TECHNOLOGY VS.

TRADITION
EDT 321 PORTER, TAYLOR, AUTUMN, & JESSICA

Background
Technology has increasingly been added to curriculum in elementary classrooms all over the US.

Many teachers are excited to use it, however there is speculation of whether traditional strategies are being taken out of the curriculum when they should'nt.

INTRODUCTION
PURPOSE: The purpose of this study was to investigate the effectiveness of using technology at the elementary school level as a primary method of teaching as opposed to traditional methods. Our team of researchers, Future Teachers of America, investigated students from EDT 321 at ASU to assess their views of technology and its effect on their learning abilities, study habits, and beliefs on how technology affects their overall views of learning and the world.

SURVEY
SAMPLE 26 students from EDT 321 were surveyed. PROCEDURE: The research team decided to use surveys in order to conduct this Action Research. We distributed surveys in the class discussion forum for a six-day period in order to obtain as much information as possible. No permission slips were given to take the survey and 15 were returned.

RESULTS
STUDY RESULTS: Our research team, Future Teachers of

America, discovered the following results.

Response Rate

PARTICIPANTS
15 Arizona State University students were surveyed

Age: Range: 5, Mean: 5, Mode: 5 (Freshmen,

Sophomores), Median: Sophomores These results can be displayed in Table 1.Demographic Information Gender: 87% Female, 13% Male Academic Disciplines: 40% Education, 7% Business, 53% Other Race/Ethnicity: Caucasian: 80%, Latino: 7%, Asian: 7%,

Native American: 7%

Only one person out of the 15 who took our survey claimed to never do math without a calculator.

Most of our survey completers (11 out of 15) said they do math without a calculator either at their job, in daily tasks such as shopping, or when the math is simple.

Question:

We asked the question: Do you think you would have benefitted from using technology in your younger years in the classroom? 87% of our peers answered saying Yes/Mostly/Sort of. The remaining 13% said Not really. What this means is that a majority of our views technology as a positive thing.

Question:

Surveyors stated that by learning the fundamentals of technology in school they were able to have less anxiety and virtually no training in the future (in Word, PowerPoint, etc.) Although surfing the web should not be allowed in class, technology is crucial in our daily lives. Not teaching children how to use technology is ignorant, likewise, not teaching fundamentals in reading and writing is equally ignorant.

Question:

We also asked for an opinion on the question Is technology helping or harming our learning system and abilities? The majority believed that it was mostly helping. Less than 30% thought it was neither helping or hurting, and only 1% thought it was mostly harming.

CONCLUSION

After surveying 15 students in the 3:00 pm EDT 321 class at Arizona State University we compiled our results and deduced that generally students felt that technology was beneficial to their overall scholastic experience. Although students generally believed that technology was beneficial, many students argued that utilizing technology in completing tasks requires minimal effort. Thus has the potential to result in students not valuing the importance and purpose of obtaining a quality education without the help of technology.

RECOMMENDATIONS
After obtaining the survey information our group collaborated and decided that technology is crucial to the success of students in modern day school. However we believe that students should still be required to do assignments without technology to make sure that they are not dependent on technology (i.e. spell check).

Sources
http://www.naesp.org/principal-januaryfebruary-2012-technology/technology-integration-new-21stcentury-learner http://www2.ed.gov/pubs/EdReformStudies/EdTech/effectsstudents.html http://www.edutopia.org/technology-integration-introduction http://www.vanderbilt.edu/magazines/peabody-reflector/2008/10/calculator-math-skills-a-ok/ http://www.vcstar.com/news/2013/jan/22/despite-technological-advances-students-still/ http://www.kidsource.com/education/computers.children.html http://arzelonline.wordpress.com/2012/06/25/are-traditional-teaching-methods-still-effective/ http://www.huffingtonpost.com/james-rosenberg/technology-in-the-classro_2_b_2018558.html http://specialeducationbehaviormodification.com/specialednews/?p=265 http://www.useoftechnology.com/pros-cons-computers-classrooms-2/