I had little to no idea what it would like to take this course. Although I was familiar with the course title before signing up for the program but never really gave it a thought to what the contents of this subject would entail or why was it mandatory to take this course in first place.
The first week of the course proceeded with topics like how technology and learning had changed over years, what the educational policies and curriculum meant and what the new pedagogy focuses on. This is when I started to understand the crux of this course.
Prior to this class, I had never given a thought about the educational policy of Pakistan or that it also emphasizes on integrating technology with various educational programs. I really enjoyed the part when the instructor asked us to browse policy on use of technology in education in Pakistan. It was fun looking up for various policy documents over the internet all by myself rather than having the instructor tell us.
However, it’s really lamenting that although policies exist they aren’t being implemented in most schools of the country. I believe that “fear of using technology” is something that hinders the use of technology in education. Yes, we do live in the 21st century, we are surrounded by gadgets, we interact with them in various forms on daily basis but still when it comes to using technology for learning and teaching purposes, we look at it if it’s something alien.
it is shocking but an undeniable reality that the same teacher who can use a smartphone or a simple desktop computer in his or her daily life doesn’t use it or rather repudiates to use it as a teaching aid. One possible reason that they are reluctant to use technology in classrooms is that they are already pre-occupied and over-burdened with their work which includes but is not limited to the tasks like making lesson plans, checking and marking student’s homework assignments and exam papers. Moreover, most of the schools in Pakistan, either private schools or the public ones, have way too many students in a single class. On top of that, a single teacher is assigned more than one class and this completely sucks out the motivation for them to implement effective teaching strategies in classrooms. Their focus becomes on getting the work done instead of making sure whether their students are learning from it or not. However, technology, if used, can address these problems. Such platforms could be designed that would save the teacher from the effort of making lesson-plans and the manual marking of student homework assignments and assessments. Training is another edtech component that could support the teaching process. Designing proper training programs can familiarize the teachers with making most of the platforms that can reduce workload from them. And once this happens, teachers would gain their enthusiasm to focus on making students learn.
Where making technology a part of the teaching process can do wonders, on the other hand, it can have a positive impact on the overall learning outcomes of the students. A child of today’s age, whether coming from a privileged background or an unprivileged one, is completely enthralled by technology (usage of cell phones and social media). It has locked-in all the five senses of the new generation. Given so much involvement of technology, the state of education remains poor as ever. This is because it is being used for the sole purpose of entertainment only and not as a tool to educate oneself. Students are still required to write hundreds and thousands of homework pages which demolishes their ability to think out of the box. To escape the boredom, sites like Facebook and Twitter attract their attention and they get glued to their screens all day long which in turn results in poor learning outcomes. To engage the students, platforms like Minecraft or Kahoot! should be used to engross them in fun yet learning-oriented activities. Instead of giving textbook oriented assignments, they should be given open-ended assignments that can trigger their creativity.
To sum up, the educational status of Pakistan can change for good if right usage of technology is implemented in classrooms for both the teaching and the learning purposes. And I say this because our nation is aware of the usage of technology. They have the basic idea how a smartphone operates, how the internet works, what social networking sites are available. They also have the idea what education is but what’s missing is the awareness of the mix of both education and technology.