The Positive Impact of Computers in the Classroom

The Positive Impact of Computers in the Classroom

Computers have been integrated in almost every aspect of today’s society; PC’s in the home and office, laptops for business traveling, graphics software for the media, and most significantly computers in the classroom. However, the technology of computers has not always been part of the education system and is a relatively new part of the teaching and learning process.

In the 1950s large and expensive computers were only used by the government and large corporations (Beekman, 2003). In 1958 the National Defense Education Act extended its funding to allow schools the luxury of new technology, but the first PC didn’t enter the classroom until 1975 when a few Apple I PC’s were donated to schools (History, 2004). As computers became smaller and less expensive they integrated themselves as part of society and the education system. In the 1990s school systems began purchasing PC’s for classrooms and labs. Soon after the introduction of the PC’s, the World Wide Web was developed and students and faculty were “surfing the web” for new informational sources.

Now in the 21st century, computers aid in basically every educational aspect. For example, computers are beneficial for saving large quantities of information such as enrollment, attendance, records, grades, assignments, tests, etc. This technological advance helps the staff to be more organized and eliminates mistakes. Teachers benefit from computers because they can quickly compute grades and grade tests through the use of scan-trons, receive assignments as email attachments, and save all homework and tests pre-typed on disks. All of these things allow teachers to dedicate more time to teaching and less time for preparations and after school work. Also computers in the classroom not only gives students more sources of knowledge, but they also give teachers the option of obtaining news articles, pictures, sources, and education web sites from the internet.

Even though computers are everywhere in the school and benefit all staff and faculty, the students by far receive the most benefits from integrated classroom technology, Sasa Petricici of CBC’s The National, visited schools that have integrated computers into the classroom.