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Digital Technology and Education

How Digital Technology Affects Education

Digital Technology reveals the many ways the digital revolution is shaping daily life. This is the modern technology and has had an impact on nearly all sectors of humanity. This involves the development and use of mobile phones, digital music players, computers, the Internet, and other technologies work. As an example, students can use the gadget to find essay writing help from best rated writing services. With the current globalization, these modern technologies are increasingly being applied in many ways. This study aims at exploring effects of the development of digital technology in the education sector and the impact on academic performance. Digital technology has influenced  education and academic performance of learners both negatively and positively.

Positive impacts of digital technology on education

1. Greater access to information: the use of the internet to share information has enabled learners to have a greater access to information from different parts of the globe. This has given scholars a wider scope and access to important information, which would help them in their studies. For instance, many books and journals can easily be accessed through the internet making it easier for learners to retrieve information at any place. Development of internet-enabled mobile phones makes it even easier to get information anywhere.
2. Faster communication: with the development of mobile phones, information about learning may easily be communicated from the teacher to students or from the administration to the teachers and vice versa. Additionally, the development of emails has also been used to communicate. For instance, the teacher may send notes to the student as soft copy through the email.
3. Data storage: the development of computers has enabled learners to store many pages of data on a small device. This has led to minimizing of space for storage of data as compared to the large space that was used in case of hard copies. The cost of storing data is also less as compared to printing papers. This makes learning cheaper for the learners as well as the teachers. Learners may also use email accounts to store documents. This gives security to the data since it cannot be lost in case your computer has lost its data.
4. Sharing of information: the use of internet makes learners share information between one another thereby enhancing knowledge. Through the social media e.g. Facebook and Twitter, people share information with each other. This makes them learn from one another. The social media provide a platform of interaction from different quotas regardless of the location. This has enhanced the flow of information from one geographical region to another at a very high speed.
5. Motivating learners: with the increasing development in digital technology, learners are motivated to study hard to become part of this development. For instance, college and university students are developing computer software that solves most of the emerging issues. The students have a vision in the current way of doing things. With a requirement to do a research, within the field of study, students think and develop very sophisticated software, which has significantly impacted economic and social development.
Impact language acquisition: digital technology, especially the use of computers and the internet, has helped people develop their language. For instance, use of the internet makes it easier to learn the meaning of a new word that would boost your vocabulary. Additionally, many people have been able to learn foreign languages through the help of this modern technology. This enhances cooperation between people of different races and languages across the globe.
6. Enhancing people’s self-esteem: the universality of modern technology makes people from different races and nations feel as one. Digital technology enhances communication between people of different countries, which has led to decrease in racism. This has made people have high regards for others and themselves. This is because they have equal opportunities like other people from different countries to make an impact on the world.

Negative impacts of digital technology on education

1. Degrading social morals: the excessive use of modern technology has led to degradation of social morals. For instance, easy access of pornographic materials through the internet has had a great impact on the behavior of young people. Many explicit materials are available on the internet, which expose the children to immorality at a tender age. In addition, the use of large media players for entertainment in clubs and bars has made many youths be attracted in these areas. This makes them vulnerable to introductions of drug and drug abuse. This has a direct effect on academic performance of students.
2. Addiction to the use of digital technology: many young people are addicted to movies, television, computer games and social media, which claim much of their time. They get used to the entertainments and spare very little time to concentrate on their studies. This affects their academic performance adversely. For instance, with the development of internet enabled mobile phones, it is nowadays not a shock to find students chatting in social media while in class (Hoyles & Lagrange 15).
3. Encouraging laziness: with wider and easier access to information through the internet, student normally copy and paste information from the internet without even studying the document. This makes student not benefit from the wide range of information unlike for hard copy sources of information where one has to read the document to obtain information.
4. Increasing cost of learning: these new technological devices are very expensive to purchase and maintain. This adds to the cost of learning, and the burden goes to the parents or guardians of the student. Some of these devices are not even important for learning but because of peer influence the students normally convince their parent or guardians to buy them. For instance, very expensive mobile phone may have very little or no difference as compared to much cheaper phone which has an internet connection.
5. Increase in pressure on the teacher: most of the digital technology has been introduced to schools just because of new technology era. They have been developed and have to be passed to the young people. This has put much pressure on the teachers who are forced to learn how to use this new technology to be able to pass the knowledge to the students. This increases their workload thereby negatively affecting their effectiveness.  

So, modern digital technology greatly influences education both negatively and positively. To minimize the negative effects of digital technology in education, it should be applied within set regulations and limits. For instance, students should not be allowed to use their mobile phones while in class to concentrate fully on the lesson. In addition, phones should not be on during exams to avoid examination irregularities
Digital Technology and Education
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Digital Technology and Education

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