Over the course of the pandemic, teaching staff have figured out and discovered the difficulties and obstacles that occur when learning is unguided and approached without a structure or guideline in place. Unguided learning of any kind is consistently proven to be unhelpful when it comes to teaching independent learning. When it comes to online learning, most commonly referred to as educational technology, there are a lot of rumours and myths around the perks and drawbacks of it.
1: People have a native digital tongue
This simply is not the case! Young children for the most part do not have a natural and engrained knowledge of technology. Some teachers seem to believe that they can simply pop a computer or new piece of digital technology in front of a student, and it will immediately become second nature to them. This is simply just not true. Doing this will not only confused and overwhelm the students, it will also means that any learning done on the new devices will not be fully absorbed. This is because students will not be able to effectively multitask. Thus, the new learning on the device and how to use it will suddenly take over, meaning the new learning that is actually being introduced will go in one ear and out the other.
2: The use of technology will make learning interesting all on its own.
This is the funniest myth of it all. The subconscious thought that simply putting dull learning on a bright screen will make the lesson more enjoyable and more applicable to students simply is not true. Richard Harris, a tech writer at Elite Assignment Help and UK Writings, commented that, “Many teachers do not try to make learning engaging and simply leave lessons as dull as they were; only transferring them to devices. The simple transfer of a lesson from a whiteboard to a tablet screen makes no inherent difference to the interest of the lesson to students who have it in front of them.” Lessons need to be engaging on their own before they are transferred to devices.
3: Students are natural multitaskers!
A lot of educators seem to believe that students will simply exercise their brain muscles and grow their learning capacity if they are given multiple tasks to do at once. They believe that this will cause productivity and increase a student’s ability to multitask. This is not the case. The cognitive function that will occur in a student trying to complete multiple tasks at once will actually end up being ‘task-switching’ rather than multitasking. This will lead to the same two tasks being done with less efficiency and less accuracy than they would have been if done separately.
4: Everything is on Google, just search it!
The assumption that everything is on Google and that students should just google things if they need to know them is not entirely accurate. Although the Internet has become a fantastic resource for the educational sector, it cannot be seen as an all-knowing being that has all the answers. As Freya Harvey, an educator at State of writing and Revieweal, noted, “There are many resources available that are not being taken advantage of in the educational setting just because they are not available over the world wide web.”
5: Independent Learning is Best
Independent learning is not everything it is cracked up to be. Although it does have its place in some sectors of education, students do need to be taught. School is for teaching, at the end of the day. Students need direction in many circumstances and should be allowed the luxury of support until they do not need it anymore. Independent learning should be taught alongside structure learning, not relied on solely.
Digital technology in education is something that should be used in proportion and alongside regular, structured learning. Instead of relying on digital devices as all-encompassing machines that can replace learning, we need to use them to boost learning as a whole. They should be a tool in our toolbelt, not the whole belt itself. These five myths and following the thought processes behind those myths can be very dangerous to learning and to the education sector.
About the Author:
Elizabeth Hines is an online digital business marketer and content writer at Case study writing and Big Assignments. She enjoys writing about educational topics of interest and schooling for young children. She also writes for online magazine and blogs, such as Simple Grad.
