Like all things, technology can be used for good or ill. But it seems like the old classroom method of teaching is dying out. Instead of complementing the teacher teaching in the classroom, technology seems to be nudging the teacher out of the picture. The teacher is simply in the background, on call, expected to be available to answer questions using the student's media of choice: text, email... I don't know, do they still use the phone? Is this teaching? Anyone involved with education knows that just as there are different learning styles, so there are different teaching styles or methods. A teacher standing and lecturing to students is but one way. With the prevalence of interconnectionability and social media, today's students seem to prefer to teach themselves. Is this necessarily a bad thing? I think it is. Perhaps in the old days we didn't have as many choices when it came to learning. You went to school, attended classes, did the homework - which usually involved reading and writing or calculations if it was science or math. Now that we've got internet I wonder how many students use library books for research. How many attend class and take notes. How many think for themselves? Students of today seem to expect everything to come easy. They want to be spoon fed. Not that we wouldn't have liked to be spoon fed when we were in school but the expectation was never there. You had to put in the work, and if you didn't you were the only one who was to blame if you failed. You couldn't call the course coordinator and give some lame excuse and expect a pass. I'm talking at the college level. Nowadays, the school system operates as a business in which the students are the "customers". The colleges and universities are providing a service and they want to please their customers. "The customer knows best." "The customer is always right." So what happens when a student doesn't like what a teacher tells him or her and complains? The school listens and heeds the student, teacher be damned. How is this conducive to education? It isn't and I believe it spells the demise of the teacher as we know it. What qualified person in their right mind wants to function in an environment where they have no authority? Their own qualifications become diminished. Never mind the student quickly learns how to manipulate the system. Nobody wins. Once upon a time, although the choices were not as varied as they are today, the student could use a number of methods to learn: lectures, note taking, reading, studying, writing, discussion with teachers and fellow students. With the teacher out of the equation, the learning is seriously undermined.
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