Technology is very prevalent in classrooms. It is in our everyday life, and we will see it in the future. There are both pros and cons of technology. The perspectives of students and educators at Jenison High School provide insight into this development.
Students and teachers may or may not have noticed the technology we use in classrooms. At Jenison High School, every student has a Chromebook. Teachers have laptops and there is a big screen in front of the classroom.
People have some mixed feelings about screens in classrooms. They are prevalent feelings about the topic. Both are interesting to hear about and to consider when thinking about your own opinion.
“I feel like we do benefit from technology, but I also think we don’t benefit from technology because we lose a lot of time face-to-face,” states Brayden Hunt, senior at Jenison High School.
Timeline of Technology
Technology has been around for a long time. It has been a part of Jenison for longer than some people would expect. As a senior every class for the past 13 years has had a big screen in the front. Plus there would be, some sort of computer the teacher is using. It is worth mentioning that technology has been at Jenison way before the 13 years as well. The early usage of technology started in the 1980’s range.
“We have had the same technology pretty much since I’ve been here, which is 12 years. I would say the addition would be Apple TVs, maybe 10 years ago,” says Mrs. Whittecar, a CTE teacher at Jenison High School.
Ideal Class
Students now seem to enjoy more of a self-paced assignment. Rather than lecturing. Usually, those self-paced assignments are on a Chromebook and assigned in Google Classroom. Sometimes self-paced assignments are in packets.
Mrs. Whittecars has her thoughts in her ideal class, “I don’t like to do a ton of lecturing, per se. I would rather kind of let them explore and learn on their own through doing projects.”
Technology Usage
Many Students are getting tired of the excessive technology use. Their ideal class doesn’t seem to deal with much of screens but to be more active in the classrooms. Technology can be added to active lessons. Also, broke up into spurts throughout the hour-long class.
“I think we should change it to be less technology in some cases because I feel like a lot of times, we do all of our work online, and it’s not good, ” says Jack Wiltrakis, senior at Jenison High School.
Tasks with Technology
Students utilize technology for many tasks. Mostly we are on Google Classroom which has all of our assignments. In our CTE classes, we use a few different websites that let us do business simulations also Canva to make advertisements and posters.
“Better laptops for students, more programs that they’re going to be using in their future careers, perhaps, like Microsoft XL,” says Mrs. Whittecar
The technology used in Jenison Public Schools is a big topic. Throughout the classrooms, there is at least one piece of technology. Lots of people have opinions on the technology usage.
The opinions on technology differ between people. What is your opinion on technology in classrooms?
