|
Since invented less than 60 years ago, computers are playing an increasingly important role in the modern society. Today computers is not only an efficient tool for adults to finish their jobs but also enter the classrooms and assist the teachers in their teaching activities. Someone may concerns that the extensive utilization of computers rather than the traditional pencils and plays may affect the effects of education negatively, especially for the students in fundamental and middle schools. This argument does have its ground. However, there is no a simple answer to this question in my opinion.
To begin with, it is commonly accepted that the introduction of computers during the education could definitely intrigue the interests of children. Compared with the traditional text books, the computers can provide easier access to all kinds of knowledge sources. For instance, looking up a new English word used to take at least 2 minutes using paper dictionary but the same term could be looked up virtually immediate at the touch of fingertip. The computers can accommodate knowledge in the form of multimedia, such as pictures, animations as well as sounds. The multimedia will greatly facilitate the understanding of difficult concepts, especially in the field of science and technology. For example, playing an animation file on screen to illustrate the three Laws of Newton is much more understandable than the explanation in words the young students.
However, everything comes with a price (cost) and the computers can’t be excluded, either. The utilization of computers will also bring some undesired effects to the young students. First of all, it is noticed that the new generation of students have a much high higher ratio of poor handwritings. In the old fashion, the students are not only required to write down their thoughts or answers to questions clearly but also neatly, which could essentially force the students to improve their writings so that the instructors could read and grade. However, in the era of computers, this issue no long exists as many students prefer to key in the answers and then print out. We can’t say that this is absolutely wrong but good and stylish handwriting should be highly valued after all. The mass usage of computers in education is resulting in the disappearance of good handwriting. Another possible negative impact of computers on students is that they are changing the way of thinking of young students. To be an independent and creative thinker, a student supposes to think by himself how to solve a new problem. However, the excessive usage of computers has made the first thought of most young students when coping with problems search on line. As a result, there are more “followers” than “thinkers” among the new generation of students and this will impair the progress of society eventually.
To sum up, there are pros and cons when tackling the issue of using computers in education. We should not prohibit the usage of computers but should be aware that there is a need for more discussion on how to maximize the benefits of computers and minimize the adverse impact on our education of young students. |
|