeting. The resulting email thread can actually create more confusion than originally existed. This is a particular problem if a question is posed across many parties and requires some complex level of synchronization. General rule: if there are probably going to be follow-up questions, it's probably better to carve out some time to meet in person, or at least on a phone call.
Second, as @Amarissa pointed out, The information is quick an accessible. This can lead to an information junk food habit. Attention spans suffer, and people lose patience to compose or research in-depth, preferring to do a random sampling of Google hits, then synthesizing. Short hand communications are not necessarily a bad thing. It is extremely valuable to be able to make informed decisions in short order when needed. But these techniques need to be balanced against more thoughtful reading and composition that helps to maintain our attention span.
I particularly value being able to receive feedback about my daughter's performance. Technology make this so easy for teachers to do. I appreciate that the teachers take the time to use the tools with which they have been provided. Would I feel the same had the feedback been negative? Absolutely. We have tools and, at Lawrenceville, the tools are being used to the good.
ReplyDelete@Bonnie - Thanks!
ReplyDelete