A fifteen-year-old watching Keep Up with the Kardashians, texting a friend, and checking DMs, all while writing a history essay has become the norm. In recent years technology has become a fundamental aspect of the daily lives of young people around the world. Young people use technology at much higher rates than the previous generation. A recent study found that students age “8 to 18 spend more than 7.5 hours per day” using technology, often multitasking on numerous devices at a time. (Willingham, 23) Naturally, several school officials and teachers have begun to bring technology into the classroom. The Daniel T. Willingham, the author of Have Technology and Multitasking Rewired how students learn?”, viewed this technology disparity in the
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As technology has spread many counties, like Britain, have incorporated technology into their all of their classrooms through smart whiteboards. (Willingham 26) Since students respond so well to technology administrators thought students would benefit from the high tech smart whiteboards. Willingham sites a study that was done to prove the effectiveness of these smart whiteboards. It placed students in a math class into groups, one with whiteboards and the other without. The results showed that the whiteboards had a slight “ positive effect on student interest in math class,” but didn’t show a change in content learned (Willingham 25) So, yes, students' respond eagerly to the whiteboards themselves, but that does not mean that the students understood the material anymore. Willingham goes on to explain that the content being taught and the way that the teacher uses technology is more important than the technology itself. All in all, he argues that though technology is a changing the forum that can assist students to learn it is not rewiring the way the way the student learns. The teacher’s technique for teaching and content being taught is the primary factor affecting how the student …show more content…
It is understandable that a student may try to multitask with multiple devices. Willingham explains that often students think that they are better multitaskers than they truly are. This is because young people have more working memory, “mental space to think,” allowing them to remember more than other people (Willingham 25). The truth is, no one is good at multitasking since it's impossible to do multiple tasks at once. A student watching tv, texting, and writing an essay. It's merely switching their attention between the three tasks at hand, not genuinely completing one task entirely. Since multiple tasking is ineffective, it is not rewiring the way students learn, if anything it is hindering
As technology has spread many counties, like Britain, have incorporated technology into their all of their classrooms through smart whiteboards. (Willingham 26) Since students respond so well to technology administrators thought students would benefit from the high tech smart whiteboards. Willingham sites a study that was done to prove the effectiveness of these smart whiteboards. It placed students in a math class into groups, one with whiteboards and the other without. The results showed that the whiteboards had a slight “ positive effect on student interest in math class,” but didn’t show a change in content learned (Willingham 25) So, yes, students' respond eagerly to the whiteboards themselves, but that does not mean that the students understood the material anymore. Willingham goes on to explain that the content being taught and the way that the teacher uses technology is more important than the technology itself. All in all, he argues that though technology is a changing the forum that can assist students to learn it is not rewiring the way the way the student learns. The teacher’s technique for teaching and content being taught is the primary factor affecting how the student …show more content…
It is understandable that a student may try to multitask with multiple devices. Willingham explains that often students think that they are better multitaskers than they truly are. This is because young people have more working memory, “mental space to think,” allowing them to remember more than other people (Willingham 25). The truth is, no one is good at multitasking since it's impossible to do multiple tasks at once. A student watching tv, texting, and writing an essay. It's merely switching their attention between the three tasks at hand, not genuinely completing one task entirely. Since multiple tasking is ineffective, it is not rewiring the way students learn, if anything it is hindering