Students, teachers and parents agree that American schools are not integrating technology into the curriculum quickly enough to enable personalized learning, according to a study commissioned by Dell as a part of our Day of Innovation in Education I mentioned in my blog post earlier this week.
Children and teachers say that students are more proficient at using new technologies and social media than teachers. Not so in parts of China surveyed in the poll, where 70 percent of students consider their teachers to be more tech-savvy. Just 40 percent of American students hold the same view.
The poll covered several areas involving technology use in global classrooms, often demonstrating gaps between the U.S. and parts of China. In China, 80 percent of students in summer enrichment employ technology versus 60 percent of American students, and more Chinese students participate in these programs. Some 55 percent of Chinese teachers assign summer enrichment, but only 44 percent of American teachers do.
These and other findings of the poll point to enormous opportunities for meaningful changes. Embedding technology more thoroughly into the educational curriculum and training our teachers to be more expert in its use will increase student engagement and improve performance. Today Dell also issued the Dell Education Challenge to university students worldwide, asking for their inspiration, imagination and innovation to re-engineer today’s learning environments, both in and outside of the classroom. What would you do to increase the pace at which we use technology to bring learning to life?
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