Students 2.0

As a student at an international school, I’m used to seeing technology proliferate everywhere it can within the classroom. Every day I use computer labs, SmartBoards, online classrooms, and a plethora of other high-tech applications. It’s hard not to take the miracle of technology for granted; after all, we are in the Information Age, aren’t we?

True. But who exactly are “we”? As it turns out, not everyone is as lucky.

This past Thursday, I brought a few other members of my school’s tech club to a local school on the outskirts of Shanghai. Our school had assigned us the task of buying, building, and setting up a network of basic desktop computers for the local school. However, when we walked into their computer lab, we decided that this wasn’t going to be easy. The school already had several decade-old computers, but only five still worked. A couple of them had been opened for the students to take a look at its innards; one computer lay, smashed, in the corner of the room. Even a few of the power outlets were clogged with dirt. On the walls, above the blackboards, were written two sentences in Chinese: “Computers help us learn” and “The Internet makes the world a smaller place.”

I was told by the parents who organized the project that the students here learned about computers from mere drawings on the chalkboard, and the occasional use of one of the functional desktops. The local teachers we talked with refused to accept laptops, which was what we planned to buy. They said that laptops would very likely be stolen by students—they couldn’t blame them, they said; these children are in a desperate situation, and the money they could make from selling a stolen laptop would be like a fortune.

The visit to the local school was a shocking removal from our wireless networks and Facebook conversations and live streams of soccer matches. The stark contrast between a school filled with technology in every corner and a classroom with 2-dimensional chalk computers made me wonder: Why do we use so much technology in our classrooms? Where did it all come from?

Though we’re high school students now, we’ve probably been in contact with all sorts of digital technology since we were toddlers. I remember the first time I used a computer. I was only 4 years old, and a couple days later I double clicked the “Internet Explorer” sign and discovered the astonishing (but also, undoubtedly, dangerous) Internet. True, it may have simply been Pokemon websites and Magic School Bus games at first, but there are cases even where children learn MS-DOS at the age of 5. There is no denying it—we have been in touch with computers for our whole lives, and the only idea we have of life before the PC is from our parents’ dated anecdotes.

But stop and think for a moment: Why? Why does technology progress and proliferate so quickly? Why are we so dependent on it? What is the reason behind its profound ubiquity? The answer is short, but sweet. You could find it in a dictionary.

[Technology is] the specific methods, materials, and devices used to solve practical problems.

There it is. We use technology because we need it. We need Facebook and MSN Messenger because they help us communicate; we need SmartBoards because whiteboards can’t display information at the speed we demand; we need online classrooms because one hour lessons just don’t cut it anymore.

A million years ago, cavemen would probably have been pondering the same question (although “technology” would have been replaced with “the wheel”), and come to the same conclusion on their cave-blogs. Two hundred years ago, the same question would have been asked of the Industrial Revolution.

No matter from what angle you look at technology, whether it comes in the form of the Internet or the steam engine, the old adage comes to mind: “Necessity is the mother of invention.” And in the case of the local school, their necessity is about to “give birth,” courtesy of our school’s tech club.

1. Photo by mac steve on Flickr
2. Photo by tehtopo on Flickr