The Digital Era and Education

by Katherine Gonzalez

The new digital era has made  the use of technology in education grow significantly in the last few years.

Many students over the world prefer to study with electronic books or with Internet searches, while educational institutions have adopted the use of whiteboards to teach, and Moodle platforms to follow assignments from teachers. Moreover, do not forget it is possible to pursue online degrees . It is a revolution of the digital age that is slowly leaving the libraries and newspaper archives where we used to spend hours looking information to study for the next exam.

Internet is slowly moving those old ways. Just type what you need to look at notes within seconds to find thousands of results that may or may not be useful for your studies.

And this is where I would get: can you really rely on all the content that is uploaded to the network? Surely many students can quickly answer this question with a great yes, but the truth is that not all websites or platforms that host documents, notes, summaries, exercises and sample tests care about having a revised and high quality content for students.

Then, a piece of advice, whenever you go online searching for study materials, you must be very careful to find a good reputation website.

Advantages of the digital age

  • Flexibility: you can study at a time that is convenient for you and not have to be bound by a library schedule
  • Comfort: you can find information and work or from the comfort of your home
  • Speed: will not waste time looking for what you need specifically. In the case of Internet you can get thousands of results that you may find useful (do not forget what I’ve written above: they must be reputable sites)
  • Communication between students and teachers. This is much better thanks to emails or Moodle platforms.

I will not write specifically of disadvantages but I would like to ask a question to finish: do you think that, with the development of the digital age, teachers will become facilitators and classrooms will gradually cease to exist?