A Worthwhile Way to Learn by Kayla

A Worthwhile Way to Learn by Kayla - January 2020 Scholarship Essay

Technology is here. It’s in our homes and our pockets. It’s sitting on our desks and stuffed in our bags. It’s even in our classrooms, where the next generation of young people training to make the world a better place are at work. Classrooms are filled with technology from phones and computers to projectors and interactive whiteboards. My education overall has been positively impacted by the growth of technology within our school system.
For me, I first took a distance learning class in my sophomore year of high school, and I quickly grew to enjoy it. In our case, my peers and I were taking a class with the teacher in the room, whilst there was a group of students from another school watching in, taking the class along with us. Though it may have seemed strange at first, we all grew more comfortable with the set-up with time. It allowed for us to not only get additional perspectives on the subject we were learning but allowed for many of us to make some new friends, several of which I am still in contact with to this day. I was even able to take a psychology course in a distance learning setting, and it was there I learned that that is what I want to pursue in secondary education. The world is always growing and changing, and being able to adapt and get comfortable with technology sooner sets students up for success.
Another side of technology that is not often looked at is its ability to make learning more engaging and interactive. Now in my senior year, I’ve done my fair share of work, and doing the same textbook work over and over again can grow to be tiresome beyond belief. But having access to technology both inside and outside the classroom has changed that. There are so many more avenues for which to get material across from online labs to creating digital presentations and so much more. Being able to learn the content in different ways helps students to better understand it, and presenting it in a different manner also aids in the learning process for those who may be having a harder time. Teachers often speak of the various ways that students learn, and the use of technology in the classroom provides so many more avenues for students to be able to learn better.
My high school, in particular, has a portal for which students are able to contact teachers, actively see their grades, and get notifications about events that are going on and meetings for clubs and sports they may be involved in. The app is available on all the computers at school, and it can even be downloaded onto students’ mobile phones. This, in my opinion, is changing the way that students operate in school for the better. I speak for myself and many others when I say that going up to a teacher after class to ask them a question can be a little scary: as can asking about what their grades are. This portal allows students to take the initiative on their own accord to stay up to date on their education. Students are more involved, more engaged, and more motivated to take the initiative within the realm of academia.
Technology within classrooms serves to amplify the atmosphere of learning to a new level. It helps to promote activity and gets students interested in the goings-on inside the classroom, and aids in extending that yearning for learning new things outside of school as well. The increased usage of technology in schools has served to prepare students and expose them to new avenues of learning that can be beneficial in the long run. Now if only the school can work on getting a solid wifi connection, we'd be in business.