We are living in the world where technology almost surpassed humanity said by “Albert Einstein”. It’s worthless to mention nowadays that technology is playing a very important role in every aspect of life. But don’t you think it is making you moron day by day.
There are some education experts who strongly support that technology actually upgraded the education system in U.S.A. On the other hand, many believe that use of hi-tech mechanization literally hinders the steps of learning. They are largely becoming dependent on technology for their assignments rather than using their cerebrum for the thought process.
Being a teacher, I faced lots negative issues behind the use of technology in education. Here, I am going to list 15 disadvantages of technology in education.
1) Immense expenditures –
Gone are the days where students have to depend on paper and pen. This is an advanced era of technology where machines like computers substituted the use of paper with its hi-tech features and to maintain them a huge sum of money is required by schools and colleges which can otherwise be spent to buy necessary resources. In addition to it you have to spend thousands of dollars to update the out-dated softwares which are incompatible with present technology.
2) Insufficient methods of teaching-
With the advancement of mechanization, teachers are not equally trained with its proper implementation. Thus learners are just using technology instead of gaining knowledge from it. Using applied science to achieve education in the proper way is a good thing but to transform it into an active set of skills is a matter of time.
Inquiry-based learning is the best way to teach the learners where they get an opportunity to research on different topics individually. Therefore, technology should be fused with this method of teaching to make the learner’s brain keep working instead of being totally dependent on them.
3) Transforming learners into inefficient learners-
Very difficult to find the word “diligent” in learners nowadays as most of the lessons can be easily accessible to them online through different websites in their computers which are making them inattentive in classrooms or making the mote skip schools frequently.
Relying completely on computers are creating poor studying habits. Many students keep browsing websites to find the shortest possible way to solve problems in Mathematics instead of solving them in a traditional way which actually helps them to gain in-depth knowledge of the subjects. Spell-checkers prevents them from learning the correct spelling thus resulting infinite spellingmistakes in paper.
4) Waste of valuable time-
It is the humanbeing who built technology not the technology that created a human. As humans are not error-free, similarly technology too does not come error-free. There are lots of problems like server error and connectivity problems which take oodles of time to troubleshoot it, therefore, hindering the learning process which can sometimes be a matter of frustration both for the learners and the educators. Wastage of time because of unnecessary issues is not at all advisable in schools or any learning institutes where every second is valuable for the learners.
5) Misguided by the wrong information-
With the speeding development of technology, the websites owner urges to rank their websites higher in search engines, so they only concentrate on rankings instead of the content that they are posting. Many websites come with wrong information that has been copied and pasted from other sources without checking its authenticity. Thus the learners are misguided by the wrong informations available on the websites. These things can perhaps become serious obstacles in their development.
6) Majorsources of distractions-
One of the statistics that revealed, almost 60% of the schools in U.S.A issues laptops and tablets. As you know that in present generation social networking sites are literally ruling the world with its attractive innovations therefore students and learners are busy in checking their posts and updates, counting the number of likes, checking the status that they themselves or any of their near and dear ones updated, engage in commenting on social sites etc. all these activities create a huge distance between them and their education.
7) Creating enough room for cheating-
The mechanized world is making you more and more lazy giving all the powers to control everything by a click of mouse. Cheating is an illegal activity but technology made it more powerful and easy to use with its powerful wings. It has really become very tough to control this activity, especially in the examination environment. Smartphones are available with all its advanced features and instant internet accessibility which compel them to use it without any hassles.
8) Increase rate of cyber bullying-
Cyber bullying is an illegal activity where especially youngsters fall under the trap of illegal crimes without their knowledge. The young learners have an easy access to umpteen accounts that tends them to enter into the dark tunnel of harassment which has an entry but no exit at times. They lost in its darkness along with their shining future which could have given miraculous results if cultivated properly but with cyber bullying everything gets washed off all of a sudden.
9) Makes learners disconnected from the real world-
In recent days to keep equal pace with technology educators are busy in educating the learners with its online education tools instead of communicating orally that makes them unable to interact with their teachers and share their problems openly to overcome it. Teachers fail to draw student’s attention. To avoid these problem educators should always use verbal communications along with online education tools so that their students can dynamically learn the topics along with proper interactions.
10) Major challenges for teachers-
Every day, scientists come with new discoveries and challenges that keep technology rolling every second. Softwares keep on upgrading and if a teacher does not possess technical skills, it becomes difficult for him to execute it in the right direction. Hence, educators have to be expert in technical skills toor the school has to hire technical experts adding extra expenses to their expenditures to overcome these technical challenges.
11) A major drawback of losing assignment for students-
Computer is a machine which often faces malfunction at times due to its wear and tear. Just imagine you have to submit your assignment tomorrow which is your last deadline and you have put all your hard labours to complete the assignment and saved it in your laptop to get the highest grade in class but all of sudden just the night before submission your laptop isn’t working. What will be your reaction? Will you be able to put the same efforts within that limited time? All your efforts went in vain with the malfunctioning of your laptop. You cannot rely completely on these gadgets for your important projects and assignments.
12) Difficult to deal with online courses-
You keep on exploring the world each day but still there are lots of facts that are left unexplored. Knowledge has no limit and no age. Many students or learners have urge to keep their learning go on and on but at times it becomes difficult for them to attend regular classes due to their job or other difficulties but with advance science it has become easy nowadays as it has given us the marvellous option of perusing online courses along with our regular activities, but problems like slow internet speed and network issues keeps troubling you. The other disadvantage is that these online courses often fail to create motivation for learning or self-discipline and usually ends with monotonous experiences and frustration.
13) Extinct of good handwriting-
As smartphones, laptops, desktops and tablets wholly replaced the use of paper and pen, therefore, finding a person with good hand writing is just like finding a needle in the haystack. All the important documents are now typed and fitted in that small folder icon in your laptop. Experts say that people are sacrificing their handwriting to adopt the technology for fast learning. Using of technology in place of handwriting slow down your thinking process by making your neurons lethargic.
14) Partial to the low-income group-
Some low-income institutes in U.S.A does not have access to a huge number of computers to make it available for all the students so in this case those students may be unaware of the basic computer skills that have been learned by other students at a very early stage. Technology needs a huge sum of money to shower its blessings to the educational institutes especially the colleges that requires large number of computers to educate its students with advanced science.
15) Replacing books with e-books-
The world is shrinking day by day and so all your important stuffs are now compressed in your favourite gadgets even the books which have now become e-books which are called electronic books. Books are your real assets and can never be replaced by e-books which may not be cost-effective at times and can cause eyestrain. E-books are not compatible in all the devices so your laptop or tablets should have e-book reader to access electronic books and the worst part is your e-book can be hacked easily by the hackers.
Wherever there is light, there is a shadow. Technology can make you fly higher and higher in the sky but at the same time it can even ruin your life with its negative features. Technology can enhance your knowledge at the same time it can even lower your grade in education.