New educational technologies are a tool to strengthen teaching and learning, increase opportunities to access knowledge, develop collaborative skills or instill values, among others.
If there is something that has changed our lives and our habits in recent years, it has been the new technologies. The ways in which we buy, communicate and relate to others are radically different from what they were less than 20 years ago.
And the new technologies, despite the risks for children and the need for control by mothers and fathers, applied to education, have also changed the way we teach and learn at school. Do you want to know how they have influenced us?
To begin with, teaching activity has changed with the use of the internet or devices such as computers, mobiles and tablets, so it is now possible to use other forms of education and different means of learning, which allow technologies in education to be focused on teamwork, the critical capacity of students and the learning of values.
What are new technologies in education?
It is something very simple. It is nothing more than the use of ICT or information and communication technologies in the educational field. The aim of their use is to improve and encourage both teaching and learning, and we’ll tell you how!
What characterizes them?
They combine the particularities of information and communication technologies, such as speed or proximity, with those of teaching, such as learning or knowledge.
- They make it possible to extend the scope of teaching beyond the traditional classroom.
- They make possible new formulas for approaching the theoretical and practical parts of the subjects.
- They increase access to education and encourage interactivity.
- They simplify the action of sharing educational materials or information, both for teachers and students.
- They invite to continue learning and developing knowledge, or to improve skills with extra content or digital books.
- They facilitate the connection and participation between educational centers regardless of where they are located.
- They enable students to keep up to date with data, figures and current news from all over the world, and allow them to get to know other realities different from the environment in which they live.
New technologies in education.
We live in an increasingly technological world. Chalk and notebooks are giving way to new school supplies. And that can be seen in the classrooms.
Electronic books
Paper books are heavy, uncomfortable to carry in your backpack every day. Moreover, with the continuous advances, discoveries and the frenetic pace of events they soon become outdated.
Digital books avoid these problems, as they can be read on different electronic devices and their contents can be quickly adapted to new developments.
Computers and smart phones
Computers are not new and mobile phones are not usually welcome in the classroom. However, they are the ideal tool for developing computer thinking in the classroom through programming and robotics.
The National Institute of Educational Technologies and Teacher Training has the CodeEducaLab project to promote this skill within the educational community. Get to know it!
MOOC Courses
These are the Massive Open On-line Courses, which help many more people to access training and reduce the educational gap due to their characteristics: they are free, collective, allow students to freely dispose of the contents and do not require an access test.
Online learning
The well-known online learning or e-learning is somewhat similar to the above, since it also promotes access to education through the network, but in this case it is based on a teaching model where there is permanent communication and interaction between teachers and students.
WhatsApp Groups
In many schools it is common for parents to have such groups. They allow them to be in contact with the school and to keep up to date with all the issues: dining room, extracurricular activities, excursions… or even student absenteeism!
The impact of new technologies on education
The use of information and communication technologies at increasingly younger ages brings positive aspects such as the promotion of values or skills, which you will find developed below, but can also involve negative nuances if they are misused or overexposed.
However, the Internet and social networks can become our partners in promoting positive behaviour and preventing risk situations that violate children’s rights. Here are some examples:
- Fighting digital gender-based violence. The Cibervolunteers Foundation is developing the program “Stop, think, connect” with the aim of alerting, raising awareness and detecting situations of gender violence on the Internet among children and adolescents. To this end, it offers training workshops on the safe use of technologies and activities for minors, educators and families. The training activities for educational centres are totally free, so do not hesitate to contact and act against this type of violence.
- Protecting children from bad practices on the Internet and networks. To guarantee a safe environment or to know how to proceed in the face of possible threats, Families in Positive offers you the guide Protect your children on the Internet. For its part, Friendly Screens offers extensive material and resources such as information on the types of threats to the network or educational games.
What do new technologies bring to education?
Values such as solidarity, respect or equality can be promoted through new technologies in education. Let’s see how.
Access to knowledge
Years ago we went to school with books we had to buy, and now we combine that pedagogical resource with the use of information that can be obtained through the Internet, which makes access to knowledge easier for all children.
Developing a critical sense
However, the consequence of democratization in access to information has its risks, since there is a large amount of data that has an unknown or unreliable origin, so it is important that children learn to filter it and use their critical sense to distinguish the information that really has value.
Own initiative
Critical capacity must be linked to another important value for today’s society, namely the ability to create projects and carry them out with the knowledge acquired. We will be creating proactive and responsible adults!