Technology In The Classroom

The popularity and convenience of technology has unsurprisingly led to its infiltration of the college classroom, to the delight of some and the irritation of others.  Those who are opposed to or bothered by this phenomenon are almost invariably all teachers, and their motivations and arguments related to this stance are openly fallacious.  The facade of a rational or scientific basis for either removing or minimizing the presence of technology in the classroom, aside from being outright asinine, can actually harm students.

Some students may indeed learn more easily and effectively when technology is directly incorporated into their lessons and exercises, and the personal preferences of their educators have no impact on which learning styles best suit them.  It should be obvious that imposing gratuitous and arbitrary restrictions on educational methods can hinder the progress of certain students.  Any professor who believes that his or her subjective preferences have any sort of genuine authority is blatantly mistaken, no matter how much some look up to them.

The reason why many anti-technology teachers hold their stance often can be traced to something as petty as a desire for attention.  The academic world is infected with the mistaken belief that a position or title signifies intellectual competence, not to mention the idea that reason is at the heart of many contemporary educational programs.  Most teachers, like most people in general, are not rationalists, and are indeed irrational, and yet they may still think themselves entitled to intellectual respect all the same.

The egos of educators are of no significance when it comes to teaching, much less the egos of educators who cannot grasp the difference between education and intelligence--even if they are professors at prestigious universities.  The distinction is vital.  Since anyone who equates technology with some alleged corruption of the classroom is guilty of non sequitur fallacies, such a person is unintelligent and therefore unfit to stand in a position of academic authority, even though that authority is of an illusory nature as it is.

When it is administered and pursued without regard for anything other than truth, education is not about some imagined power in the classroom that does not translate to intellectual authority to begin with.  It is about learning new information or having familiar concepts about which students have questions being explained in more digestible ways.  It is about pursuing knowledge.  Never once, however, is sound education itself about appeasing the arbitrary preferences of egotistical teachers, even if they feel threatened or trivialized by the integration of technology into education.