How technology has changed the way we learn.

'Once not so very long ago, students gathered information by listening to face-to-face lectures, searching the stacks of libraries and reading books. Quaint as it seems , papers were written in longhand or typed on typewriters. Today, learning involves technology unheard of only a decade or so ago' (Technology, n.d.). 

As I sit here and write this blog I am in deep thought about how technology has changed the way we learn. Just by writing this blog I am actively engaging and learning via the use of mobile technology. As a mature student I will use this blog to reflect upon this subject as it is indeed a history lesson in itself on how learning has changed over the last 50 years. My first taste of technology in the classroom was a radio which the teacher used infrequently for us to listen to children's programmes on the BBC, usually because she had had a bad day and wanted a rest. Rolling through the years and nothing much changed until the advent of televisions and video players in the classrooms during the 1970's. I vaguely remember some in my Grammar school but when they abolished Grammar schools in 1972, I was sent to a Comprehensive School where there was virtually a television in every room and on the advent of video recorders, a video recorder in every classroom. 

From there I went to a Technical College, where everything was hands on practical learning and theory, not a lot of tv, but as I went through my various career paths I remember technology creeping more into what I would call 'ordinary' life through the introduction of supermarket bar codes for
consumers and receiving training in the police via distance learning packages on basic desktop computers. This enabled the training to be designed, and delivered from Scotland Yard at a touch of a button for us all to do within a set time period. It also enabled us to be evaluated and have delivered updated e-learning packages every month and if we did not complete them an e-mail was sent to our Inspector or local training dept and we would have our backsides kicked to get it done. This meant that we could learn in quiet periods on a night duty, rather than be in a classroom 9 to 5 during busy periods of duty.

Technology has sprinted ahead since the introduction of the iphone. According to Burke (2013) 'There's no doubt that the iPad and its multiple applications , along with other mobile devices and online learning, could bring amazing resources into the very foundations of the educative process'. We are now in an age of self-learning and distance learning. We do not have to attend a school or a college at all if our courses are validated and accessible online. We can study part time for degrees at home, we can virtually learn anything from our living room. Learning can be fun, interactive and to the point, but at the same time it can be de-personalised, lacking that personal touch, that intimacy of discussion with a living human being, instead of interacting via a plastic computer terminal and a liquid crystal screen.

Burke, L., 2013. Educational and online technologies and the way we learn. International Schools Journal, Vol XXXII (2), pp. 57-65.

Technology., n.d. Wikipedia, blogs and podcasts: Does technology change the way we learn? Technology, [online] Available at: http://www-e.openu.ac.il/geninfor/openletter/ol19/download/page-20-21.pdf