You come in to the classroom and you sit down in your chair; the teacher begins to talk about the subject for that day. 50 years ago, the process was the same. However, they did not have the benefit of the same technology we do. It is no surprise that as technology becomes more and more integrated into our lives that some of it will spill into our education. When you walk into a classroom the first thing you will most likely see is a SMART board and ten years before that it was the white board and before that it was a chalk board.

If it wasn’t for the Internet, blackboard would not exist. Blackboardhelps to better connect students and teachers, to check homework and turn in assignments. Blackboard also benefits teachers by recording which students have been online to check their homework or post a discussion topic. “Its nice to see what assignments I have upcoming” freshman Homza Kha said. By having an online resource that children can use, teachers can use more class time that might have otherwise been devoted to simple things like passing out textbooks or copying down the homework for the day. The only real downside is that students may become lazy because they know they can just check blackboard when they get home.

A SMART board is a technologically enhanced whiteboard. It allows teachers to hook up their computers to the board as to make changes to the documents on the SMART board. While this just might sound like the same thing as using a white board and projector together, it has a couple more features. ”they are really useful in geometry for the teacher to draw accurately” Sophomore Katherine Schaedel The documents themselves can be edited and any text that you write up on the board will stay on the document until it is deleted. While this technology isn’t a huge benefit to education, it is convenient and doesn’t need to be wiped down by the janitors at the end of the day.

Online textbooks have become more and more popular over the years. They are accessible, weigh nothing more than a smartphone or laptop, and best of all, they are the most eco-friendly choice. However, depending on how you look at it, this is one of the worst changes that have been caused by technology. One of the biggest problems is that while many people do have internet access, a large number still don’t. Even those who do have access find the online textbook harder to manage than a paper book.

Finally, we have in school computer labs. This is the biggest change that has occurred in the last 50 years. The ability to be able to take a whole class to one area and allow them to use the internet under supervision is a great benefit to teachers. “They are easily accessible to any kind of students in the school.” Sophomore Ammanuel Kalayu It also allows students to take tests online, saving paper, and makes it harder for them to cheat by displaying questions one at a time, randomizing the order of test questions, or having students take different tests all together. Last but not least it provides a place where students who do not have internet access at home can complete work.

As technology becomes a greater influence on education, it allows for teachers to teach more effectively, and students to learn better.