Page 25 - YOUTH DIGEST

Teachers could now not only direct pupils to online content they thought

was useful, but they could create their own informative web pages and

share them with their faculty. The sudden rise of CD-ROMs also made it

possible to deliver more sophisticated educational applications, while the
development of search engines like Google and Yahoo gave access to the

largest shared database of information in the world, and the move to

servers rather than local memory meant school work, software and admin

records could be archived. However, despite the new opportunities that

technology was providing, the use of a computer in the classroom was largely
considered a supplementary tool – something that made things easier. Only

relatively recently devices have become considered to be a fundamental part of a

student’s educational career – with the possibility that learning can become
entirely digitized. In fact, things have moved so quickly that school leavers are

now considered to be at a severe disadvantage in society if they’ve been unable

to access technology from a young age, and with coding classes becoming more

common in the curriculum, students are expected to leave school with skills that

are alien to many adults. That new push has meant schools are increasingly
turning to technology to help deliver lessons. According to a study from

technology charity Tablets for Schools, it’s now thought that over 70% of all

primary and secondary schools in the UK use tablet computers to deliver learning

material, with over 10% being able to offer one tablet per pupil. Furthermore, a

2016 survey from RM Education found that up to 29% of secondary and 9% of
primary schools are adopting ‘bring your own device’ policies that allow students

to use their personal devices in the classroom. One such school that has

undergone huge technological change is the Waid Academy in Fife, Scotland. In
2017, Waid moved to a new campus after spending 130 years at its previous

home. The school’s senior technician John Ogilvie revealed that the old building

had limited tech options, including data projectors and a reliance on desktop PCs.

“We’ve had an upgrade of all IT in the school,” he says. “In terms of desktops and

laptops we’re predominately now using mobile technology here. The number of
desktops has reduced significantly.”

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