Education Through Time
by Kody Carling
Throughout time, the human race has had a reputation of learning from experimentation to increase the quality of life for the Earth’s inhabitants. With the educational gains in the field of medicine over time, the life expectancy of the world’s population continues to rise. False traditions such as Bloodletting or treating illnesses with Mercury have been superseded. Scientists are always trying to prove there to be more proficient way to heal maladies.
This improvement cycle does not just take place in the world of medicine. Think of the transition from horse and buggy to automobiles, or to the burning of fossil fuels to technologies like solar power. I believe this improvement cycle will continue through time, and our children’s children will look back to our generation and wonder why we did the things the way we do them.
The vehicle for the improvement cycle is education, and education has also evolved over time. In order to improve life for future generations, we need to find better and more efficient ways to teach our children. This is why living in our time is so exciting. I believe our generation is starting to catch the drift that the way education was 20 years ago, is not the best way to teach our children anymore; the younger generations are wired differently, and are drawn to technology.
The Internet has evolved with flood levels of information are just a click away. Educational software such as Imagine Learning and language tools like Grammarly have been created to better teach students.
Imagine Learning is a program to help ESL/ELL students, students with learning disabilities, and struggling readers learn English; it is like Rosetta Stone, another language learning software, but for children. Imagine Learning gives students native language support if they are struggling, and advances or regresses students in the program by activity scores. This means the program is adapted to the student, and will not leave the student struggling with material they are working on.
Grammarly, a grammar check tool, will help students become spelling and grammar champions; this program undertakes 150+ English grammar rules. One of the hardest things about learning a language, is learning that words can have multiple meanings, and words can also sound the same but have entirely different meanings. Grammarly has a contextual spell check build in that attacks this front. It allows students to see the correct word with their own eyes quickly. Grammarly also extends the vocabulary for it’s users with their vocabulary enhancement features.
There is an ongoing debate as to whether or not these technologies will eliminate teachers in the future. I do not think this will be the case, but these new technologies should be tools in the teachers’ hand to tailor the learning curriculum to each student individually.
The traditional classroom lectures are not reaching the majority of the students; students are getting lost, and scared to ask a question because they do not want to be perceived as a slow learner by their peers. Some students are getting bored, because they are not allowed to move on until the teacher makes sure all of the students understand what is being taught; this can waste valuable time, especially if the number is 30 or more students per teacher.
The great thing about learning software programs and grammar tools is that they allow the student to learn at their own pace, plus one. I say plus one because they are programmed to make the student reach beyond their perceived potential, and move at a pace comfortable for the student.
The beautiful thing is that these technologies free up more time for a teacher to help struggling students, but allow more advanced students to continue learning during school time. These programs have built in reporting systems that alert the teacher if a child is struggling with a particular subject. With this information those struggling can be given the help they need to overcome their challenges. Students accelerating quickly will not have to be held back by the group and can achieve new levels of insight and intellect.
The key to building a bright future for the rising generation is through improving our ability to educate. We should never be afraid of change, or learning a more efficient way to accomplish a procedure of the past. We should welcome the change, especially if it positively affects the worlds inhabitants.
About Kody
Kody works for Mangoco, a web design company based out of Ashburn Virginia. You can follow him on Twitter @K_carling.
Note- This is a paid advertorial guest post written for Pretty Opinionated by the author. Nevertheless, I only publish content that I feel will be beneficial to my readers in some way.
