A study conducted by the US Department of Education reveals that almost all public schools in that country have access to the Internet, but few take effective advantage of technology to teach students who attend them, who end up perceiving more technology than students. your teachers.
In the past decade, 99 percent of primary and secondary education institutions in the United States have become connected to the Internet, installing a computer for every five students, reveals the study called «Toward a New Golden Age in American Education: How the Internet, the law and today’s students are revolutionizing expectations «, which on the other hand indicates that most of these schools still do not take advantage of computer resources to enrich the teaching experience.
«Education seems to be the only sector that still debates the benefits of technology», according to the American Secretary of Education, Rod Paige, US Secretary of Education, in the official report, recently released, adding that the functioning in schools remains unchanged in most cases, despite numerous reforms and the many investments made in computers and networks.
The government department explains that computers are usually installed in separate rooms and not in the main study space. This and other options mean that students end up learning more about computers at home than at school.
The study also reveals that students understand more about technologies than their teachers. For example, 72 percent of all primary school students use their home computer at least once a week during their summer vacation, according to the National Center for Education Statistics. The largest group of new Internet users between 2000 and 2002 was between two and five years old, followed by those between six and eight years old.
The students themselves seem to have a perception of what is going on and make some suggestions: «Teachers could use technology better if they learned more about it», says a primary school student, quoted in the study.
In view of the results obtained, the US government is proposing a national technology education plan, where, among other things, schools are recommended to provide more information technology training to teachers, to promote teaching with students. online or eLearning, invest in broadband connections and replace some of the textbooks with digital information.
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