Computers in education: The impact on schools and classrooms

Abstract

Computers, over the past decades, have become pervasive in life and in schools in particular. Initially, classroom use by teachers tended to reproduce previous “skill and drill” approaches, but in the late twentieth century, calls for a rethink of the pedagogical basis for the employment and embedding of information technology (IT) across the curriculum led to some new ideas and uses. At the same time, computers became physically smaller and more portable with the advent of laptops and tablets and mobile telephones that had more sophisticated technology and offered new potential. Teachers, who appeared to be “late adopters” of the IT in classrooms, soon became more aware of the advantages of computers (in all their various emerging forms), and their potential for student learning and new applications and ideas emerged. The advent of the Internet and what has been referred to a Web 2.0 has had an even more serious impact on teaching and learning in schools and classrooms. Many education systems now have advanced connectivity to high-speed broadband and utilise the WWW for many different activities. Student sophistication, in many cases, often surpasses the teacher’s level of development in the use and application of computer technology, and this has created some different and interesting challenges for the profession. This chapter examines the impact of computers and their applications on schools and classrooms in the past, present with insights for the future in a new dialogue that offers new techniques and learning experiences and possible achievement gains for students.