The articles “Educational Technology isn’t Leveling the Playing Field” and “Why Hoboken is Throwing Away all of its Student Laptops” seem to be closely related. I’m beginning to tie all these articles and documentaries we are reading and watching together. There is always the underlying question of whether technology is helpful or harmful, and my feelings are learning more and more on the harmful side.
Both of these articles proved that without the proper administration, teacher training, adult supervision, and a privileged upbringing it is near impossible for low income students to get the benefits of technology and computers in their lives. The evidence of the articles made me really sad.
For the Hoboken article, it seems the real problem is administration and government. Without a forward-thinking and clear plan, the technology is unsuccessful for the students not only because they fail to take care of the computers, but because the faculty is untrained with knowing how to reap the benefits of the machines and translate that to the students. I was also very saddened by the “Matthew Effect” spoken about in the Playing Field article. I had no idea that since these low-income students hadn’t had technological advantages early on in their life, they were unable to proper use the technology to the fullest benefit when they were granted access to it. It makes sense to me now that I’ve read it and I think knowing this provides future endeavors to supply this technology much earlier on, even at the beginning of schooling for these children. There is a benefit to failing, and that is the knowledge to fix what happened. This, again, calls for administration in schools and government intervention. There need to be mandates in place so all schools have to follow a certain structure to help disadvantaged children.
However things don't have to be hopeless. It can be changed. In the Rushkoff article we were exposed to hope and the real conclusion to the “helpful or harmful” technology debate seems to be: Yes, it can overwhelmingly be helpful IF we learn to truly program and understand the biases. But the if is big. And the harm can possibly be just as big if we don't get on board.
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