Are teachers being replaced by computers?
In March 2010 my school board announced that it would be spending 13 million over 3 years on new technology initiatives. During the same period of last year, this year, and next year, the school board is also cutting the number of teachers it has on staff through redundancies. They are also not hiring new teachers. This year the school board has also made additional cuts to the number of Custodians, Secretaries, and Educational Assistants at each school. There is even speculation that the board will announce that it is closing a secondary school in September 2012. [Source DurhamNews.com]
The plan for the 13 million dollars is for it to be divided between the following areas:
- 5 million dollars for teacher laptops and student net books
- wifi access points to be installed throughout every school in the board
- more projectors and smart boards to be installed across the board
With seeing how the 13 million dollars is being spent, it causes one to wonder what impacts this will have on the education of our students. The belief is that spending this money on more technology will improve the quality of education provided. Is this the case?
The age demographic of the teachers in our board is quite old. In the past few years very few new teachers have been able to find permanent employment in this board. Not to sound discriminatory to those that are older, however there is a very strong correlation between one’s comfort level with technology and one’s age. There is a clear divide in technological abilities at most schools, between those growing up using technology and those coming to it late in the game. If the school board is going to spend 5 million dollars on giving a computer to each teacher, what percentage of teachers will use these computers to their full potential? What percentage of teachers will rarely use their laptop at all because they are too afraid of it?
When I first heard that we would be getting wifi in our school I was really excited and thought that it would be a great addition to my teaching practices, but if it comes at the cost of my job I could probably do without it.
