Gadget at My School: Yes or No?

I read one of many articles in @steemiteducation few days ago which shared by @fun2learn about his/her bad learning experience when he/she was as a primary student, then (I don't know whether it's a) he or she changed his/her perspective of learning because of good teachers' performance. Visit this account (https://steemit.com/steemiteducation/@fun2learn/a-short-story-of-fun2learn) to read it more in detail. I am quite sure it will be inspiring for all.

When I read this statement, "As we moved into the age of technology, students are constantly using mobile phones, internet etc. They get bored more easily as our lessons may not be interesting enough to excite them", commented by @fun2learn in my replies box, I directly realized that I got the same point of view with him/her. Some of the students feel bored to learn in the class when the teacher teaches them in mainstream ways such as two-hour lecturing, taking note, and doing exercise only without any other creative in-class activities. No wonder, sometimes learning the same topic by using gadget will be more interesting and challenging for the students rather than learning in the classroom with teacher who always use whiteboard and marker as media. Thus, it's trend for kids in this era to learn any subjects by using gadget. Sometimes, they know better than the teachers because of fully accessing internet for reading learning materials, and then test themselves by doing many varieties of questions.

As I observed in some schools when I had school visit with my colleagues, most of students learn Math, English, Biology, and etc by using gadget. The teachers open the class by giving some instructions, delivering list of some activities to do during few hours later, and then let the students work by themselves to read some resources or given link via laptop, tablet, or their own Smart Phone. They followed the instruction very well. I could notice how they seriously discussed what they read with the teacher and friends. What I realized was they did use gadget for learning, for accessing some information related to the topic given. They opened the connected link to watch the video, listen to the lectures, and do the online exercise. They also used books which can be connected to the screen.

However, I also found that some schools, especially in my country, Aceh, Indonesia, do not allow their pupils to bring gadget to the school. The school has applied this kind of rule for years for the reason that children will not wisely use their gadget during the school-time. There were some cases occurred (based on experience in interviewing some teachers) such as; 1) losing or being stolen, 2) affecting students' concentration, focus, and attention, 3) spending a lot of time for playing game, 4) taking pictures in inappropriate time, 5) watching video that has negative impact for the children. In my opinion, the school must have strict rules in order to anticipate those issues. One of solution is students are allowed to use gadget in a certain time only. It means that they use it during teaching learning process which insist them to use it. The rest of time, they will not use it based on their own interests. Teachers should be strict to warn everyone who breaks the rules so that using gadget for learning can be effectively used at these schools too. One more suggestion is, the schools (which have rule; gadget is not allowed at school) should learn from other schools who have successfully apply teaching learning process by using gadget and without any attitude problems of the students.

Actually, if we consider on the development of technology in this era, 21st century, education will be influenced by high technology system in the world. What do our pupils need today? Are they learning for having high academic achievement? Or are they learning for living in the real world? Whatever the goal is, the demand of life today is how the learners can survive in the community with all knowledge that they have learnt at school. Time for practicing, time for solving problems. Therefore, knowledge in the student book or workbook does not represent all what happen every single minute in this world, but via gadget they will easily and quickly see, know, and understand all fast.

Long time ago, our students (those who can't afford to go abroad) never think that they are able to see, make friend, and talk to other people in another part of the world. To know people with different color of eyes, skin, and hair. Nowadays, the differences of each part of the world will be obviously can be recognized just by accessing information via gadget and internet. Finally, all realized and understand about the color of the world and how to react on that.

In my point of view, I do agree that using gadget for learning is very useful. Teachers should utilize the gadget as one of technology highest quality devices/media for teaching learning process. Children who live in 21st century are keen on using gadget in their daily life. They love surfing in the internet; searching and reading many information, playing games, chatting, taking pictures, and doing business. To know this condition, why don't we direct them to use their gadget for learning too. They can ask Google every time for helping their difficulties in doing a homework, searching for difficult work in online dictionary, listening to the native speaker, and independently training to answer a thousand online exercises they want. All information they need are ready in Internet. So, they can keep closing to their gadget by not ignoring studying.