Teaching Then and Now: Has Teaching Changed Over the Years with the Introduction of New Technology? And Have Interactive White Boards Changed the Way Teachers Teach?

Technology is becoming more and more advanced everyday. Items that are faster and sleeker are replacing items that we once used. These are anything, from things that are in our homes to things that are in our schools. Many schools have new technology that teachers use. This might sound great, that most schools have this advanced technology, but when we look deeper do we see any change over time? More specifically, do we see any change over time in the way teachers teach? In this research paper, I will pay close attention to what author, Larry Cuban, feels about teaching and the implementation of technology over time. I will look at a couple of his books The Classroom Use of Technology Since 1920 and Oversold and Underused: Computers in the Classroom where he says that how teachers teach has pretty much stayed the same over time. I will answer this question in a different way and say that technology has changed the ways teachers teach. I will do this by r by reviewing some articles and books that look at teaching methods from about the 1970’s to the present to show that many teachers use this technology and there have been changes in how teachers teach. Finally, I will look at a pretty recent technological innovation, interactive white boards, and show that the addition of this novelty has changed how teachers teach.

In Cuban’s book, Teachers and Machines: The classroom use of technology since 1920, Cuban says that electronic technology has not changed the way high school teachers teach. Cuban says this is due to “school and classroom structures and culture of teaching” (Cuban², 63). For example, there are teachers who resist using technology, which could be for a number of reasons (Cuban², 80). Teachers might not be prepared, they might not have the time, they might not like change, etc. In regards to computers, Cuban feel like they are being used like how past innovations, radio, films, etc., have been used which means things have stayed the same (Cuban², 81). When looking into when TVs were introduced, Cuban says that they replaced the teacher in a way because the TVs had things that were represented in better ways than the teacher could show (Cuban², 38).

In Cuban’s book Oversold and Underused: Computers in the Classroom he continues to say how technology in the classroom has no affected the way teachers teach and how some teachers don’t even use it (Cuban¹, 71). Cuban found that in some high schools, teachers used computers to help prepare them for their classes rather than to teach their classes (Cuban¹, 85). When teachers were asked about how they thought of the new technology in their school, they said “technology changed the way the prepared for classes, but not a lot of teaches said their daily practices changed” (Cuban¹, 95). Furthermore, Cuban says that the classroom is still teacher centered and not student centered. Teachers might not use technological innovations, like computers, because “it takes a while to implement things in schools because they are citizen controlled and nonprofit” (Cuban¹, 153). Even though Cuban feels that teachers’ methods have not changed with the introduction of technology, he feels things will change as we move forward and teachers get more used to seeing and using the technology (Cuban¹, 179).

References:

Cuban, Larry¹. Oversold and Underused: Computers in the Classroom. Harvard

College: President and Fellows. 2001. Print.

Cuban, Larry². Teachers and Machines: The Classroom Use of Technology Since 1920.

New York: Teachers College Press. 1986. Print.