Education

Sharing a Computer Screen, if Not a Classroom

Kyle Spencer writes about the use of new technology to help students learn more while in school. Spencer looked at a school in the Bronx, Public School 55, where the first graders have begun to test out a new tutoring program. The school has been having problems getting volunteers to come in and do some one-on-one practice due to the dangerous community right outside the school. The principal, Luis Torres, "sometimes cancels fire drills because of the gunfire he hears outside". So in order to solve this problem, a new program from "Innovations for Learning" has been brought into the school. On it, volunteers from outside the neighborhood can call a student at the school and read a book. The volunteer and student share a screen with a virtual book and read aloud, sounding out any difficult words. Afterwards, students can return to the regular class activities and see real improvement. This tutoring is being tested out in various poor parts of the nation including the Bronx PS5 "where only 15 percent of the third graders passed the state English exam". Yet as always there are skeptics who claim that without a "live" inclass tutor, the children cannot learn as well. The tutor and the student cannot develop a true bond and cannot see the child's expressions and posture. Yet this is good enough for now due to low budgets and safety concerns.

At first I was skeptical as well of the incorporation of certain technological programs to aid in teaching. I've always found it much more helpful to have a teacher right next to you, guiding you step by step through a process. Yet this article changed my mind. If used in the right ways, technology truly can help us advance our education. The 7-year-old boy managed to improve his reading through a tutoring program on the computer. I can see how useful a program such as that can be in a poor, crime-filled neighborhood that scares off many volunteer tutors. I found this article relatable and interesting due to the fact that our school has been improving our technology and how we learn with new databases, programs, and so on. I am also interested in how technology will shape our education in the future. We already have college courses online and apps for studying. Could we soon be learning everything off of a computer at home? I have read about it on books and it is becoming a reality. What I would like to know more on is whether that would be effective and if there were ever tests done to see if learning from a computer is more beneficial than hands on, in class learning.