SUBMITTED REPORT
Technology is part of our daily lives; we use it to learn, research, shop, pay bills and to entertain ourselves.
It’s no surprise, then, that younger generations are heavily influenced by computers in a way that changes how they retain information, as well as the ways they develop opinions about culture, according to Hannah Edwards, a contributor on the LearnStuff.com project.
Today, 70 percent of children between the ages of two to five can operate a computer mouse, but only 11 percent can tie their own shoes.
At the start of the 21st century, only half of all U.S. school classrooms had Internet access. Today, that number is 98 percent. The proliferation and sheer breadth of accessibility that the Internet offers has in many ways redefined the process of “growing up.”
Edwards created a graphic that explores this redefinition using data through 2011. She thinks the image provides insight into not just how we learn stuff, but also what we learn from a young age now that we have computers.
In it, she shows that, for example, 75 percent of students prefer tablets over textbooks. In fact, the number of books kids read per year went from 15 to 24 with the introduction of iPads and other computer tablets. More than 1.5 million iPads are now used in classrooms across the country.
She also found that 40 percent of elementary school teachers use a computer for in-class instruction.
Technology is even changing the way school districts interact with parents, students and the community. Edwards shows that 84 percent of schools used Twitter to send up-to-date announcements to students.
Visit www.learnstuff.com/graduating-with-technology to view the entire graphic.
